How People Explain Behavior
A New Theoretical Framework
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23378404 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bertram F Malle (0000-0003-0845-9601, University of Oregon, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 23-48 |
| Publication date | 1999-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Personality and Social Psychology Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1532-7957 • E-ISSN: 1088-8683 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1207/s15327957pspr0301_2 |
| PMID | 15647146 |
| OpenAlex | W2113019196 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 105 |
| References cited | 89 |
This article presents a theoretical framework of how people explain behavior. The framework, based on the folk concept of intentionality, distinguishes two major modes of explanation—reason explanation and cause explanation—as well as two minor modes and identifies conditions under which they occur. Three studies provide empirical support for these distinctions. As part of the framework, a detailed model of people's reason explanations is developed, which emphasizes the unique conceptual and linguistic features of reasons. This model points to limitations of traditional attribution concepts, which are examined theoretically and empirically. Finally, the theoretical framework incorporates attribution concepts, which apply to some but not all modes of explanation. Several paths for future research are outlined—on novel topics such as the roles of rationality and subjectivity in explanations and on classic topics such as the actor-observer asymmetry and the self-serving bias.
Emotions and Moral Behavior · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Psychology of Social Influence · Social Psychology
Commentary Toward the Development of Interdisciplinary Theory
Directions and Challenges in Studying Folk Concepts and Folk Judgments
The Psychology of Worldviews
A psicologia cognitiva e o estudo do raciocínio dedutivo no último meio século
Folk Psychiatry
The actor-observer asymmetry in attribution
A biopsychosocial formulation of pain communication
Social class, sense of control, and social explanation
Action embellishment
Making sense by making sentient
Demeaning
People systematically update moral judgments of blame
Impressions of Milgram's obedient teachers
Relationship-specific identification and spontaneous relationship maintenance processes
It was meant to happen
Actor-observer asymmetries in explanations of behavior
What a_____ thing to do! Formally characterizing actions by their expected effects
Conceiving Religious Dreams and Mystical Experiences
Mind Perception
Attributional Processes
Attribution Theory
Social cognition and the brain
Explanation in artificial intelligence
From Uncaused Will to Conscious Choice
Culturally Conferred Conceptions of Agency
A Theory of Blame
Subhuman, Inhuman, and Superhuman
Dehumanization
Age Differences in the Correspondence Bias
Third birth intention of the childbearing-age population in mainland China and sociodemographic differences
Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia and health-related quality of life
Social Responses to Media Technologies in the 21st Century
The unbearable lightness of the personal, explanatory level
“The obligation of a promise” as a problem of double contingency
A fatal flaw
The boss can’t tell
Core morality? Or merely core agents and social beings? A response to Spelke's what babies know
When Your Leader Just Does Not Make Any Sense
Whose Words Hurt? Contextual Determinants of Offensive Speech
Changing users’ health behaviour intentions through an embodied conversational agent delivering explanations based on users’ beliefs and goals
Trolling is in the Eye of the Beholder
Thinking Reasonably about Indeterministic Choice Beliefs
Monitoring new and emerging technologies in order to prevent extremism and terrorist violence
A computational framework for understanding the roles of simplicity and rational support in people's behavior explanations
Are ethical explanations explanatory? Meta-ethical beliefs shape judgments about explanations for social change
Folk Beliefs of Artificial Intelligence and Robots
Perceptions and Evaluations of Incivility in Public Online Discussions—Insights From Focus Groups With Different Online Actors
Risk Calculation as Experience and Action—Assessing and Managing the Risks and Opportunities of Nanomaterials
Boycotting Behavior and Reasons
Agency, materiality and mental illness
Testing the boundaries of the model of pro-group intent
Perspective-Taking from a Social Neuroscience Standpoint
The Interaction of Affective Dispositions, Moral Judgments, and Intentionality in Assessing Narrative Characters
How effortful decisions get enacted
The “Why Me?” Model
He's got a mind of his own”
Intentional activity and free will as core concepts in criminal law and psychology
Did You Just See That? Making Sense of Environmentally Relevant Behavior
Effect of environmental perceptions on bicycle travelers’ decision-making process
Normative Social Influence is Underdetected
Lay conceptions of mental disorder
Shared Reality
How Communicating about Discrimination Influences Attributions of Blame and Condemnation
Incorporating If…Then…Personality Signatures in Person Perception
Covariational influences on goal-based explanation
Vicarious Agency
Creating shared reality in interpersonal and intergroup communication
Goal-based Explanations of Actions and Outcomes
The role of authenticity in forming slow tourists' intentions
The effect of environmentally friendly perceptions on festival visitors’ decision-making process using an extended model of goal-directed behavior
Moral disengagement of hotel guest negative WOM
Accidents and Accountability
Redirecting revenues from law enforcement fines, forfeitures, and related fees to fund local nonprofits
Distinguishing the effects of beliefs and preconditions
The distinction between desires and intentions
Asymmetries in perceptions of self and others' hypocrisy
From colliding billiard balls to colluding desperate housewives
Teleology and mentalizing in the explanation of action
Discourse expectations
Globalization and Folk Theory of Social Change
Identity Questioning
Observing Obedience
Revisiting the folk concept of intentionality
Consequences of attributing discrimination to implicit vs. explicit bias
Motive-matching
Hypocrisy and culture
Do rich people “deserve” to be rich? Charitable giving, internal attributions of wealth, and judgments of economic deservingness
The automatic and co-occurring activation of multiple social inferences
Suspending judgment to create value
If negligence is intentionality’s cousin, recklessness is it’s sibling
The Perception of the Other in International Relations
Folk Theories of Online Dating
Inferences about the morality of an aggressor
The role of intent and harm in judgments of prejudice and discrimination
Mind-Reading Accuracy in Intimate Relationships
Attributional biases about the origins of attitudes
Dispositional attribution
Party Over Policy
Explaining the Belief in God for Self, In-Group, and Out-Group Targets
Consumers Believe That Products Work Better for Others
Minds, brains, and science
Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason
Mindblindness
An Attributional Theory of Motivation and Emotion
Explaining Behavior
Lay Epistemics and Human Knowledge
Springs Of Action
A folk model of the mind
The infant's theory of self-propelled objects
From simple desires to ordinary beliefs
Knowledge-based causal attribution
From Acts To Dispositions The Attribution Process In Person Perception
Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state.
Learned helplessness in humans
Suicide
The construction of social reality
The psychology of interpersonal relations.
Morals, Motivation, and Convention
Action, Intention, and Reason
On the Construction of a Social Reality
Suicide
The Intuitive Psychologist And His Shortcomings
An Introduction to Attribution Processes
The attribution of blame
The endogenous-exogenous partition in attribution theory
New Directions in Attribution Research
Young children's psychological, physical, and biological explanations
Actor and observer attributions in a multitrait-multimethod matrix
On necessity and commonsense
Attribution in conversational context
What triggers causal attributions? The impact of valence and subjective probability
Explaining in conversation
Morals, Motivation and Convention
Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason
Action, Intention, and Reason
Intending and Acting
Explaining Human Action
Actions and occurrences in Kelley's cube
Motive–outcome matching and outcome foreseeability
Intentionality and knowledge in children's judgments of actor's responsibility and recipient's emotional reaction
Ambiguity in the internal/external distinction in causal attribution
The Folk Concept of Intentionality
Measurement and interpretation of situational and dispositional attributions
Everyday Explanation
Adjustment to threatening events
The processes of causal attribution
Actions, Reasons, and Causes
The correspondence bias
Philosophical investigations
Processes of causal explanation and dispositional attribution
Behavior as seen by the actor and as seen by the observer
A probabilistic contrast model of causal induction
Causal explanation, teleological explanation
Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being
How people explain actions performed by groups and individuals
Causes and reasons in attribution theory
On the relationship between causes and reasons
Self-serving biases in the attribution process
Affect, accessibility of material in memory, and behavior
Which behaviors do people explain? A basic actor–observer asymmetry
Videotape and the attribution process
The actor-observer effect revisited
Empathy and attribution
Context effects in judgments of causation
Assessing attributions in marriage
Reasons and other causes
Intentionality
Accounts
Conversational processes and causal explanation
Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality
"Spontaneous" causal thinking
Explanation, imagination, and confidence in judgment
| Unique citing works | 105 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,04 |
| Citation span | 2000 - 2026 (27) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 88 |