attribution
/atrɪˈbjuːʃ(ə)n
/noun [mass noun] (often attribution to)
1The action of regarding something as being caused by a person or thing: the electorate was disillusioned with his immediate attribution of the bombings to a separatist group...
- Factors to consider are researcher beliefs and attitudes, facts and ideas, the attribution of causation, and the discovery role of historical writing.
- If there is a subsequent decline in value, that decline may affect the attribution to pre-acquisition profits under the rest of the section.
- The opposite pattern of attributions (internal, stable; external, unstable) is deemed "depressogenic."
1.1The action of ascribing a work or remark to a particular author, artist, or person: the study of Constable is fraught with problems of attribution the attribution to Mozart on the title page is correct [count noun]: none of the texts in the collection contained author attributions...
- Peter has written rather more of this than he lets on, leaving thorny problems of attribution for future historians.
- Only occasionally is the attribution or dating of a work discussed.
- Recently the museum returned to an attribution to Lebel, still with little discussion of the problem.
1.2The action of regarding a quality or feature as characteristic of or possessed by a person or thing: the main unreality of this novel is her attribution of complicated emotions to her male characters [count noun]: attributions of false motives, especially of greed, are commonplace...
- They have absorbed the English-speaking colonialist attribution of barbarity to the Irish language.
- The attribution of magical and personal properties to the contents of his work is consistent with his belief in the artist as shaman and art as revelatory.
- Such group attribution could form part of the construction of the enemy.
Derivatives
attributional
- According to the theory, different individuals possess different attributional styles.
- Recent developmental research suggests that very young children do show attributional patterns.
- These three attributional responses were analyzed separately by gender.