Three-dimensional attribution theory, also known as degree theory or cube theory, was put forward by American social psychologist Kelly in the book Attribution Theory of Social Psychology published in 1967. ?

Kelly believes that the attribution of other people's behavior generally goes through three stages, the first is to observe the behavior, the second is to judge the reason, and the last is to exclude accidental factors and forced environmental factors. Generally speaking, people should think along three lines when attributing, and then attribute the cause to stimulus, actor or environment. He put forward three lines: consistency, uniqueness and consistency. Experiments have proved that people usually analyze contingency according to three telegrams and finally infer the reason.

Harold H. Harold H. Kelly

Basic information

American psychologist was born in Idaho. After graduating from the University of California, he went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, worked under the guidance of Lei Wen, and received his doctorate at 1948. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Yale University and the University of Minnesota, and devoted himself to the study of social perception, communication and minimum social situation.

1956 ~ 1957 also cooperated with J. Thibaugh to the behavioral science advanced research center. 196 1, professor at UCLA, directing research in negotiation, joint organization and interpersonal adaptation. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and the American Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Outstanding Scientific Contribution Award of American Psychological Association and the Outstanding Senior Scientist Award of Experimental Social Psychology Association.

Main theoretical viewpoints and achievements

(1) put forward a three-dimensional attribution theory. It is the development of Hyde's internal and external attribution theory, which attributes the occurrence of human behavior to the actor (himself), the object of behavior (people or things) and the background or situation of behavior. But judging whether the attribution of a particular event is reasonable depends on three aspects of information, namely, consistency (the behavior of others in the same situation), consistency (the behavior of the actor himself in other occasions) and uniqueness (whether the actor has different behavioral reactions to different objects).

(2) Put forward the effective model theory, also known as Kelly-Thibaugh dual relationship theory. Starting from the binary (human) relationship, they regard interaction as the essence of interpersonal relationship. All the elements of individual behavior form a matrix, which influences each other and leads to certain results. Its value depends on the behavior content of two people in the process of interaction. Later, the social exchange theory of their interaction results was put forward.

Main work

Group psychology: interaction between two people (co-authored with J.W. Thibaugh, 1959), attribution theory in social psychology (1967), attribution in social communication (197 1), causal schema and attribution process (0). Important papers include Psychological Review of Interpersonal Relations (1960) and The Process of Causality Attribution (1973).