Institute of Social Psychology
Societal Psychology
PS443
Lecture 5
Cultural Norms, Attributions and Responsibility
Bradley Franks
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rerum cognoscere causas …
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rerum cognoscere causas …
… to know the causes of things…
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rerum cognoscere causas …
… to know the causes of things…
…to understand how commonsense explains social action
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Outline of Lecture
1. Introduction
2. Attribution Research
3. Attribution Errors and Culture
4. Attribution and Social Explanation
5. Summary and Conclusions
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1 Introduction
Attribution and Responsibility
Social life involves making sense of other people and their behaviour by
making attributions (explanations) of the cause of their behaviour
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–
In doing so, we often make assessments regarding responsibility,
allocating praise and blame for actions
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We make attributions not only regarding the behaviour of individuals,
but also of groups of individuals and other social entities, such as
organisations, governments, football teams, committees, and so on
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1 Introduction
Attribution and Responsibility
Policies of governments, plans for social change by NGO’s, strategies for
change for corporations and so on depend on attributional assumptions
about:
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Who is responsible for the problems of the status quo
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Who is responsible for generating solutions to those problems
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Who can and should take actions to solve the problems
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1 Introduction
Attribution and Responsibility
However:
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We shouldn’t hold people responsible for their behaviour unless…
– that behaviour is intentionally caused by them, and unless
– those individual intentions are all that matters in causing the behaviour
• And there may be reason to raise questions:
– Are we accurate in assessing whether people’s behaviour is
intentionally caused?
– Or are our assessments error-prone (or biased)?
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1 Introduction
Heider (1958): Social Attribution
• We make attributions like amateur or naive scientists, with the aim of
understanding the social world:
– Explaining others’ behaviour
– Predicting their future behaviour
• The specific reasons or causes offered for a behaviour are often less
important than where the cause is “located”: i.e.,
– Internal attributions (in qualities of the person) versus
– External attributions (in qualities of the situation)
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PS?? Attributions and Responsibility 2010/11
Heider & Simmel (1944):
The automaticity of causal attribution
http://www.psych.lse.ac.uk/h_and_s/
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2 Attribution Research
The “Four Ages” of Attribution Research
Attribution research since Heider has gone through several “ages”, which
reflect different conceptions of people as engaged in causal attribution:
(1) The “naïve scientist” – 1960’s
(2) The “flawed perceiver” – 1970’s
(3) The “cognitive miser” – 1980’s
(4) The “motivated tactician” – 1990’s and onwards
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2 Attribution Research
The “Four Ages” of Attribution Research
(1) The “Naïve Scientist” – 1960’s
e.g., Kelly’s Covariation theory; Jones & Davies’ Correspondent
Inference theory
– People as intuitive scientists seek to understand causality by
combining information according to rational principles
– These principles may reflect the methods used in experimental
psychology and data analysis techniques (e.g., ANOVA)
→Errors and biases in attribution are departures from the norm for
competent performers
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2 Attribution Research
The “Four Ages” of Attribution Research
(2) The “Flawed Perceiver ” – 1970’s
e.g., Jones & Nisbett on Actor-Observer differences
– People have different perspectives on events that are related to
their being actors or observers
– These different perspectives are both perceptual and cognitive,
and each reflects only partial information about the situation
→ Errors and biases in attribution arise from partial perceptual
access to information, and so are departures from adaptive or
optimal processing
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2 Attribution Research
The “Four Ages” of Attribution Research
(3) The “Cognitive Miser” – 1980’s
e.g., Gilbert’s two-step/discounting model
– Cognitive economy (the tendency to conserve mental effort)
favours heuristics or “rules of thumb”
– Biases in attribution involve heuristics that usually (but not
always) provide a useful answer
→ Errors and biases may arise from cognitive economy minimising
effort by using flawed but reasonable assumptions
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2 Attribution Research
The “Four Ages” of Attribution Research
(4) The “Motivated Tactician” – 1990’s onwards
e.g., Hasleton & Funder’s (2006) evolutionary “error management”
theory
– People have access to a range of cognitive resources for making
causal inference, which differ in their required cognitive effort
– People use effortful cognitive resources (e.g., inference rules)
tactically
→ Some errors (low cost ones) may be a normal, adaptive aspect of
cognition
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3 Attribution Errors and Culture
The Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)
Attribution Errors
• Everyday attribution is beset with errors and biases – so it may not be a
sound basis for assessing others’ responsibility
A key example is the Fundamental Attribution Error: Ross (1977):
The tendency to overestimate the importance of the actor and to
underestimate the situation as a determinant of action
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3 Attribution Errors and Culture
Explaining the FAE?
• A 1970’s style perceptual/informational explanation?
– The actor is more salient perceptually/informationally, while situational
causes of actor’s behaviour are less salient and may be unknown.
• A 1980’s style cognitive processing explanation?
– A two-step process (e.g., D. T. Gilbert, 1989):
• First step (normally non-conscious) – automatic internal attribution
• Second step (effortful and conscious) – consider possible situational
causes, possibly discount the first step’s internal attribution
FAE: people only proceed to the second step if situational information
is very salient, and it usually is not
→ Neither fully offers a role for the impact of culture on the FAE…
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3 Attribution Errors and Culture
Cultural Impact on the FAE
Fletcher & Ward (1988): Does the FAE depend on Culture?
• The FAE may be an error but it is not really fundamental – it may be
present in some cultures (e.g., the West) but not others (e.g., East Asia)
Miller (1984): The FAE and culture
• USA and Hindu Indian children made similar numbers of internal and
situational attributions for the everyday actions of others
• As they grew older, they diverged:
– USA adults explained behaviours largely via personality traits/attitudes
– Indian Hindu adults explained the same behaviours via external factors
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3 Attribution Errors and Culture
Cultural Impact on the FAE – expressed by relevant proverbs?
Behind an able man there are always other able men
Good fences make good neighbours
The nail that sticks up will be hammered down
The squeaky wheel gets the grease
The hawk with talent hides its talons
Don’t hide your light under a bushel
Life is for one generation, a good name is forever
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me
A single arrow is easily broken, but not ten in a bundle
If you can’t beat them, join them
Spilled water will never return to the cup
You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole
East Asian proverbs in blue
USA proverbs in red
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3 Attribution Errors and Culture
Cultural Impact on the FAE – Some Possible Explanations
(1) Different Prevalent Values or Ideology
(2) Different Default Ways of Thinking
(3) Different Default Self-Construals
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3 Attribution Errors and Culture
Cultural Impact on the FAE – Some Possible Explanations
(1) Different Prevalent Values or Ideology - Hofstede (1981); Ichheiser (1949),
Farr & Markova (1995):
• Western individualism
– valuing individual autonomy and uniqueness, personal responsibility, praise and blame
• East Asian collectivism
– valuing group membership and conformity, individual-relative-to-group responsibility,
praise and blame
Individualism produces a tendency to locate causes of behaviour in individuals
Collectivism produces a tendency to locate causes of behaviour outside
individuals
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3 Attribution Errors and Culture
Cultural Impact on the FAE – Some Possible Explanations
(2) Different Default Ways of Thinking - Nisbett (2003):
• Western atomism
– emphasis on construing events and objects in terms of their own internal qualities,
leading to clear binary category judgements and essentialism
• East Asian holism
– emphasis on understanding the contextual relations of events and objects, viewing
them in a more holistic manner
Atomism produces a tendency to prioritise person information in attribution
Holism produces a tendency to prioritise situation information in attribution
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3 Attribution Errors and Culture
Cultural Impact on the FAE – Some Possible Explanations
(3) Different Default Self-Construals - Markus & Kitayama (1992):
• Western independence
– socialisation towards a sense of self as context-insensitive, unique and separate
• East Asian interdependence
– socialisation towards a sense of self as context-dependent, similar and connected
Independence produces a tendency to consider the individual as causally
separate from the situation
Interdependence produces a tendency to consider the individual as causally
dependent on the situation
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3 Attribution Errors and Culture
Cultural Impact on the FAE – has it been overstated?
Choi & Nisbett (1999); Nisbett (2006): USA versus China, Japan
• If situational information
– is not made salient, Japanese and Chinese = USA in making FAE
– is made salient, Japanese and Chinese FAE is reduced (USA FAE is not)
Implications:
– The FAE may be a common starting point across cultures
– Different cultures may make situational information more or less salient,
leading to different tendencies to reduce or commit the FAE
– This is consistent with Gilbert’s two-step theory (where culture controls
the second step), and with Error Management Theory
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3 Attribution Errors and Culture
Cultural Impact on the FAE – has it been overstated?
Haselton & Nettle (2006): Error Management Theory
FAE is fundamental but it is not an error – it is an evolutionary design feature
that aims to commit errors which are less costly in reproductive terms
– FAE leads to False Positive errors in judgments about bad behaviour =
avoiding social partners who act badly once, for fear they might repeat
this in future [cf., negativity bias in impression formation]
– FAE is less risky/costly than False Negative error, which = assuming a
person’s bad action does not indicate bad disposition when it in fact does
• Cultures which encourage lower FAE have stronger normative controls on
individuals performing negative social acts (e.g., via values or cultural sense
of self), thereby reducing the scope for committing False Positives
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4 Attribution and Social Explanation
Societal Psychology: Does Attribution Theory Over-Simplify Social
Explanation?
(1) Different explanations within cultures?
(2) “Mind reading” of intentions versus position/role reading?
(3) Individual intentions versus collective/joint intentions?
(4) Social explanation versus social evaluation?
4 Attribution and Social Explanation
Does Attribution Theory Over-Simplify Social Explanation?
(1) Different explanations within cultures?
Moscovici (2002); Jovchelovitch (2007); Legare, Gelman & Rosengren (2010)
• Attribution theory suggests an inflexible view of social explanation
→ Alternative views (including Social Representations Theory) propose
“multiple” or “situated rationalities” (cognitive polyphasia):
– People draw on different systems of beliefs to explain a single event, and
thus may entertain contradictory explanations for a single action –
internal, external or interactive
Attribution is not just about “fitting the facts”, but rather about fitting the facts
filtered through norms associated with systems of beliefs that can vary within
a culture and are drawn on for specific purposes
4 Attribution and Social Explanation
Does Attribution Theory Over-Simplify Social Explanation?
(2) “Mind reading” of intentions versus reading of social positions or roles?
Gillespie (2005); Mead (1934); Franks & Dhesi (2011); Chen-Idson & Mischel
(2001)
• Attribution theory suggests we “read” mental states by observing peoples’
actions
→ Alternative views suggest we “read” others’ mental states by understanding
their actions in the context of patterns of norms about social roles, positions
and activities
– We often assume others have mental states consistent with the norms
“Reading” beliefs and intentions depends on seeing the person in the context of
the situation and its norms, rather than as separate/separable from it 29
4 Attribution and Social Explanation
Does Attribution Theory Over-Simplify Social Explanation?
(3) Individual intentions versus collective/joint intentions?
Searle (1996); Tomasello (2009); Tuomela (2002); Franks (2011)
• Attribution theory focuses on actions motivated by intentions to act as an
individual, and with the individual as the subject: “I intend…”
→ Alternative views suggest that (e.g., collaborative) actions may also be
explained by joint or collective intentions, with a plural subject: “we intend…”
– We also hold groups or collections of people per se responsible, without
assuming that every member has the same beliefs or intentions
Neither “we” intentions held by individuals, nor explaining the behaviour of
groups or collections, seems to involve only “I” intentions of individuals
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4 Attribution and Social Explanation
Does Attribution Theory Over-Simplify Social Explanation?
(4) Social explanation versus social evaluation?
Hamlyn, Wynn & Bloom (2007); Vaish, Grossmann, & Woodward (2008)
• Heiderian Attribution theory: focus on explanation of action, with moral and
affective aspects as separable (e.g., values as an influence on attribution)
→ Alternative focus suggests an innate capacity for social evaluation – moral
and affective judgement of other people in terms of praise and blame
– Capacity for social evaluation of others’ actions is present by 6 months
(before the ability to infer others’ action-intentions as explanations)
Attribution may be as much about social evaluation (assigning moral praise and
blame) as about social explanation and prediction
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Hamlyn, Wynn & Bloom (2007):
The automaticity and early infant development of social moral
judgement
http://www.yale.edu/infantlab/socialevaluati
on/Helper-Hinderer.html
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5 Summary and Conclusions
• The commonsense process of making causal attributions may not be a
sound basis for judging the responsibility of other people …
– … Because attribution is imbued with deeply-held cultural assumptions
about how responsibility for actions is understood:
– e.g., the individualistic culture/ideology of the West – not only focusing
on person rather than situation, but also focusing on ‘I’ rather than ‘we’
• So culture has a major impact on attribution: the FAE may be in part a
Western cultural construct
• But the ultimate explanation of the FAE may also connect with evolutionary
dispositions ….
• … and this connects attribution intrinsically to social and moral evaluation
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5 Summary and Conclusions
Traditional Attribution Theory…
• Commonsense dualism about
the causes of behaviour
Societal Psychology…
• Interactional basis for individual
intentions and behaviours
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5 Summary and Conclusions
Traditional Attribution Theory…
• Commonsense dualism about
the causes of behaviour
• Consistent and accurate sets of
explanations of behaviour
Societal Psychology…
• Interactional basis for individual
intentions and behaviours
• Different sets of beliefs support
multiple, situated explanations
for the same behaviour
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5 Summary and Conclusions
Traditional Attribution Theory…
• Commonsense dualism about
the causes of behaviour
• Consistent and accurate sets of
explanations of behaviour
• Everyday interaction involves
“reading” actors’ mental states
Societal Psychology…
• Interactional basis for individual
intentions and behaviours
• Different sets of beliefs support
multiple, situated explanations
for the same behaviour
• Assume mental states “fit” the
norms of the roles enacted
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5 Summary and Conclusions
Traditional Attribution Theory…
• Commonsense dualism about
the causes of behaviour
• Consistent and accurate sets of
explanations of behaviour
• Everyday interaction involves
“reading” actors’ mental states
• Individual intentions as the key to
social action
Societal Psychology…
• Interactional basis for individual
intentions and behaviours
• Different sets of beliefs support
multiple, situated explanations
for the same behaviour
• Assume mental states “fit” the
norms of the roles enacted
• Collective or joint intentions also
explain social action
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5 Summary and Conclusions
Traditional Attribution Theory…
• Commonsense dualism about
the causes of behaviour
• Consistent and accurate sets of
explanations of behaviour
• Everyday interaction involves
“reading” actors’ mental states
• Individual intentions as the key to
social action
• Attribution primarily for predicting
and explaining social action
Societal Psychology…
• Interactional basis for individual
intentions and behaviours
• Different sets of beliefs support
multiple, situated explanations
for the same behaviour
• Assume mental states “fit” the
norms of the roles enacted
• Collective or joint intentions also
explain social action
• Attribution also for social and
moral evaluations of action 38
5 Summary and Conclusions
A Societal Psychology of attribution might therefore suggest…
… an integral role for evolved dispositions, culture and group relations in
understanding the situated, affective and evaluative aspects of causal
explanations
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