Question

People’s attributions for themselves and for others depend on a variety of factors. Describe how one’s self-attributions may be partly a function of six of the following:

• Age

• Situational cues

• History of success and failure

• Messages from others

• Culture

• Gender

• Self-protective bias

• Image management

Answer 1

People’s attributions for themselves and for others depend on a variety of factors. Describe how one’s self-attributions may be partly a function of six of the following:

Attributions are inferences that individuals make about the causes of events and behaviour. Individuals make attributions in order to understand their experiences.

• Age
  • Older adults tend to attribute negative outcomes to internal factors
  • Negative emotional factors may be the confounding variables for this

• Situational cues
  • Situational cues allow individuals to attribute events to external causes

• History of success and failure
  • Successful people are likely to attribute their success to internal factors
  • They also tend to attribute their failures to external factors

• Culture
  • Individualist cultures tend to attribute a person's behavior due to their internal factors
  • Collectivist cultures tend to attribute a person's behavior to his external factors

• Gender
  • Men tend to associate negative outcomes to external factors
  • Women tend to associate positive outcomes to external factors