Solutions require thinking through a series of interrelated steps or stages, analyzing a number of rules at each point, and always keeping in mind co… - Harold Kelley

Attribution theory concerns the process by which an individual interprets events "as being caused by particular parts of the relatively stable environment" (Heider, p. 297). Consideration of attribution theory is relevant for a symposium on motivation in several respects. The theory describes processes that operate as if the individual were motivated to attain a cognitive mastery of the causal structure of his environment.

My purpose in this paper is to highlight some of the central ideas contained in Heider's theory, to present them in a systematic way, and to show their relevance to developments in several central fields of contemporary social psychology.

Am I to take my enjoyment of a movie as a basis for an attribution to the movie (that it is intrinsically enjoyable) or for an attribution to myself (that I have a specific kind of desire relevant to movies)? The inference as to where to locate the dispositional properties responsible for the effect is made by interpreting the raw data (the enjoyment) in the context of subsidiary information from experiment-like variations of conditions.