Attribution Training

Attribution Training is how people make judgments concerning the causes of behavior, it has similar meaning with Symbolic Inteaction. That is, for example, we usually attribute meanings by others actions from our own culture, we know that in most of our cultures, smiling means happy, crying means sad, feeling sick is okay to tell people, these actions are interpreted as "Norms" from the culture that we grow up with. However, smiling might mean sad, getting an headache might not okay to tell others in some other cultures which we are not familiar with. Also, we will automatically think of some kinds of actions and react about it, for instance, imagining if someone passed by and put an cockroach on our plates, we will think that's disgusting by nature and say 'god, that's so gross'.
So, this training is to train people to control it and stop it, before we attribute meanings, think of it and then react it.
This also has the relationship with human mental programming, Hofstede illustrated three levels of uniqueness in human mental programming. The first level is Human Nature which could be divided into universal or inherited, in inherited level which means the nature of we were born with, and they are abilities to think, feel, and express ourselves. The second level is culture, it can defined as specific to a group and learning, for example, stores place those small toys or candies right next to the checking desk just to attract kids' attention, and kids like to ask their mothers to buy those stuff by asking hundred times, "can i have this? can i have that? how about this? how about that?", some parents will finally surrender to children and put those small stuff in the shopping car, some parents will slap on kids' faces and tell them to shut up. And this is where children learn how to behave, what's norms and what's not. Another example is parents usually warn kids to behave by a list of Don't, and parents will reward kids or say something good to them if kids behave good. Kids might be taken to cars and sit with parents when they are not behaved. Finally, the third level is personality, this is what you were born with and being unique from others. This is what no one can change because it was given by parent's gens, yes, you can learn how to change your personality, such as being a spy or actor/actress who needs to change personality not to show this on their faces just to do their jobs.
~from xiao mei