ATTRIBUTION THEORY (ANALOGY) BY LAUREN REICHERT:

Anna is a straight-A student in all classes. She is extremely driven and focused. However,
her favorite subject has always been masked lately. Anna hasn’t been doing well. She’s been
unfocused and distracted in class and doesn’t really study outside of school. She went from the
best student in the class to the worst. Her classmates were talking about her. After the last exam,
they wondered what happened to her? Why isn’t she doing well? They thought that Anna was so
used to getting A’s that she doesn’t think she has to try as hard as everyone else anymore. They
think she just gave up. Even Anna’s math teacher was concerned. She had been teaching Anna
for all the entire semester. Anna had always done so well. Then, she began to question her own
teaching methods. Was she just not getting through to Anna for her lesson plans unclear? Was she
personally responsible for Anna’s poor grades? She blamed herself.

This is an example of Attribution theory. Attribution Theory is defined as when our

perceptions and judgements of a person and their actions are influenced by the assumptions that
we make. In reality, Anna was distracted because she was worried about her sick cat with her cat
not feeling well. Anna couldn’t focus in class and didn’t do the homework because she was
taking care of her cat instead. This is an example of Attribution theory, because Anna’s
classmates and teacher has used their own judgements and assumptions to come up with reasons
for Anna’s poor grade. In reality, none of those assumptions or judgements were true.