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This is a research paper describing the attribution process, as defined by Kelley in his theory of causal attribution and covariation principle (Kelley, 1973; Kelley, 1991; Kelley & Michela, 1980), and by Fritz Heider (1944; 1958) whose work and theory on attribution will also be examined. This paper reviews the attribution process; comparing and contrasting Kelley’s theory of causal attribution (consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness of both internal and external causes of behavior); Heider’s (1944; 1958) theory on attribution (association, causality, justifiability, foreseeability, and intentionality); and Wiener’s Achievement Motivation Model (1988; 1995) regarding his theory that includes locus of causality dimension, stability dimension, and globality dimension. There will be discussion of conceptual critiques of the attribution process (Buss, 1978), and why simply asking “why” is not a simple subject. There are many areas in social psychology and psychology that benefit from this foundational theory which will be explored in this paper. .

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The attribution process according to Greenberg & Baron (2003) is described as “judging the causes of others’ behavior” (p. 41). As human beings there is a fundamental need to be able to make sense of the external world around us. In order to survive it is necessary to predict or judge the events of the future, to keep us from harm, to add quality to lives, and develop self-esteem and self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). Human beings basically believe that if the work is accomplished diligently then there is a greater probability that the decision will be more comprehensive and correct. Individuals work unrelentingly towards the goal of self-preservation by taking in information, assimilating constructs into the cognitive mind, and constructing conclusions based on the information that is filtered through the complexity of the mind. During this complex internal process misconceptions, misinformation, and biases can lead to errors in judgment and perceptions.

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According to Harold H. Kelley (1973) the theory of causal attribution is about how people answer the question of “why?” This theory was developed within social psychology as a means of dealing with questions of social perception, (e.g., if a person is aggressive in behavior, is he this kind of person, or is he reacting to situational or environmental stimuli?). This theory also seeks to deal with the question of self perception (e.g., common problems and concerns regarding a person’s judgments of his or her own ability, feelings, attractiveness, etc.), stemming from Festinger’s (1954) theory of social comparison processes on emotions. Attribution theory, on a more general level, might be called “psychological epistemology”, which has to do with the processes whereby an individual “knows” his world, and has a deep sense that his beliefs and judgments about his world are veridical. Kelley’s (1973) theory posits that it is the role of social psychologists not to confound common sense, but rather to analyze, refine, and enlarge upon it.

According to Effler (1984) Kelley’s (1973) covariation principle and the epistemic problem is to decide whether an effect was caused by the entity to which an action was directed, by the action of the person, by modality, or by time. This concept is to decide whether one of the several causal factors has been responsible for an effect. The basic problem when applied to attribution research is that the number of epistemic problems, depend entirely on the number of goals to which causal attributions can be functional (Effler, 1984).

For some individuals and theorists this proposed theory is a quandary and is believed to be a naïve attempt at social psychology, in that attributions are simply commonsense (Hansen, 1980) and nothing more. Hansen’s (1980) studies conclude that individual’s more often than not will retrieve causal information from memory retrieval.

According to Kelley (1973) people base judgments on internal and external causes. These internal causes are past and present experiences that affect the way a person acts, and they primarily focus on the person and their behavior; whereas, external causes are events, stimuli, and situations in the environment that seemingly affect a person’s behavior and could cause a behavior that the person has little or no control over. According to Martinko and Thomson (1998), they perceive Kelley’s model of attribution as a model that relates to the dimensions of stability and globality.

There are three sections to Kelley’s theory (1973) that he uses to determine whether a situation or event is internally (person) or externally (environmental) caused. This triad theory consists of consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness. Each of these areas demonstrates the importance in determining the strength and cause of the internal or external process. Events that follow certain patterns or consistency can be judged and viewed as having a specific outcome. These outcomes can be measured and classified.

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Consensus is a general agreement or accord about not just one person, but others as well. For example, a group of people are looking up into the trees at birds, they might make an assessment of one particular person, (e.g., Jaime), who is also looking up into the trees. The assessment in this instance would be “high consensus” since others behaved in a similar manner. However, if Jaime was the only one looking up into the trees, and he seemed to be the only one doing this at any given time, the consensus would be considered as low consensus (Kelley, 1973).

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There is no longer any doubt that images affect physical reactions directly and indirectly. We now observe with an MRI that some images have impact in the areas of the brain that are impacted by awareness of an object. As Francisco Varela describes it "In some kinds of visual imagery the visual cortex is indeed very active, as if you were seeing the image." Check out Destructive Emotions by Daniel Goleman for the latest on the neuroscience of emotion and neurophenomenology.

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Distinctiveness is the quality of having clearly defined or unique mannerisms in other contexts (Kelley, 1973). For example, what if Jaime were to look up at tall buildings, telephone poles, or up at the clouds? According to the distinctiveness definition this means that Jamie seems to look up at other things other than trees. This would indicate that Jaime has a high distinctiveness level. In order for Jaime to have a low distinctiveness, he would only look up at one particular tree. In order to make an attribution, the information is gathered from the rated consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness. The results will determine whether the event was either internally or externally caused. This information can be useful to psychologists and other professionals in evaluating the behavior of the individual in both single-case study method or in group situations. A two part study on the roles of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency performed by Orvis, Cunningham, and Kelley (1975) demonstrated that (a) the behavior of the subjects frequently covaried with the situation, and (b) that in the area of achievement (as compared to interpersonal settings) the subject’s responses to a particular stimulus was more consistent with their responses to similar stimuli and with other individual’s responses to the same particular stimulus ( 1975). In their study (Orvis, Cunningham & Kelley, 1975) it was determined that the hypothesis was statistically significant and the predictions verified. See Chart A1 in appendix.

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Austrian born Fritz Heider is considered the father of the attribution theory. He spent more than 60 years exploring the nature of interpersonal relationships. He often called these perceptions, “common sense”, or naïve psychology (Griffin, 1994). Heider, who taught at the University of Kansas, stated that “attribution is the process of drawing inferences” (pg 214).

Heider (Griffin, 1994) developed a three-step attribution theory: (1) Perception of the action, (2) judgment of intention, and (3) attribution of disposition. This three-step attribution process is how individuals perceive others as causal agents. For example, suppose an individual were in a movie theater and a another person sitting down front in the theater throws popcorn at the movie screen. The perception of this event assimilates through three steps instantaneously in the mind. The process of thought might look something like this: (1) the observer saw that (perception of the action), (2) that person meant to do that (judgment of intention), and (3) what a slob (attribution of disposition). This process is nearly instantaneous. Heider postulates that people draw inferences from the events and environment; individuals see action and events, and then draw conclusions from these that go beyond basic sensory information (Heider, 1958; Griffin, 1994).

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The perception of the action is the visual observation of external (or environmental) causes that is perceived (Heider, 1958; Griffin, 1994). The actual visual perception of an event is what initially determines the conclusion or the meaning of the event. When an event is viewed, it is in the individual observation (and perception) that generates an account of the action. For example, an employee at a courthouse named Julie was working in the jury department. The defendant was a burly man and an alleged murderer of another inmate at Pelican Bay Prison. There was testimony given by many of the inmates from this prison. Security was high, due to the testimonies of these high risk inmates from Pelican Bay Prison. In this situation, Julie’s first perception of the people testifying in this case was one of suspicion and bias. The men who testified were wearing red (felony status) uniforms from the prison, which led Julie to perceive that their testimonies might be less than accurate or credible, because of their attire and mannerisms, this led to a halo effect (Thorndike, 1920) and attribution bias (Fletcher, Grigg, & Bull, 1990). Further, the inmates displayed inappropriate conduct in the courtroom; they were loud, rowdy, rude, obnoxious, and ill-mannered, further adding to Julie’s conclusion that they were not credible witnesses. Another aspect of critical thinking that might have come into play for Julie might have been stereotyping (Hilton, Fein, & Miller, 1993) of the nature of the group testifying, or mentally sorting the individuals into groups on the basis of gender, race, and in this instance jail uniforms, a process called social categorization (Bodenhausen, Macrae, & Hugenberg, 2003). Stereotyping and social categorization is one process that Julie could use to make a determination of the validity and credibility of the witnesses.

Julie would like to think of herself as an honest judge of character, she works hard to control her biases, and prejudices; and concentrate only on the facts of the case. This is a nearly impossible task, since she is working against the instantaneous inferences of Heider’s theory. She witnessed the inmate’s loud outbursts, including verbal and physical fighting. The inmates would often make loud comments, out of turn, about each others testimonies and recollections of the murder. Julie found herself struggling with her own thoughts, prejudices and biases, especially since this group was not homogenous to her ingroup (Castano, Yzerbyt, Bourguignon, & Seron, 2002). Julie decided to look outside her own intolerance and seek information from one of the Deputy’s who escort the prisoners to and from the courtroom. The Deputy described the men as pleasant and polite during the transporting process. This was contrary and contradictory information to Julie and it helped to form a clearer picture of the inmates. By gathering more information about the situation it changed Julie’s first perception and altered her perception.

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Despite the appearance of the men, their testimony was convincing enough to believe that they were present during the time of the murder. Heider (1958; Griffin, 1994) did not consider intention as an either-or matter. In this segment of Heider’s theory (1958), the judgment of intention, he has identified five sliding scale positions of personal causation. The five key elements of the judgment of intention are: (1) association, (2) causality, (3) justifiability, (4) foreseeability, and (5) intentionality (Heider, 1958, pg 46).

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Association is the amount of evidence that is perceived as being close in description or alliance (Heider, 1958). Using the example of Julie, her association of the situation was instantaneous and done without her being aware of this process. Julie drew association information during the inmate’s testimony. Slowing down her thought process, she might hear herself draw the associations such as: perhaps the defendant did not direct the attack; swing the bat; or perhaps it was an accident since he claims to not know the victim. Julie might even think associate the information and come to a preliminary conclusion that the defendant was merely in the vicinity at the time, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Chance proximity is no reason to assign causality. To impute guilt by association would be irrational. This should warrant a not guilty verdict.

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Causality could also be defined as the origin or reason for the event (Heider, 1958). In this example Julie would be asking questions pertaining to what happened to cause the alleged murder. This would entail looking directly at evidence presented and then using critical thinking, determine if there were any missing pieces that might have played a significant part in the causality of this situation. For example, the information presented was that the event took place in the prison yard; and the defendant took a mighty swing at someone. Using critical thinking Julie might wonder about accidental causes, causes such as: what if the defendant slipped, fatally striking the unlucky fellow standing too close in proximity; or what if there was more information that was left out. What Julie know for sure is that the defendant’s assault was the ultimate cause of death, but if he had no motive or desire to do harm to that particular person a jury may render a verdict of accidental death.

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Justifiability is the process of deducing information and giving reason for the end result (Heider, 1958). In this example Julie may feel that there is a preponderance of information leading to the defendant being in a situation where he was defending himself, in order to justify her stance on this she may choose to find only the information that supports her viewpoint, while negating the testimony or information that would not support her viewpoint. In this example Julie may find validity in the evidence that the defendant became surprised seeing the intruder come at him with a knife. The defendant lunged at the intruder, and swung to protect himself. Some might wonder about excessive force, but most people would see it as self-defense. A jury might return a verdict in this instance of justifiable homicide.

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Foreseeability; could be described as the ability to gain insight in seeing the big picture of an event (Heider, 1958). In this example, the defendant was exercising in the prison yard, and became angry at his own inability to continue the routine; suppose he suddenly and impulsively flings the equipment out of this anger, and out of this anger the equipment blindsides the victim who was standing to close. This would be considered reckless homicide. The defendant might claim that he never meant to hurt anybody, but the law would regard him to be responsible for the outcome of this careless and negligent action. The jury in this instance might return a verdict of manslaughter.

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This segment poses the question of ‘was the event or situation done intentionally’; or in this example ‘was the murder done with intentionality’ (Heider, 1958). None of the scenarios described above truly captures the purposeful nature of the attack. The witnesses who testified stated that they saw the defendant as the sole cause of the vicious attack and they are convinced that the defendant meant (intentionally) to do great harm to the victim. The jury might label this scenario as premeditated homicide and murder due to the intent.

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This illustration of the attribution theory is correlated with a courtroom setting, and by doing so, this paper has cast the judgment of intention in legal terms. Heider (1958) emphasized that “the issue of judging intention transcends accountability before the law” (p 87). In this dimension it deals with the moral culpability and perceived responsibility in the court of public opinion. When a person’s motives are judged, it is easy for confirmation bias to color or augment judgment. The research by Calder, Ross, and Insko (1973) verifies the human tendencies described in Heider’s (1958) original work; these human inclinations are that: (a) individuals tend to hold others more responsible for negative results than for positive (e.g., if the new employee messes up, he is stupid. If he does well, people are more likely to think he’s lucky); (b) individuals tend to hold others more responsible for not trying than for incompetence (e.g., it is worse to be lazy than to lack ability); (c) individuals tend to hold others more responsible when they aim to improve their position rather than avoid loss, (e.g., people judge more harshly a hungry person who steals food, than for a well fed person who does not willingly share it); (d) individuals tend to hold others more responsible for their outcomes when they fear that the same thing may happen to them (e.g., a veteran skydiver may haughtily claims that anyone who crashed to the ground got what they deserved. The skydiver used “defensive attribution” as reassurance that death by sudden impact happens to someone else); (e) individuals tend to hold others more responsible than they hold themselves (e.g., apparently, people use a double standard as they decide who should be held accountable for mistakes and errors). When things turn out badly for others, it is assumed that it is their fault; but for personal failures, people tend to blame circumstances, the environment, or other people (e.g., things outside the control and responsibility of the individual). In this grouping of human tendencies others are seen as the causal agent, while people look at themselves and give themselves a viable excuse (Calder, Ross, & Insko, 1973).

All biased judgments involve a decision between personal and environmental control (Heider, 1944, p. 362). This decision is a crucial ingredient in the third step of attribution according to Heider (1944). For example, using Julie’s situation, she noticed the defendant’s aggressive actions and believed that this action caused an unprovoked attack with harbored malicious intent; this is how Julie came to a dispositional attribution.

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Heider (1958) has defined this attribution as an individual effort to “predict and control the world by assigning transient behavior to relatively unchanging dispositions” (Griffin, 1997, p71). This part of the process takes what was seen, initiates a judgment from that view or event, and moves directly to disposition. This process is completed nearly instantaneously cognitively. For example, when the inmates of Pelican Bay Prison were testifying about the defendant, (the person who allegedly murdered another prisoner), Julie was unconsciously trying to identify the traits and character, (internal causes), of the inmates who were testifying, in an attempt to accurately conclude whether these men were telling the truth. In the cognitive mind there is an ongoing and constant assessment and reassessment of how much an action is due to personality as opposed to environmental pressure. When judging others, the human tendency is to discount external factors and put to place the cause on the character or personal side of the scale. After listening to hours of testimony from the inmates of Pelican Bay Prison, Julie tried to consider other possibilities for the actions that she perceived in these men, perhaps these men were driven by madness, coerced by another, or forced to act this way due to inmate peer pressure, these thoughts put a wrench into Julie’s attribution of disposition. The process of assessing and reassessing happens on a moment to moment basis, all the time, despite any cognitive awareness.

Julie’s conclusion, according to Heider’s (1958) process, came to the determination that the inmates were not credible witnesses through a complex process. This process continued throughout the trial in a continued assessment and reassessment the situation and action using Heider’s (1944) process of attribution disposition.

According to Heider (1944; 1958), individuals are not consciously and cognitively aware that they are making these instantaneous decisions. He believes that individuals make automatic internal attributions in an attempt to adjust to their various situations, events, and environments. If this step was done in a mindful and cognitive manner this step would take an enormous amount of time and effort. For this reason most people often do not carry this step out to its fullest capacity due to the amount of time and effort. Heider (1944; 1958) also proposes that people make better attributions when they are not cognitively busy or distracted from situations. Individuals who take the time to make concrete and conscious attributions, or are motivated to take the time to adjust to initial attributions, or those who are highly motivated to be accurate will seek out more information to come to a more complete cognitive conclusion. See chart A2 in appendix.

In dissecting Julie’s assessment with the application of Kelley’s theory of causal attribution also called covariation theory (Kelley, 1973; Kelley & Michela 1980). Working with consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness, in this situation, Julie might come to the conclusion or determination that the inmate’s actions, speech patterns, vocabulary, and attitudes, collectively have something to do with their behavior and situation. Since the only people in the courtroom who conducted themselves in a rude manner were the inmates, the consensus would be low; however, if she were judging the behaviors between only the inmates in the courtroom, the consensus would be high; since other inmates displayed this same type of behavior.

Consistency of the inmates is high, upon each observation in the courtroom, they fidget, curse, and use socially unacceptable manners within the courtroom. Both Julie and the Deputy found this to be visually true.

To determine the distinctiveness, it was in Julie’s inquiry of the Deputy’s experience regarding the behavior of the inmates during transportation to the court that helped her to see a different perspective of the inmates (low distinctiveness). The Deputy had stated that the inmate’s behavior was calm and compliant during the holding and transporting to and from the courtroom, this information helped Julie gain more information and a different perspective. This new information puts Julie into the dilemma of the fundamental attribution error (Ross, 1977); “the tendency to focus on the role of personal causes and underestimate the impact of situations on other people’s behavior” (Ross, 1977, pg. 61).

There are two conclusions that Julie might have concluded during this process of determining the validity of the testimony of the inmates. She might have determined that there was either an external or internal cause for the behavior. See chart below for the probabilities of Julie’s answer. See chart A3 in appendix.

Julie was probably not cognizant of her own internal and attributional process of thinking during this trial. She might have come to the conclusion that the inmate’s testimonies were valid, she was more likely to reason with the bias of the fundamental attribution error (Jones & Harris, 1967), “the tendency to underestimate situational influences and overestimate dispositional influences upon other's behavior”. It is when an observer tries to explain another’s behavior; they look at the person, internally, and not the situation, externally (Brehm, Kassin, & Fein, 2005). Since the behavior of the inmates did have a negative effect upon the courtroom, Julie might have been more biased about their behavior in relation to the formality of the courtroom. With this bias she might have felt that the inmate’s behavior demonstrated more of an internal cause, meaning to say, that these inmates acted this way due to personality, rather than their behaviors were due to outside influences.

Julie’s thought process in determining the validity and accuracy of the inmates, during their testimony of the Pelican Bay Prison murders, was instantaneous. She could have utilized either Heider’s (1944) or Kelley’s (1973) theory in an attempt to reach her conclusions. In the cognitive processing of information, Julie’s biases were interpreted in terms of expectations that an individual’s behavior often covaries with situational context and that there is greater similarity of response across persons and across stimuli in achievement than in interpersonal behavior. The effects of these biases were augmented by the strength of the consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency (Kelley, 1973) information demonstrated by the various participants in the courtroom .

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Weiner and others (1971) first developed the motivation model of attributions .This model’s primary concern is with causal explanations for the outcomes of behaviors. Weiner’s model is best utilized for attributions made regarding organizational success and failures (Weiner, Frieze, Kukla, Reed, Rest, & Rosenbaum, 1971).

The basic premise of this model and perspective is that the individual’s causal explanations (e.g., attributions) for their successes and failures affect their future expectancies, and their overall behavior. For example, if a person performs poorly at work on an important task and they receive a disciplinary layoff (e.g., negative outcome), the attribution and the dimension of the attribution that the person makes for the outcome will affect this person’s global expectation as to whether or not he or she can achieve success in the future, this global dimension of failure will also be used later as a heuristic, or mental shortcut, toward problem solving in the future. This same global expectation will also determine how the person feels, and behaves in the future (Weiner, Frieze, Kukla, Reed, Rest, & Rosenbaum, 1971).

Further, if a person attributes the outcome to an internal, unstable, and specific cause such as a lack of effort, they are more likely to expect to be successful in the future; this is due to the internal message that the cause is unstable and can change. At this point the individual may feel empowered and motivated to do well; as opposed to depressed, and will probably expend more energy in the future on similar tasks (Weiner, Frieze, Kukla, Reed, Rest, & Rosenbaum, 1971).

However, if an individual attributes failure to an internal, stable, and global cause such as a general lack of ability, it is likely that they will not expect to be successful in the future; this is primarily because they view the cause as stable and unchangeable (Weiner, Frieze, Kukla, Reed, Rest, & Rosenbaum, 1971).

Weiner’s (1971; 1988; 1995) attribution theory extends out into dimensions that include (a) locus of causality dimension, (b) the stability dimension, and (c) the globality dimension (Martinko & Thomson, 1998).

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The locus of causality dimension refers to: “the degree to which a person perceives that an outcome was caused by the person’s own action” (Martinko & Thomson, 1998, 274). In lay terms, it is what causes the attributions. These attributions are split into two sections: (1) an internal attribution, where the person see him or herself as the cause of the outcome; for example attributions of ability and effort are typically considered as internal processes; and (2) an external attribution, where the person attributes the cause to external or environmental causes; for example an earthquake or other interference is typically considered an external process (Martinko & Thomson, 1998).

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The stability dimension (Wiener, 1979; Wiener et al., 1971) refers to the longevity of the outcome, or whether or not the cause of the outcome changes over time. Stability examples would be task difficulty or ability, (e.g., if a difficult task or ability does not change over time then there is a stability factor). The situation of luck or chance would be considered unstable attributions. For example, the weather and the lottery would be examples of unstable attributions; they are a factor that is neither stable nor consistent (Martinko & Thomson, 1998).

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The global dimension refers to “the degree to which the cause of an outcome is generalizable across situations” (Martinko & Thomson, 1998, pg 274). In this dimension things are constructed on a global scale as opposed to a specific scale. For example, writing a paper for a social psychology class is a specific construct; whereas overall intelligence is a global construct. In the same way a person who gives a reason for failure with terminology that includes the words “always”, “never”, “should”, “ought”, and “can’t” are characteristically globalizing (and often catastrophizing) their situation (Martinko & Thomson, 1998). See chart A4 in appendix. Martinko and Thomson (1998) proposed that by synthesizing the works of Wiener (1971) and the works of Kelley (1973) that the framework of each model would be not only enhanced but more complete. By combing the specifics of Kelley’s (1973) consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus, along with Weiner’s model of internal and external factors, that include stability and globality; they proposed this diagram to show an interesting and workable synthesis of the two models demonstrated this in the chart A5 located in the appendix.

The next diagram, (chart A6) it depicts a typical attributional explanation of Kelley’s theory and how the informational cues fall into the grid, notice the differences between the attributes that have a high distinctiveness and low distinctiveness; as well and the types of attributes that fall into the categories of high and low consensus. See chart A6 in appendix.

Thus far, this paper has delved into attribution from the theories of Kelley (1973), Heider (1944; 1958), and Weiner (1988), and determined that behaviors can be predicted by the various amounts of information that a person has or obtains. In a contrary opinion, Forsyth (1980) states that attributions do not address the actual function of an attribution; he believes that the answer to this truly understanding the functional ability of an attribution lies in his four-tiered framework.

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According to Forsyth (1980) there is a large gap in the social psychology realm between the theorist’s mentioned above, in addressing the full range of social cognition, implicit causal theories, information processing, self-identity processes, and social identity definitions. By adding the dimension of interpersonal uses of attributional information, it would expand and close the gap in the social psychology world and help to make a more complete theory for future social psychology scientists.

The four-tiered framework that Forsyth (1980) proposes that would help close this gap is: (1) the prediction function, (2) the explanation function, (3) the egocentric function, and (4) the interpersonal function.

Forsyth (1980) explains that the first two functions: the prediction function and the explanation function are “control functions” (pg 184) and that these two functions is what allows an individual to perceive that they hold some control over their world and circumstances in life, without these all attributional circumstances in any environmental event, or social behavior would baffle the observer. There needs to be a function of control to make order of the world and surroundings.

At the core of the egocentric function is the conception of the “person-as-rational-information-processor” (Forsyth, 1980, pg 185). This is an individual’s attempt at understanding his world and attempts to control his or her existence within it by collecting and processing information, in order to protect and survive at the basic levels of life.

The interpersonal function is based on needing to be able to communicate and maintain relationships in his or her environment or situation. It involves identity establishing and maintaining information through self presentations toward others (Forsyth, 1980). This gap is being bridged by a number of social psychologists (Calder, Ross, & Insko, 1973) in using attributions and interpersonal functions as possible explanations for the “why” in behaviors in interpersonal relationships.

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Future uses of this process can be widely distributed. The question of why do people behave the way they do can be sought in nearly every industry, and area of life. Attributions can be made regarding gender bias, and role expectations (L’Heureux-Barret, Barnes-Farrell, 1991). Attributions can be successfully related to employment or future goals of life (Zaleski, 1988). They can also be beneficial in determining the performance quality and causes of group performance according to Forsyth, and Schlenker (1977). The future may possibly find that attributions are useful in the realm of social learning and intra- and interpersonal relationships (Triplet, & Cohn, 1984) as well as predicting these behavioral patterns (Nussbaum, Trope, & Liberman, 2003). This fascinating and well rounded foundation is well utilized in criminal or parole matters and decisions (Carroll, 1978).

The list of how this theory of attribution can be beneficial is extensive and not exhaustive. For example it is also a benefit in the area of sexual arousal in men (Weisberg, Brown, Wincze, & Barlow, 2001), and in determining outcomes in anxiety and depression (Lynd-Stevenson, & Rigano, 1996). The attribution process has wide and extension dimensions and uses for many areas of life. Where there is behavior, there will always be the question of why.

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Many social psychologists, including Kelley and Heider strive to find the answer to the age-old question of why people behave the way they do. Each theory and theorist is unique in their method of approaching this social question.

Social psychologists continue to evaluate and assess the ability to correctly assess the behavior(s) and action(s), determining how the observer sees the actions, either from an internal or external causality. How inferences, functions, and heuristics play into the cognitive processes of coming to a conclusion regarding a person’s actions or behaviors. Social psychologists conduct studies to determine causal inferences and causal questions.

These great theorists have presented their work to the world of social psychology to help explain human behavior on the simplest terms. Amongst these great beginnings is Kelley’s (1973) covariation theory, with its levels of consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness. Heider (1944; 1958) introduced his theory about causal inferences by seeing them through the eyes of perception of the action, the judgment of intention, association, causality, justifiability, foreseeability, and intentionality. Wiener (1988) made strides in this area by looking at causal attribution as an achievement motivation model, stating that it is in the locus of causality dimension, stability dimension, and globality dimension that looks to answer this phenomenon.

There are several arguments that state that it is not in the attribution process that depicts the causality of behavior, such as goals and purposes in life that explain people’s reasoning for their behaviors (Buss, 1978).

Attribution theory is comprised by numerous theories or principles that suggest how specific types of causal attributions are manifest in perceptions and behaviors. These principles of attributions operate in three basic paradigms: (a) social or person perception, the process of attributing observed behavior to another individual; (b) object perception, the ascription of an attribute or characteristic to an object through causal explanations of effects associated with that object; and (c) self-perception, (Brehm, Kassin, & Fein, 2005) which involves a person’s judgments of his or her own ability, feelings, cognitions, and past experiences, which include family of origin experiences, and beliefs.

The attributional processes and organizational behaviors described in this paper are complex phenomena and the result of multiple influences, that carry the science of social psychology into untangling the complexities and getting down to fundamentals of the “why”.

To conclude this paper it is noteworthy to mention the many areas that the use of the attribution can be most beneficial; areas such as, sex, gender, mental disorders, and so much more.

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