linguistic:voice_change
Fritz Heider

Gestalt psychologist Fritz Heider is often described as the early-20th-century "father of Attribution theory". In his 1920 dissertation, Heider addressed the problem of phenomenology: why do perceivers attribute the properties such as color to perceived objects, when those properties are mental constructs? Heider's answer that perceivers attribute that which they "directly" sense – vibrations in the air for instance – to an object they construe as causing those to sense data. "Perceivers faced with sensory data thus see the perceptual object as 'out there', because they attribute the sensory data to their underlying causes in the world." Heider extended this idea to attributions about people: "motives, intentions, sentiments... the core processes which manifest themselves in overt behavior". Fritz Heider's most famous contribution to psychology started in the 1940s when he began studying and accumulating knowledge on interpersonal behavior and social perception. He compiled these findings into his 1958 book “The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations,” and Heider's work became widely recognized as the best source of knowledge on Attribution theory. In this book, Heider outlines two key goals that he planned to achieve in his studies. His first goal was to develop a scientific theory that was based on a “conceptual network suitable to some of the problems in this field.” Theorists that attempt to follow in Heider's footsteps widely misinterpret this goal, as many falsely assume that the core of human behavior is person-dichotomy rather than what Heider actually suggested in his book. Heider's second goal was to redefine the understanding of “common-sense psychology” in order to develop his own scientific theory that explains social perception in humans. This second goal more clearly defined Heider's theory on attribution. Through Heider's research of Attribution Theory, he concerned himself with the reasons a person achieved success or failed. To organize the research, Heider broke the reasonings down into three different subjects, the first being ability, second being effort, and third being task difficulty. Heider saw both ability and effort being internal factors and task difficulty being an external factor.