The Discovery of Common-Sense Psychology

Abstract

This special issue of Social Psychology commemorates the 50th anniversary of Fritz Heider’s 1958 book The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. The contributions to the special issue address the history and current state of attribution research, or illustrate contemporary research in the field. The historical articles document that Heider’s analysis of causal attribution and of common-sense psychology was significantly influenced by his academic teachers Alexius Meinong and Ernst Cassirer. We distinguish between the mainstream reception of Heider’s book, which has given rise to an extensive empirical research program, and a minority reception by authors who emphasized aspects of Heider’s thinking not well represented in mainstream psychology. Currently, there are indications of a “back to Heider” movement in social psychology. This new phase of attribution research is inspired by a fresh reading of Heider’s book, and is marked by an interdisciplinary orientation. The articles illustrating current attribution research address both classic and novel topics: the causality implicit in language, the role of causal attribution in hindsight bias, the justification of actions, and the attribution of mistakes in organizational contexts.

Psychological entitlement, egoistic deprivation and deviant behavior among cabin crews: an attribution theory perspective

“…This assumption is in line with the findings of Harvey et al (2014aHarvey et al ( , 2014b. Even though social psychologists extremely adopted attribution theory (Reisenzein and Rudolph, 2008), this theory has been neglected in the organizational science (Harvey et al, 2014a(Harvey et al, , 2014bJordan et al, 2017;Dasborough et al, 2011). Based on the above discussion, it seems plausible to investigate entitled cabin crews' emotions and reactions through an attributional lens.…”

Attributional tendencies in cultural explanations of M&A performance

“…Attribution theory aims to understand causal explanations for specific events and phenomena (Heider, 1958;Kelley, 1967;Reisenzein and Rudolph, 2008;Weiner, 1979Weiner, , 2008. It postulates that people have an ingrained need to understand and control their environments and thus try to develop causal explanations for significant events.…”

The Legacy of Cognition-Arousal Theory: Introduction to a Special Section of Emotion Review

“…Beyond this empirical support, cognition-arousal theory was also well received in several research fields because it fit the current developments in these fields. In particular, the theory fit well into the developing attribution research program of social psychology (see Reisenzein & Rudolph, 2008), into which it was in fact quickly incorporated (e.g., Jones et al, 1971;Nisbett & Schachter, 1966). The theory was also welcomed by proponents of the emerging social constructionist movement in sociology and psychology (see e.g., Armon-Jones, 1986;Shott, 1979): If, as Schachter proposed, emotions are partly defined in terms of cognitions, and if (as some of Schachter's remarks could be taken to imply) the cognitions in question are socially constructed, the conclusion seemed justified that emotions, too, are sociocultural products.…”