ABSTRACT
THE CONTRIBUTION OF ATTRIBUTION THEORY Attribution theory provides a useful vehicle for examining these interrelationships and constructions more closely. Heider (1944, 1958) assumed that people perceive their social environments as predictable, and that the observed behaviour of others could be attributed to inferred intentions. He writes:
(Jones and Davis 1965: 222) Clearly the educational backgrounds and personal philosophies assumed to be associated with various personnel, from parents to ancillaries to support teachers, will strongly influence the attribution of intentions in observed action in the classroom. The professional-lay relationships will fare differently from the professional-professional ones, if attribution theory is correct. Jones and Davis' model builds on Heider's original model to suggest that the kind of responsibility attributed to the co-worker is assignable to different levels. Those levels are:
1 association (i.e. responsible for all effects with which the person is associated);
2 commission (responsible for effects instrumental in producing); 3 foreseeability (only for those which could have been foreseen); and 4 intentionality (only for those intended). Team members will, it seems, build more or less correct impressions of their co-workers' biographies and these will determine the level of responsibility assumed for success or failure. In other words, attribution theory predicts that heterogeneous teams (comprising perhaps teacher, parent, ancillary) will fare better than professionally homogeneous teams (teacher-teacher) because of the lesser likelihood that in the former there will be responsibility assigned by the host teacher to her co-participants for tensions or disjunctions in the activity of the class.
