The Attribution Theory Of Kelley's Model Of Covariation

Attribution is a process which helps people to classify the reason for others behaviour’s and similarly increase knowledge of their unchanging personalities and nature. Kelley's model of covariation is an attribution theory and it makes suggestions to enlighten how and why people behave in a certain way. It is disturbed by two major points, self-perception and social-perception (Kelley, 1973). Furthermore, the attribution theory contracts with in what way the social perceiver uses evidence to decide on fundamental explanations for events. Kelley also sub-divided the possible causes of an outcome, these included, the person (internal), external to distinguish the stimulus, or the circumstance. The theory correspondingly clarifies what information

McArthur (1972) was the first to experimentally test Kelley's theory. Although the results did indicate support for the theory in which people make internal, external and circumstantial attributions, there were some results that did not correspond accurately with the theory. McArthur found that participants made more internal than external attributions overall. Distinctiveness information was perceived to be the most important type of information by subjects, while consensus was the least important when making either an internal or external attribution. This contradicts the covariation model which claims that people use all three types of information

Another criticism made of Kelley's covariation theory is that people don't make attributions to seek causes but to direct response. Kelley claims that people making attributions act as scientists do, in that they analyse an event and make a statistical analysis to explain a cause, however, recent research by Alicke seems to indicate that when subjects were asked explicitly causal questions, 'their broader moral reactions influenced the reactions they gave' Criticisms have also been directed at the methods used in testing the covariation model. The format in the experimental design doesn't seem to reflect real life circumstances. Research by Major indicated that when the covariation principles are called into effect in more realistic settings, people tended to focus on just one or two types of information, and not all