ABSTRACT

My purpose in this chapter is to draw out some implications of the preceding chapters for research on causal attribution, by which I mean the study of people's causal explanations for behaviour, by themselves or others. Some of these implications have already been discussed in previous chapters. Most importantly, the basic conceptualisation of causation in terms of powers and releasing conditions leads to a different view of what people are doing in making causal attributions: such attributions are often automatic rather than thoughtful, and involve the application of a specific pre-existing belief rather than the use of inductive methods to identify a causal locus. I shall not cover that ground again here. The main focus here is on the basic concept of action.