Hyde was a gestalt psychologist and a close friend of Lei Wen, who was deeply influenced by other pioneers of Gestalt School. He is very interested in A. Meinong's phenomenological viewpoint and B. F. Skinner's stimulus-response (S-R) psychology. Hyde attaches importance to the study of interpersonal perception. After his two friends quarreled, they told him what happened, but the statements were quite different, which aroused his interest in studying interpersonal perception and attribution.
Hyde believes that the essence of human perception research is to examine the way ordinary people deal with information about others and themselves. The observer is interested in why the observed object behaves like that. Like a "naive psychologist", he seeks the causal explanation of behavior. In Hyde's view, the cause of behavior is either the environment or the individual. If the cause of the behavior lies in the environment, such as outsiders, rewards and punishments, luck, difficulty of work and other external factors, the actor is irresponsible for his own behavior; If the reason of behavior lies in the individual, such as personality, motivation, emotion, attitude, ability, emotion, effort, etc. Actors should be responsible for their actions. Hyde summed up the attribution explanation that people usually make with two principles. (1)*** variational principle. Many times, a reason is always associated with a result. Without this reason, the result will not happen. (2) Exclusion principle. If situational reasons are enough to cause behavior, personal attribution is excluded, and vice versa. Hyde's external-internal attribution theory became the basis of later attribution research. He believes that the role of interpersonal perception in interpersonal communication is to enable observers to predict and control the behavior of others.
In 1965, E.E. Jones and K.E. Davis put forward the attribution theory of corresponding reasoning, and developed the attribution theory on the basis of Hyde's exclusion principle. The theory holds that people should infer the intention and motivation of behavior from the behavior and its results when making personal attribution. The derived behavior intention and motivation correspond to the observed behavior and its results, that is, corresponding inference, or attribution-effect coupling. The greater the difference between the value of attribution judgment and the value judgment held by ordinary people, the greater the accuracy of corresponding inference. There are three main factors that affect the corresponding inference: (1) freedom of choice. If we know that a person's actions are discretionary and he chooses a specific way from many possible ways, we tend to think that this behavior corresponds to some subjective intention. If it is not a free choice, it is difficult to make corresponding inferences. (2) Non-* * has the same effect. When there are many possible options, one scheme has different characteristics from others. If the actor chooses this action plan, its non-equivalent effect can allow us to infer the intention of traveling as a person. (3) social expectations. It is difficult for us to infer a person's true attitude when he shows actions that conform to social expectations or values. If a person's behavior does not meet social expectations and deviates from social values, we can think that his behavior and attitude are corresponding.
H.H. Kelly's three-dimensional attribution theory pushed the attribution research initiated by Hyde to a climax. 1967, Kelly published "Attribution Theory of Social Psychology", which holds that the attribution process is "the attribution of individuals to their world-the attribution of goals, tendencies and internal characteristics", and describes this process with a cubic model. Kelly put forward some attribution principles: * * analysis, causality diagram, discount principle, expansion principle, complex inevitable reason and compensation reason. Like Heidegger, he also used J. Mill's difference method. In his view, three different explanations can be used to explain the cause of the behavior: (1) attributed to the person who engaged in the behavior; (2) It can be attributed to the other side of the actor, that is, the object perceived by the actor; (3) Due to the environment in which the behavior occurs.
Three explanations are possible, but to find out the real reason, we must use three kinds of information: (1) consistency. In this case, whether the behavior of the actor is consistent with the behavior of others. (2) consistency. Whether this behavior occurred at other times and other occasions. (3) specificity. Whether the actor responds to other objects in the same way. Kelly concluded that if the consistency is low, the consistency is high and the specificity is low, it should be blamed on the actor; If the consistency, consistency and specificity are high, it should be attributed to the object; If the consistency is low, the consistency is low and the specificity is high, it should be attributed to the environment. Kelly's three-dimensional theory is an idealized attribution model, and people often cannot get all the information needed by this model. Therefore, Kelly introduced the concept of causal schema. People form a certain viewpoint, that is, schema, in their life experience to explain specific behaviors. American scholar L.A. MacArthur (1972) made a systematic study on attribution based on Kelly's three-dimensional theory, and verified the feasibility of Kelly's theory.
At the end of 1970s, the attribution theory had a new development, which was manifested in the increase of clues used in attribution and the attempt to combine Gestalt thought with reinforcement theory.
B wiener and his colleagues developed Hyde's attribution theory in 1972 and combined it with J.W. Atkinson's achievement motivation theory. Weiner believes that internal and external causes are only one aspect of attribution judgment, and another aspect should be added, that is, the temporary-stable aspect. It is very important in forming expectations and predicting future success or failure. Weiner believes that internal stability factors include ability, companionship and physical characteristics; Internal temporary factors include effort, emotion and fatigue; External stability factors include task difficulty and environmental obstacles; External temporary factors include luck and opportunity. Among them, ability, hard work, luck and task difficulty are the main factors for personal analysis. For example, if I believe that A's excellent work is caused by stable factors such as his strong ability or easy task, then we can expect that he will do well if he is given the same task in the future. If we think that his success is caused by temporary factors such as his good mood or good opportunities, then we won't expect him to do well in the future. Generally speaking, the reason for pursuing success comes down to one's strong ability, and the reason for failure comes down to one's not working hard enough, thinking that as long as one works hard, one will always finish the work. People who avoid failure often attribute their success to external reasons such as good luck and easy task, and their failure to their own incompetence. Weiner's attribution theory has been widely used in school education and ability training.
L.Y. abram Sen and his colleagues further developed Weiner's theory in 1978. On the basis of M. Seyrig Mann's research on learned helplessness, they supplemented the attribution of failure and put forward the third aspect, that is, the universal-special aspect. For example, if a student has learned helplessness in mathematics learning, we can predict that other courses will not learn well, resulting in learned helplessness; If it belongs to a special aspect, we will predict that he will only give up his efforts to learn mathematics and will not learn other courses.
All the above attribution theories have inherited the tradition of Hyde's "naive psychologist", treating people as rational and making causal analysis in attribution. In fact, people are not always rational when attributing. Kahneman and Thibaugh further developed the attribution theory from different angles.
Kahneman and A. Toviski regard people as "cognitive economists" rather than "naive psychologists" and think that people can take shortcuts in attribution. Kahneman and Twisky proposed that people often use two heuristic methods for reasoning and judgment in daily life: (1) representative heuristic method. People often choose representative examples when reasoning and judging. (2) Heuristic method of usability. People often use information that is easy to enter the mind to make inferences and judgments. It can explain the difference in attribution between observers and actors. For actors, the situation is prominent and easy to remember, so it tends to be attributed to the situation; For observers, it is the actors who are prominent and tend to make personal attribution.
Thibaugh and Kelly borrowed the reward-reward concept of reinforcement theory in International Relations: Interdependence Theory published in 1978, and put forward the "effective model theory" from the perspective of dual relationship interaction. They think he is the result of the interaction of double interpersonal relationships. Pay refers to the factors that inhibit and hinder individuals from continuing their activities, and return refers to the factors that cause individuals to be happy, satisfied and rewarded. Actors can repeat socially meaningful interactions if they are properly strengthened. There are four stages in the emergence of interactive prosperity, and the time division is: (1) premise. Two people include the environment and the dual relationship. (2) a certain model. General behavior model determined by environment and dual relationship. (3) Effective model. Actors transform their behavior patterns according to their own internal factors, such as value orientation, demand, strength, skills, personality, etc., and produce effective patterns. (4) behavior. The internal cause of individual action is embodied in "transformation". Thibaugh and Kelly combine attribution with behavior reinforcement theory, and successfully reveal the law that the interdependence of members in dual relationships affects social communication. Their research reflects the future development direction of attribution theory research.
D.J. Bem put forward the self-perception theory of interpersonal relationship from the perspective of radical behaviorist. His main thesis is an experimental analysis of beliefs and attitudes from 65438 to 0964. Bem believes that personal feelings, attitudes, qualities and abilities are often clear and vague to him. One must infer them from his own obvious behaviors and his understanding of the surrounding environmental forces. The statement of one person's beliefs and attitudes is basically the same as that of another external observer in function. The process of self-attribution and the materials used are essentially the same as those used by others. It can be seen that Bem's attribution theory is a supplement to previous theories. In this way, the attribution theory of social perception is more comprehensive and complete. A series of experiments by schacter-Singer and others have proved that Bem's self-perception theory is extremely successful in attributing his own emotions and attitudes.
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