Skills Development Sections

Understanding attributions

Attributions are the causal explanation we assign to behavior or performance levels. The attributions we come up with affect how we evaluate employee performance. Certain biases predispose us to make different attributions for our own performance than for the performance of others.

Task: Get together with some classmates or co-workers. Come up with one example of a time that your performance was not up to standards and an example of a subordinate or co-worker’s poor performance. Write down your attribution for each. Tell your group about each incident, but only explain to them what the performance level or behavior should have been and what it actually was. Do not give them your explanation for why the performance was not up to par. Have your classmates then provide their attributions for the outcome. Did these attributions match your own? If you told your classmates that one incident was your own performance and one was your subordinate’s/co-worker’s, did their attributions differ for the two? Did your attributions differ for the two incidents? Why or why not?