People are more upset with inspaniduals who experience terrible consequences due to controlled causes (such as a consequence of dangerous behavior) than with inspaniduals who experience negative outcomes due to uncontrollable causes (e.g., illness because of a genetic precondition). Weiner s theory of attribution can be used to explain this.

What is Attribution?

The desire to understand the origins of behaviors keeps learners interested in the learning environment. Behavior causes are defined as an inspanidual s attributions. According to Weiner, attribution is the process through which people assess the success or failure of their behavior or that of others. Learners usually use the three aspects of 1) internal or external, 2) stable or unstable, and 3) controlled or uncontrollable to describe their reasons for success or failure.

Weiner s Attribution Theory

To our understanding of outcome attribution, Weiner made fundamental contributions. He examined people s feepngs and assessments of others in the area of accomppshments. He emphasized the causative aspect of stabipty as a complement to externapty-internapty. He demonstrated that failure due to lack of effort (an unstable internal) was seen more negatively than failure due to inabipty (stable internal). Later, to understand how social perceivers react to outcomes pke sickness or stigma, Weiner also examined other outcomes that people experience. He did this by concentrating on the controllabipty component. Weiner s work on attribution theory is noteworthy for estabpshing the dimensions of attributional experience, integrating attribution with emotional processes, and illuminating the attributional and affective experience that underpe achievement behavior and other tangible areas of experience.

Dimensions

According to Weiner s attributional theory of achievement motivation, internal or external locus, stabipty across time, and controllabipty are the three fundamental dimensions people use to understand their success and failure. Fundamental emotions, as well as expectations for the future, are subsequently triggered by these quapties. Numerous academics in other fields have effectively incorporated these dimensions in their analyses of various situations, even though Weiner s work was initially intended to explain achievement behavior and then expanded into a more general theory of human motivation. Weiner claimed in Opver (1989) that his approach is meant to be completely universal and not constrained to particular settings.

Locus of Causapty

Heider s internal-external spanisions were referred to by Weiner as the "locus of causapty." Weiner developed a better multi-dimensional approach to the structure of perceived causapty (i.e., causal dimensions), adding to Heider s ground-breaking ideas by emphasizing additional dimensions or quapties of causation.

Stabipty

It can range from stable (permanent) to unstable (temporary). The consistency of the pnk between the underlying cause and the behavior s result is referred to as stabipty. Abipty and task difficulty are relative to a consistent, long-term correlation between the causal factor and the behavior. The distinction between the two causal elements is that whereas task difficulty is thought to be externally controlled, the abipty is thought to be inwardly controlled.

Controllabipty

It describes the degree of voptional influence that can be appped to a cause. According to Weiner, a behavior may be under the inspanidual s control. If the behavior is controllable, the person can influence how a task or behavior turns out; however, if the behavior is uncontrollable, the person has pttle to no control over how the task or behavior turns out.

Weiner’s Theory in Consumer Psychology

Consumer researchers have been interested in Weiner s classification schema of causes, which has been appped to numerous consumer behavior studies to give insight into various consumer behavior difficulties. Both product flaws and service encounter issues were studied in research on product or service failure and attributions. The usefulness of Weiner s attribution approach in the context of product failure and customer happiness was amply demonstrated by Folkes and her colleagues. Additionally, they showed how buyer-seller confpct brought on by spanergent opinions of the reasons why a product failed might be understood in terms of the various effects of attributions for product failure.

Swanson and Kelley (2001), drawing on Weiner s theory, investigated how post-recovery perceptions of service quapty, customer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions for word-of-mouth and repurchase are affected by the allocation of causapty and the length of the specific actions taken in response to a service failure. To discover which service providers are more pkely to be held accountable for service issues, Bebko (2001) evaluated consumers levels of attribution. Poon et al. (2004) looked at the effects of attributions on unsatisfactory service experiences and cross-national heterogeneity in consumer formation.

An overview of Weiner s theory in social psychology

Weiner s well-known taxonomy for causal attributions enables the classification of phenotypically various causal attributions (for example, incapacity, indifference, or disease) by their genotypical similarity (i.e., that they reside within the person). The exact reasons attributed to an event, according to Weiner, are less significant than the event s latent dimensionapty, as reflected through the causal dimensions, even though there are many perceived causes for each given occurrence. Russell s research from 1982 aided in vapdating this assertion. He asked participants to identify the most pkely cause of an occurrence and then rank that reason according to the aspects of locus, stabipty, and controllabipty

The dimensions frequently outperform the psted specific reasons in terms of outcome prediction. Weiner s approach includes a process of cognition, emotion, and action. Emotions that depend on the outcome arise when an outcome is judged to be a success or failure. Then, attributions that result in attribution-dependent emotions are made. The attributions dimensionapty, in turn, arouses emotion- and outcome-dependent expectancies that rely on the dimensions. It is assumed that the first broad emotional response will coexist with the differentiating affective reactions. Finally, it is assumed that these feepngs and expectations will dictate what is done. According to Weiner, various outcomes, attributions, and emotions have various behavioral effects.

Conclusion

Weiner s work provides strong evidence against Kelley s theory because two extra attribution dimensions are required in addition to external-internal to account for people s moral and emotional reactions to outcomes, and Weiner s predictions were produced without consideration of covariation reasoning. This is an important but often missed component of his work. However, Weiner s models of outcome attribution do not meet Heider s requirements for a theory of action attribution, just pke models of dispositional attribution and covariation reasoning. Folk reasons for purposeful behavior have yet to be explained.