Dimensions of Attribution Regarding Causes of Conflict
After people form their perceptions of events, they then want to know why these events occurred and/or why people engaged in certain actions. To help them understand, people make attributions, a higher order cognitive process that provides explanation for events and behaviors (Weiner, 1986).
Attributions are relevant to conflict because negative relational events tend to lead to more attributions about the partner and his/her behavior (Holtzworth & Jacobson, 1985). Naturally, when people become hurt and angry, they want to figure out why their “loving” partner would treat them in such a negative manner.Dimensions of Attributions
Attributions that people make for the cause of the conflict and the other person’s behavior contain various properties, or dimensions. One dimension is whether the behavior was internal (related to personal factors) or external (related to situational factors). Internal attributions lead us to think that the behavior was caused by some personal characteristic. In contrast, external attributions allow us to think that what occurred was not usual because it was caused by characteristics of the situation. Making external attributions, rather than internal attributions, for negative events and behaviors tends to be more functional for both parties (Zillmann, 1993). For example, we decide that our partner yelled at us because of pressures at work rather than because s/he is a mean person. Or we believe that a co-worker’s failure to show up for work is due to an emergency rather than laziness. One study illustrates how attributing the conflict as the other person’s fault leads to increased competitiveness.
Sillars (1980) examined how roommates’ attributions for who was to blame for a conflict affected their own behavior. He found that roommates were more likely to use integrative strategies when they attributed cooperation to the other person and more responsibility of the conflict to themselves.
Also, when they attributed more responsibility to themselves, they saw the behavior as less stable and were more likely to use integrative strategies. In contrast, when participants attributed more responsibility to their roommates, they saw the cause of conflict as more stable, were less likely to use cooperative conflict tactics, and were more likely to use competitive conflict tactics. During conflict, we evaluate how much control the person had. If people determine they had control over their behavior, they tend to react more strongly (Betancourt & Blair, 1992). We do not tend to hold people responsible for behavior they did not perform, although we do consider that they should have predicted how their behavior would affect us, and what we want (Fincham, Bradbury, & Grych, 1990). For instance, we are more likely to be patient with elderly people slowly walking in a crosswalk than with teenagers who take just as long without a clue about the people waiting to drive.People derive internal or external attributions depending on whether the behavior is seen as intentional (Fincham & Bradbury, 1987; Jones & Davis, 1965). For instance, one of the first assessments we make of a hurtful message is whether the person meant to be hurtful. When we think people know that their behavior will have hurtful consequences, that they thought about the behavior in advance, and that they chose to perform the behavior, then clearly they intended to hurt us (Vagelisti, 2001). We then tend to respond emotionally and in ways that might have damaging effects. For instance, Vangelisti and Young (2000) found that, when people interpreted hurtful behavior or comments as intentional, they distanced themselves from the other person. Moreover, the distancing occurred with unintentional behavior only if people also attributed the behavior as internal (a personal trait) or if they felt the behavior disregarded them.
In addition to the dimension of internality, attributions reflect the consistency of the event or behavior (Kelley, 1973).
That is, we determine whether the event is stable over time or an unstable isolated event. We consider whether the person has behaved this way with us before or if we have seen him/her behave this way with other people. For example, arriving to work late again can be explained by stable features of the person (e.g., laziness, unreliability) rather than a lack ofpark- ing spaces that day.A third dimension of attributions concerns how a cause contains global implications or whether the cause is specific to the conflict. If, for example, you attribute the cause of your partner yelling at you because she or he is mean, then that attribution also explains why he does not tip waiters and waitresses, doesn’t stop for pedestrians, and doesn’t like dogs. However, again, if you attribute the cause of your partner’s yelling to pressures at work, then that attribution does not explain why he doesn’t like dogs (or any animal, for that matter). Explanation for his not liking animals must come from somewhere else.
Importantly, these dimensions characterize attributions, and they lead to alternative forms of conflict management. More precisely, internal, stable, and global attributions for conflicts associate with poor problem-solving communication, negative conflict-management communication, weak social support messages, and expression of negative affect (Fincham & Beach, 1999). However, external, unstable, and specific attributions associate with functional problem-solving, positive conflict communication, social support messages, and expression of positive affect (Fincham & Beach, 1999). Given the research on attributions for conflict causes, we offer the following principle:
Conclusion 9.4: Attribution inferences: Positive attributions to the causes of and behaviors during conflict involve external, unstable, and specific factors; negative and damaging attributions involve external, unstable, and specific factors.
Suggestion 9.4: Attempt to attribute the causes of and behaviors during conflict to external, unstable, and specific factors.