Attribution

If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm. Elizabeth Bowen The theory of attribution tries to explain people's ways of assigning causes to their own behavior and that of others. Heider (1958) suggests that when people see someone behaving in a particular way, they first try to determine whether the person was responsible for initiating the behavior, whether circumstances necessitated it, or both. Holding others personally responsible for their behavior allows us to feel angered or hurt, t1attered or joyous, in response to their actions. When we assume full responsibility for our own behavior, we attribute any failure to deficiencies inherent in ourselves (we are not smart enough, strang enough, and so on). Similarly, we attribute success in achieving our goals to our own unique assets. Conversely, if we assume that we have very little contral over our lives, we see both failure and achievement as being due to the help of others-to luck or even to fate. Thus, attributions greatly affect our feelings and attitudes about ourselves and others. The concept of attribution has great irnportance in understanding family dynamics.