The examples in the transcript demonstrate that Kathy makes internal attributions regarding both positive and negative aspects of her job performance, which indicates that she has the internal locus of control. For example, Kathy states that the shipping error mentioned by the boos that happened a few months ago is completely on her shoulders. In the meantime, when the boss appreciates her good organizational skills, she views it as her own achievement, arguing that she ‘loves to plan ahead’. However, Jeanette’s tends to make external attributions regarding her failures, and internal attribution regarding her achievements at work, which reveals the fact that she has high self-esteem. Such practices when an individual explain his or her failures by the external situational factors, and his or her success by personal characteristics are generally referred to as ‘self-serving bias’ (Duval & Silvia, 2002, p. 49).
More specifically, she does not take the responsibility for the above mentioned shipping failure, unlike Kathy does, arguing that she ‘passed the message to Ken, and he promised he would make sure it was taken care of’. This is an example of justification that Gollan and Witte (2008) view as a result of ‘violation of socially shared standards of conduct’ (Gollan & Witte, 2008, p. 189). More specifically, given that Jeanette did not manage to meet her boss’s expectations (which is a socially shared value), she attempts to explain her failure by the factors that are not dependent on her. She also adds that she is a trusting person, and that is the reason why she did not do the task herself. She thus explains her failure by her personal characteristics that are approved by society, like the high level of trust to people. In the meantime, she attributes her high score in planning to her own personal characteristics, such as her efforts channeled into the development of her organizational skills.
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"People and Attributions".
Attributions can also affect self-perception and social cognition of an individual. More specifically, if an individual always makes internal attributions and has a strong internal locus of control, it is very likely that he or she will face the fundamental attribution error. Namely, this individual will ‘overestimate the importance of dispositional factors in the person being judged and underestimate the importance of situation in which the observed behavior is occurring’ (Sullivan, 2003, p. 1316). Attributions thus can influence the way an individual views his or her social environment because of the bias that are embedded in these attributions.
As to the connection between individual’s self-perception and attribution, it is important to note that ‘low self-esteem individuals always blame themselves for their failures’ (Brockner & Guare, 1983, p. 642), while individuals with high self-esteem tend to blame situational external factors for their failures to be successful in something. Thus, the theory of attributions might be helpful in terms of boosting one’s self-esteem, both for personal and professional reasons. More specifically, low self-esteem might be increased, using the attributional approach.
A study conducted by Kahng and Mowbray (2005) showed that the level of individual’s self-esteem can be significantly increased if an individual is encouraged to attribute their failures to the difficulty of the task. In terms of the professional context it is thus important for individuals with low self-esteem to explain their failures by situational factors. In the meantime, individuals with very high self-esteem should learn to take the responsibility for failures on his or her ‘shoulders’, given that it will encourage an individual to critically evaluate his or her behavior, and thus improve some aspects of his or her tendency to behave and personal characteristics.
