Attribution Theory

The study of human behaviour is inseparable from the question of how individuals understand, interpret, and explain the actions of others. Everyday social life requires people to make judgments about why events occur and why individuals behave as they do. These judgments, although often made rapidly and intuitively, constitute a fundamental process of social cognition. It was within this intellectual context that Fritz Heider’s work on attribution established a foundational framework for understanding how people construct explanations of behaviour.Heider’s Attribution Theory, first systematically articulated in The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (1958), marked an important transition in social psychology by directing attention toward the ordinary person as an interpreter of social reality. Heider proposed that individuals seek to understand behaviour by attributing its causes either to characteristics of the person or to circumstances within the environment. His distinction between internal and external causation, together with his analysis of perceived agency, responsibility, and interpersonal relations, provided the conceptual foundations upon which subsequent attribution research was built.The significance of the Heiderian perspective extends beyond its historical importance. It offers a means of examining how causal explanations are formed, how they influence judgments of responsibility and intention, and how perceptions of other people are shaped by the interaction between personal and situational factors. Later developments in attribution research-including the contributions of Harold Kelley, Edward Jones, Keith Davis, and Bernard Weiner-both refined and expanded questions that originated in Heider’s framework.This book revisits Heider’s Attribution Theory not merely as a classical formulation, but as an enduring theoretical perspective. It examines its central concepts, intellectual foundations, applications, and continuing relevance to contemporary psychological inquiry. Particular attention is given to the relationship between causal perception and social judgment, while acknowledging the complexities and limitations revealed by subsequent empirical research.The aim is therefore both interpretive and critical: to clarify the conceptual architecture of Heider’s theory, situate it within the broader development of attribution scholarship, and demonstrate why the study of causal explanation remains central to understanding social behaviour. In doing so, this volume invites you to reconsider a deceptively simple question-'Why did this happen?'-as a profound problem at the heart of human social understanding.