Internal And External Attribution Theory

Social perception is the process of interpreting information and making assumptions about others in order to attach meanings based on what we can observe. Social perception also refers to using social cues and available information to evaluate others. People rely on social context when judging others as it strongly influence how we label people and their behaviors. Social perceptions can also be flawed because observers can misinterpret others and come to the wrong conclusion. It is important to understand the concept of social perception because it allows individuals to recognize their own bias when forming impressions about others. Understanding social perception may even help individuals overcome these challenges by responding appropriately

Attribution is the process in which we attach meanings of other’s behaviors. Similarly, attribution theory refers to the study of models people implement in order to make judgments about the behavior of others. People tend to observe others by determining whether behaviors are internally or externally caused. Fritz Heider, an Austrian psychologist whose work was related to the Gestalt school, published “The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations,” which expanded his creation of attribution theory. Fritz Heider believed that “people are naïve psychologists trying to make sense of the social world” (Heider, 1958). The two main ideas Heider presented was internal and external attribution. Internal attribution is the process of assigning the cause of behaviors to some internal characteristics. On the other hand, external attribution is the process of assigning the cause of one’s behavior to a situation or event outside of a person’s control. Interestingly enough, the attribution process may be affected by bias such as fundamental attribution error, self-serving bias, and just world hypothesis. Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to make attributions of people’s behavior to internal factors such as personality traits, skills, abilities, and emotions. Moreover, self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute one’s success to internal causes and one’s failures to situational factors such as other outside forces, fate, and luck. Lastly, the just world hypothesis refers to the need to believe that the world is fair and people get what they