The Development of Social Attributions: An Integration of Probability and Logic

Abstract

A descriptive account of social attribution development is presented, based upon a review of the pertinent literature. Research on the development of probability and logical concepts is briefly reviewed, and the relevance of these concepts for attribution development is discussed. A dialectical chronology of attribution development is proposed, based on the relative predominance of logical and probability concepts at each level. Three levels are proposed: preoperational subjectivism, operational objectivism, and operational subjectivism. Although other researchers have discussed the contributions of cognitive development to attribution and person perception, here the role of probabilistic thinking has been incorporated into the model. The importance of the model for understanding misattribution and genetic epistemology is discussed.

Reliability and construct validity of a Swedish social attitude scale for children

“…Models applying a developmental perspective on issues related to the acquisition of social and political attitudes often propose a stage-sequence development (Adelson & O"eil1, 1966;Allport, 1954;Eisert & Kahle, 1986;Enright & Lapsley, 1981;Mladenka & Hill, 1975;Quarter, 1984). According to these models the developmental sequence moves from a fragmented cognitive structure, based on concrete and situation-specific instances, to coherent and structured attitudes, highly differentiated and integrated.…”

Young children's predictions of illness: Failure to recognize probabilistic causation.

“…Piaget (Piaget & Inhelder, 1951/1975 argued that young children do not distinguish random from non-random events. For them a causal relation may carry no implication of necessity or reliability (Eisert & Kahle, 1986;Sedlak & Kurtz, 1981). For example, Siegler (1976) found that an imperfect correlation did not discourage five-year-olds from identifying a relation as causal.…”