Causal Attribution: From Cognitive Processes to Collective Beliefs

Attribution theory deals with how people explain social behaviour: their causal attributions or common-sense explanations. This book provides a major assessment of attribution theory in social psychology during the last 40 years. It reviews in detail the variety of theoretical perspectives and established phenomena in attribution theory and provides a unique integration. The book begins with a brief introduction to the classic attribution theories and then reviews some of its fundamental questions. The core of the book is made up of four central chapters, one on each of Doise's levels of explanation. Intra-personal' attribution has studied the logic, cognitive processes and knowledge structures underlying causal attributions. Interpersonal' attribution centres on two topics: attribution in social interaction close relationships (especially marriage). Intergroup' attribution highlights the consequences of social categorization; attributions at this level often favour the ingroup and sustain intergroup conflict. Societal' attributions link attributions to wider social beliefs (such as conspiracy theories) and refer to phenomena such as poverty, unemployment and riots. This volume draws attention to the breadth and depth of attribution research; it confronts critics with a view of a field that is more social, and less artificial, than they have claimed and it argues persuasively that an attributional approach has a promising future, as well as a distinguished past, in social psychology. Advanced students in social psychology and specialists in social psychology and in clinical psychology.