Attribution is the process of inferring the causes of events or behaviors. In social psychology, this often involves determining whether a behavior is due to internal factors, such as personality and character (a dispositional attribution), or external factors, such as the environment and social context (a situational attribution).

Attribution

People try to explain others' behavior through causation. A common though might be "What caused X to do Y".

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Fritz Heider and Harold Kelley argue that humans think like naive scientists: that is they don't test their hypotheses about someone's behavior systematically but they nonetheless try to understand it.

Naive Scientists

- Heuristics and biases
- Imageless thought debate
- Dual systems approach
- Causal attribution

Focuses of Research on Thought

Aronson, Elliot, and Joshua Aronson. The Social Animal. Worth Publishers, Macmillan Learning, 2018.

The Social Animal

Causal Attribution

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, some psychologists believed in Aristotle's idea that "thought is impossible without an image" , while others disagree. Most evidence pointed to thought being possible without imagery and by the 1910s, imagery was not a heavily studied topic in psychology.

Imageless thought debate 

Humans use two distinct cognitive systems:
- System 1 is fast, intuitive, unconscious and automatic.
- System 2 is slow, reflective, conscious and controlled.

Dual systems of cognition

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that people rely on to simplify the complex task of forming and maintaining beliefs. Because forming detailed and accurate beliefs requires extensive observation, memory, and analysis, individuals use these efficient cognitive strategies. However, relying on heuristics can sometimes lead to incorrect conclusions.

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