COMS 018: Human Communication and Attribution Theory Analysis

This report delves into the attribution theory of human communication, emphasizing its role in understanding how individuals interpret their surroundings and the causes behind events. It explores the concepts of internal and external attribution, highlighting how these factors influence behavior and communication. The report discusses the theory's origins with Heider and its advancements by Kelley, including the concepts of consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus information. It examines the theory's applications in ethics, criminal law, decision-making, marketing, and human resource management, including the theory's limitations. The report also includes a realistic example, discussing how the theory can be used to understand success and failure. References and discussion questions are included for further exploration of the subject.

Running head: HUMAN COMMUNICATION
HUMAN COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Abstract
In this study, it has been identified that attribution theory has important impact on driving the
human communication process. Highlighting different behavioural aspects of individuals the
attribution theory and its implementation has been described in the study. According to the
theorists there are two types of factors such as external attribution and internal attribution
encourage people to consider the reasons and effects of their surroundings. Following the
psychology of ethics, criminal law, decision making and understanding of the cognitive
biases the theoretical implementation is being done in an organization. In case of developing
effective communication between the employees and customers, effective implementation of
Attribution theory plays an important role.

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Introduction:
The aim of this paper is to discuss the attribution theory of human communication. It
is an important theory because it deals with the concept that people make sense of the
surroundings depending upon what they understand to the cause of the effect of the
phenomenon. This theory suggests that the individuals observe their own experience or
behaviour try to understand the reasons behind them and whether the shape their future
behaviour similarly. This helps the employees or the customers to understand the factors of
communication.
Explanation of the theory:
Attribution theory clarifies why and how the people can explain the things around
them. Every individual try to make sense of the surrounding in their society. They attempt to
find the reasons and effects even if there is nothing. The attribution theory therefore is the
study that comes under the human and social psychology. The theorist has explained the
causes of different individual events and behaviours (Fishman & Husman, 2017). Attribution
theory explains how the events are actually affecting the process of thinking as well as the
behaviour. It tends to explain the understanding of the individual of how they act and what
they do. The persons interpret on the situation that how their action can cause attribute to
one’s behaviour. According to the theory most of the attributions of human being are driven
by emotional as well as motivational impulses.
According to the theorists there are two types of factors that encourage people to
consider the reasons and effects of their surroundings. These include the external attribution
and internal attribution. The external attribution is the causality which is assigned to some
outside factors agents of Forces (Scherer, 2018). This outside factors are not under control of
the persons where they perceive that they have no choice. This influence the behaviour and it

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becomes limited and completely determined by the outside influences that are beyond
personal control. This is the reason why the human beings do not feel responsible for the
external attribution on the other hand the internal attribution is the connection which is
assigned to the internal factors agents and forces. The inside factors are within the control of
the individuals as they can select to behave in some particular way or not. Therefore the
behaviour this time is not influenced or Limited or determined by the influencing factors
beyond the control. In that case the human beings feel responsible for the actions or
communication.
The attribution theory mainly focuses on the human features that they try to explain
every incidents taking place around them. The research by psychologists have revealed that
most people are Biased in their own opinion and judgement about what or who is responsible
for the matter and try to establish those thoughts at their best. Human beings tend to attribute
what they understand about a situation and see the success of other or failure of themselves to
the eternal factors. They perceive this not as meritr of the others and their faults. Similarly in
the case of own success of internal factors the people tend to see it as their own merit and
others’ fault.
The attribution theory by Heider has been advanced by Kelley. This theory used has
added hypothesis about the factors which affect the creation of attributions. These hypothesis
are consistently information, distinctiveness information and consensus information. The
consistency information is a degree to which the performers perform that same behaviour as
towards the object on different situation. The distinctive information is the degree to which
the performer performs various behaviours with various objectives. Finally the consensus
information is a degree to which the performers perform the same behaviour with same
object. The achievement can be attributed in four things like level of task effort, effort, ability
and fortune. The level of task difficulty is external factors stable factor which is beyond the

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personal control. Finally the lock of Fortune is completely external as well as unstable factor
on which the person cannot exercise any control.
Attribution theory is applied in the psychology of ethics, criminal law, decision
making and understanding of the cognitive biases. In addition to this attribution theory is
applied in the human resource management like appraisers Peer appraisal for self-appraisal.
In education attribution theory plays a vital part (Pekrun & Marsh, 2018). The most important
role of attribution theory is in marketing communication. In this segment attribution is
applied to the advertisement that the customers can attribute are considered as the desire of
the advertisers to sell the product shown in the advertisement.
This is important for one sided advertisement. Simply the honest advertiser who
operate in two sided advertisement communication show the actual attribution of the products
which directly connect the Employees with the business. In that case this theory suggests that
the both sided communication can include undesirable information about the product which
may lead the audience consider that advertisement is showing truth. Thus the perception of
the advertiser is understood by the customers and the credibility gets strengthened
(Hillebrandt & Barclay, 2017). The customers start to believe on the concerning positive
attributes of the product which the advertiser claims are truly associated with his offering.
There are three steps in applying the attribution theory which include perception, judgement
and attribution. Perception refers to the observing g feature of the human being that mandates
the persons to observe or perceive the behaviour. Judgement is the determine deliberateness
where persons must believe that their behaviour is intentionally performed. The attribute step
mandates that the person needs to determine if he understands that the other person is forced
to behave like that or not.

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The theory was developed by Fritz Heider developed this theory which was later
advanced by Harold Kelley. This theory was developed to understand the human feature of
assigning causes to the actions as well as behaviour.
The primary works of this theorist is located in the sociology mainly the social
psychology. This theorist had first mentioned and developed this theory from his book “The
Psychology of Interpersonal Relations”.
The critical weaknesses of this attribution theory by Heider mainly relates to the
mechanistic as well as reductionist understanding of the human communication it assumes
people to be rational, systematic thinking who think logically which is not always true. The
primary attribution error demonstrates people are motivated tactician and cognitive misers.
The theory also fails to address cultural, social and historical aspects which actually shapes
the attributions of causes (Dweck, 2018). Through discourse analysis this issues has been
however addressed extensively. It is a division of psychology preferring to use the qualitative
methods by including use of languages for understanding the psychological phenomena.
Similarly the theory of linguistic categorization also criticises this theory demonstrating how
the languages can influence the attribution style of the persons.
The realistic situation can be referred for understanding the implication of the
attribution theory. For example, Jim gets the highest mark in the exam. This makes him
belief that it is the result of his hard work and ability. On the contrary Sunny scored low
marks for which he may put the responsibility on the ability of the person who checked his
answer sheet. This example is appropriate because this refers to the internal factors in the
case of Jim who thinks his success is his reward for hard work. In case of Sunny it is the
external factors that he thinks is related to his failure.

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Conclusion:
Therefore it can be concluded that the attribution theory of human communication
helps the employees or the customers to understand the factors of communication. The
attribution theory by Heider has been advanced by Kelley who attempts hat there are two
types of factors that encourage people to consider the reasons and effects of their
surroundings. This theory is applied in psychology of ethics, criminal law, decision making
and understanding of the cognitive biases.
Discussion question:
1. How attribution can relates to human communication?
2. Is there any particular measures taken in terms of behaviour for effective communication?
3. How attribution theory helps human resource to develop itself?

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References:
Dweck, C. S. (2018). Reflections on the legacy of attribution theory.
Fishman, E. J., & Husman, J. (2017). Extending attribution theory: Considering students’
perceived control of the attribution process. Journal of Educational Psychology,
109(4), 559.
Hillebrandt, A., & Barclay, L. J. (2017). Comparing integral and incidental emotions: Testing
insights from emotions as social information theory and attribution theory. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 102(5), 732.
Pekrun, R., & Marsh, H. W. (2018). Weiner’s attribution theory: Indispensable—but is it
immune to crisis?.
Scherer, K. R. (2018). Attribution theory: A lively legacy.