l, one person may conclude that ôThe ball was wet,ö while another may decide ôHeÆs clumsy,ö and a third may think, ôHis performance is under par because he has low self-esteem.ö Any or none of these attributions may be the actual cause of the pitcherÆs dropping the ball, because the people forming the conclusions are ônanve,ö which is another way of saying that they are just guessing.
In New Directions in Attribution Research, the authors interviewed Heider to discuss how his theory evolved and found that he had collected notes and read and analyzed short stories, novels, plays, and cartoon strips over a long period of time as his concept evolved (Harvey et al.,12). Heider especially felt that AesopÆs Fables were fruitful in his analysis:
Sometimes I analyzed very simple things, Aesop's fables, for instance. That Aesop's fables are not analyzed or mentioned more in psychological literature, I think is a disgrace! Think about the "Fox and the Grapes," for instance. There are so many things to be analyzed in that
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