Attribution theory is intended to help a person understand the causes of human behavior, be it their own or someone else's. The basis of attribution theory is that people want to know the reasons for the actions that they and others take; they want to attribute causes to behaviors they see rather than assuming that these behaviors are random. This allows people to assume some feeling of control over their own behaviors and over situations. Psychologist Fritz Heider (1896–1988) first developed attribution theory in his 1958 book The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. Heider proposed that what people perceived and believed about what they saw dictated how they would act, even if their beliefs about what they perceived were invalid.

Heider's proposed theory of attribution was further developed by psychologist Bernard Weiner and colleagues in the 1970s and 1980s, and this new theoretical framework has been used primarily in...