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Attribution

  • In: Encyclopedia of Identity
  • Edited by: Ronald L. Jackson II & Michael A. Hogg
  • Subject:Self & Identity, Identity, Self & Identity

In social psychology, the term attribution has a technical meaning. In the guise of attribution theory, it refers to the cognitive process through which people assign causes to events and, more importantly, causes to what people do and say. The relevance of attribution theory to identity is that if we can or do attribute someone's behavior to an underlying personality trait or disposition, then our interpretation can be read as having socially assigned or ascribed one's identity. If we attribute our own ...

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