Final answer:
Internal and external attributions are concepts in social psychology, particularly relating to cognitive dissonance and the self-serving bias. They explain how we attribute causes to behaviors and events, often with a bias that protects our self-esteem.
Step-by-step explanation:
Internal and external attributions are linked to the concept known as cognitive dissonance, where an individual experiences tension when their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are in conflict. Making internal attributions for success, and external attributions for failure, is an example of the self-serving bias. This bias helps maintain positive self-esteem, perceiving successes as a result of personal ability and efforts (internal attributions), while attributing failures to circumstances beyond one's control (external attributions).
Attitudes and beliefs can be influenced externally or internally, and this control over beliefs is described as an expression of free will. An important aspect of attribution theory is the understanding that we process social information by making attributions or explanations for events or behaviors. For example, if we assume a student failing an exam is due to their lack of intelligence (internal), rather than examining situational factors such as inadequate teaching or a noisy environment during the exam (external), we are engaging in attributional biases such as the actor-observer bias or the fundamental attribution error, where there is a tendency to attribute others' behaviors to their dispositions and underestimate the role of situational factors.