From Dispositional Attributions to Behavior Motives The Folk-Conceptual Theory and Implications for Communication

This chapter introduces a new theoretical account of attribution—the folk-conceptual theory of behavior explanations (Malle, 1999)—to communication and discusses its implications for understanding communication phenomena. This new perspective has emerged from concerns about classic attribution theory, based on the person-situation distinction, and its ability to account for the cognitive complexity and social functions of attributions. The folk-conceptual theory distinguishes between explanations for intentional and unintentional behaviors, capturing different types of motives that can be inferred for intentional behaviors, and links explanations with their social and communicative functions. We lay out several directions for the theory to be usefully explored in communication to extend the field’s thinking about how attributions are affected by, affect, and are communicated in social interaction. At the same time, we discuss how communication perspectives can enrich the folk-conceptual theory by integrating the socio-communicative context more fully into the analysis of explanations in social interaction.