What is the difference between internal and external attribution

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A theory of motivation for some classroom experiences. Journal of Educational Psychology, 71 , 3— An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion. Psychological Review, 92 , — The development of an attribution-based theory of motivation: A history of ideas. Educational Psychologist, 45 , 28— If she believes the breakdown happened because of her ignorance about cars, she is making an internal attribution. If she believes that the breakdown happened because her car is old, she is making an external attribution.

Researchers also distinguish between stable and unstable attributions. When people make a stable attribution , they infer that an event or behavior is due to stable, unchanging factors. When making an unstable attribution , they infer that an event or behavior is due to unstable, temporary factors. Example: Lee gets a D on his sociology term paper.

If he attributes the grade to the fact that he always has bad luck, he is making a stable attribution. Jekyll and Mr. Kelley, H. Attribution theory in social psychology. Levine ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Toggle navigation. Dispositional Attribution. Dispositional attribution assigns the cause of behavior to some internal characteristic of a person, rather than to outside forces.

For example, we attribute the behavior of a person to their personality, motives or beliefs. Situational Attribution. The process of assigning the cause of behavior to some situation or event outside a person's control rather than to some internal characteristic.

If everybody in the audience is laughing, the consensus is high. If only Tom is laughing consensus is low. If Tom only laughs at this comedian, the distinctiveness is high. If Tom laughs at everything, then distinctiveness is low. If Tom always laughs at this comedian the consistency is high. If Tom rarely laughs at this comedian, then consistency is low.

Download this article as a PDF. How to reference this article: How to reference this article: McLeod, S. Back to top. Fundamental Attribution Error Biases in Attribution.