attribution. A term in art history and criticism for the assignment to an artist of a work of uncertain authorship. Attributions are sometimes made on the evidence of documents. A painting of unknown authorship may, for example, be found to accord with a description in an inventory where the artist is named, and depending on how closely particularized the description is, it may be a likely assumption that the two are one and the same. More usually, however, attribution depends on stylistic evidence, and is based on the notion that an artist, consciously or unconsciously, expresses his individuality through his work to such an extent that, to the expert eye, not even his closest contemporary or most talented imitator will be indistinguishable from him. Given a work that is authenticated beyond reasonable doubt by external evidence such as signatures, contracts, or contemporary accounts, we can therefore proceed to group around it works of a similar character and attribute them to the same master.

In the 19th century an attempt was made to put attribution on a scientific footing by closely studying small points of detail such as the way a painter represents fingernails, but although this kind of system (advocated particularly by Giovanni Morelli) has its uses, it is now felt that we recognize the work of individual artists more by the general effect than by details, and that the details rather than the general effect are what an imitator will be able to reproduce most closely. Attribution, then, is necessarily a highly subjective business, which explains why experts so often disagree and not infrequently change their minds ( Bernard Berenson, the most famous of all connoisseurs, often changed his attributions in the course of his long career). The uncertainty of attribution can have important financial as well as scholarly consequences, even now that the days are gone when the certificate of authenticity of a man such as Berenson could add several noughts to the price of a painting. Moreover, disputes over the authenticity of prominent (which usually means expensive) works of art are one of the few ways in which art becomes a public issue. George de La Tour's Fortune-Teller (which some people consider to be a fake) has been the subject of television documentaries on both sides of the Atlantic, and in 1982 its publicity-conscious owner (the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York) billed it as ‘the world's most controversial painting’.

Various terms are used in connection with attribution, rarely with any precision. ‘Ascription’ is sometimes used as a synonym for attribution, but some writers prefer to use it to imply a greater degree of doubt (it is often found in the expression ‘tentatively ascribed to’) or to indicate an old but not firmly accepted attribution. When a work is described as ‘autograph’ it is thought to be entirely the work of the artist named. The terms ‘studio (or workshop) of’, ‘school of’, and ‘circle of’ all imply that the work was done in more or less close contact with the artist named, but ‘follower of’ and ‘imitator of’ may be much later in date; ‘manner of’ implies only a general stylistic relationship. Auction rooms and dealers have for about 200 years used a system to catalogue works whereby the use of an artist's full name indicates that the work in question is ‘in our opinion a work by the artist’, the use of his surname and initials indicates that the work is from the artist's period and ‘may be in whole or part the work of the artist’, and the use of his surname alone may imply no more than that the work is in the style of the artist. Thus a painting catalogued simply ‘Rubens’ may be no more than a modern pastiche. In saleroom and other contexts, the term ‘after’ indicates a copy of a known work of the artist in question.

Attribution

BIBLIOGRAPHY

It is important to understand why things happen in order to control outcomes or prevent future undesirable occurrences. Attributions answer the question of “why” something happens. People tend to seek attributions for unexpected events, and generally infer that things happen either because of factors internal to the actor (personality or dispositional factors) or because of situational influences.

This distinction between situational and personality attributions can be traced to Fritz Heider’s seminal book, The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (1958). Heider further identified a stability dimension of attributions. That is, stable situational forces, such as test difficulty, can cause outcomes—but so too can unstable forces, such as a chance opportunity for cheating. Personality can be conceptualized similarly. Stable personality factors include such forces as ability or intelligence. Examples of unstable personality factors are motivation and effort, both of which can change over time and across situations.

Inspired in part by Heider’s ideas, Edward Jones and Keith Davis (1965) developed correspondent inference theory (CIT) to predict whether observers of an event will make personality or situational attributions for the actor’s behavior. According to CIT, the more clearly a person has freely chosen to do something unexpected, and the more clear the intended effects of the activity are, the more likely perceivers are to make personality attributions. When free choice of behavior is limited, when the behavior is not perceived to depart from the norm, and when the intention of the behavior is unclear, perceivers are less likely to make personality attributions.

Another early attribution theory based on Heider’s work is Harold Kelley’s covariation theory (1967). This theory explains that effects are attributed to causes with which they “covary.” That is, perceived causes will differ, depending on whether or not an effect is associated uniquely with a particular object, a class of objects, or other people. If a person were happy after seeing a movie, one would attribute the happiness to the person’s liking of that particular movie. However, if one knew this person was happy after most movies, one would attribute the happiness to the person being a movie buff.

Given the complexity of the reasoning involved in making attributions in accord with Jones and Davis’s and Kelley’s notions, it is not surprising that attributions do not always follow theoretical predictions. Such departures often are referred to as attributional biases. Well-known biases include the fundamental attribution error (FAE)—the tendency to overestimate personal, and underestimate situational, causes for behavior—and the actor-observer effect, or the tendency to commit the FAE more strongly when explaining others’, rather than one’s own, behavior. Additionally, the self-serving bias, identified by Gifford Weary Bradley in 1978 as reflecting self-esteem concerns, is the tendency of people to attribute good outcomes to causes that are internal, do not change over time, and have global implications for success in other areas. When bad things happen, however, people tend to invert this pattern. They attribute failures to external, temporary causes that have few implications outside of the specific context they take place in. All together, much research has focused on attributional biases. Together with an understanding of past theories, new findings permit ever more accurate models of how people ask “why?”

SEE ALSO Causality; Kelley, Harold

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gilbert, Daniel T. 1998. “Ordinary Personology.” In The Handbook of Social Psychology, 4th ed., vol. 2, eds. Daniel T. Gilbert, Susan T. Fiske, and Gardner Lindzey, 89-150. New York: McGraw Hill.

Aaron L. Wichman

Gifford Weary

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resurrection, retrospection, section, selection, subjection, transection, vivisection •exemption, pre-emption, redemption •abstention, apprehension, ascension, attention, circumvention, comprehension, condescension, contention, contravention, convention, declension, detention, dimension, dissension, extension, gentian, hypertension, hypotension, intention, intervention, invention, mention, misapprehension, obtention, pension, prehension, prevention, recension, retention, subvention, supervention, suspension, tension •conception, contraception, deception, exception, inception, interception, misconception, perception, reception •Übermenschen • subsection •ablation, aeration, agnation, Alsatian, Amerasian, Asian, aviation, cetacean, citation, conation, creation, Croatian, crustacean, curation, Dalmatian, delation, dilation, donation, duration, elation, fixation, Galatian, gyration, Haitian, halation, Horatian, ideation, illation, lavation, legation, libation, location, lunation, mutation, natation, nation, negation, notation, nutation, oblation, oration, ovation, potation, relation, rogation, rotation, Sarmatian, sedation, Serbo-Croatian, station, taxation, Thracian, vacation, vexation, vocation, zonation •accretion, Capetian, completion, concretion, deletion, depletion, Diocletian, excretion, Grecian, Helvetian, repletion, Rhodesian, secretion, suppletion, Tahitian, venetian •academician, addition, aesthetician (US esthetician), ambition, audition, beautician, clinician, coition, cosmetician, diagnostician, dialectician, dietitian, Domitian, edition, electrician, emission, fission, fruition, Hermitian, ignition, linguistician, logician, magician, mathematician, Mauritian, mechanician, metaphysician, mission, monition, mortician, munition, musician, obstetrician, omission, optician, paediatrician (US pediatrician), patrician, petition, Phoenician, physician, politician, position, rhetorician, sedition, statistician, suspicion, tactician, technician, theoretician, Titian, tuition, volition •addiction, affliction, benediction, constriction, conviction, crucifixion, depiction, dereliction, diction, eviction, fiction, friction, infliction, interdiction, jurisdiction, malediction, restriction, transfixion, valediction •distinction, extinction, intinction •ascription, circumscription, conscription, decryption, description, Egyptian, encryption, inscription, misdescription, prescription, subscription, superscription, transcription •proscription •concoction, decoction •adoption, option •abortion, apportion, caution, contortion, distortion, extortion, portion, proportion, retortion, torsion •auction •absorption, sorption •commotion, devotion, emotion, groschen, Laotian, locomotion, lotion, motion, notion, Nova Scotian, ocean, potion, promotion •ablution, absolution, allocution, attribution, circumlocution, circumvolution, Confucian, constitution, contribution, convolution, counter-revolution, destitution, dilution, diminution, distribution, electrocution, elocution, evolution, execution, institution, interlocution, irresolution, Lilliputian, locution, perlocution, persecution, pollution, prosecution, prostitution, restitution, retribution, Rosicrucian, solution, substitution, volution •cushion • resumption • München •pincushion •Belorussian, Prussian, Russian •abduction, conduction, construction, deduction, destruction, eduction, effluxion, induction, instruction, introduction, misconstruction, obstruction, production, reduction, ruction, seduction, suction, underproduction •avulsion, compulsion, convulsion, emulsion, expulsion, impulsion, propulsion, repulsion, revulsion •assumption, consumption, gumption, presumption •luncheon, scuncheon, truncheon •compunction, conjunction, dysfunction, expunction, function, junction, malfunction, multifunction, unction •abruption, corruption, disruption, eruption, interruption •T-junction • liposuction •animadversion, aspersion, assertion, aversion, Cistercian, coercion, conversion, desertion, disconcertion, dispersion, diversion, emersion, excursion, exertion, extroversion, immersion, incursion, insertion, interspersion, introversion, Persian, perversion, submersion, subversion, tertian, version •excerption