Describe the role of situational and dispositional factors in explaining behavior

Heider's Attribution Theory (1958) is a theory based on the assumption that people tend to try finding explanations for other people's behavior. This happens because they are aware of the reasons and causes behind their own behavior and base their own theories of human behavior in this manner. Another reason for attribution is that people are motivated to better predict and understand the environment around them and having personal theories of human behavior facilitates this.There are two types of attributions: dispositional and situational. Dispositional attributions deal with causes within the person, such as personality, intelligence or attitude. Situational attributions deal with the causes outside the person, which means that a certain behavior is caused by the environment around a person (the situation), such as social context or events outside of one’s control.Simmel (1944) showed a tendency of overestimating dispositional attribution in humans observing others. In this experiment, moving geometric figures were shown to participants that then were asked to describe what they saw. Results showed that participants tended to describe the figures’ motions as intentional actions. In other words, they found a causal explanation for what they saw even if conscious intentional motions do not apply to shapes. Evans-Pritchard (1976) showed cultural differences in attribution in Azande people. They believed that witchcraft (a situational factor) was responsible for killing people when a doorway collapsed. While the door had been eaten through by termites, the Azande participants still believed that an external force was responsible for the death of those people.