<P> Humans are motivated to assign causes to their actions and behaviors . In social psychology, attribution is the process by which individuals explain the causes of behavior and events . The development of models to explain these processes is called attribution theory . Psychological research into attribution began with the work of Fritz Heider in the early part of the 20th century, subsequently developed by others such as Harold Kelley and Bernard Weiner . </P> <P> Gestalt psychologist Fritz Heider is often described as the "father of attribution theory", during the early years of the 20th century . </P> <P> In his 1920s 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 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 ." </P> <P> Heider extended this idea to attributions about people: "motives, intentions, sentiments...the core processes which manifest themselves in overt behavior". </P>

What is attribution and by what other term is this process known