ABSTRACT
“Why was she just so rude to me?” “Why did that driver cut me off?” “Why did she bring me flowers unexpectedly?” “Why did he vote for that candidate?” Why questions are ones that we ask ourselves many times throughout the day. As social actors, we have a strong desire to form an understanding of ourselves, and of those around us. Our search for answers to these “Why?” questions can range from being very deliberate and effort ful on one end of the spectrum, to quick and mostly effort less on the other end of the spectrum. For many years, researchers have studied the processes surrounding our causal searches, as well as the intra-and interpersonal consequences of such searches. This chapter deals with what we know about our journey to answer those “Why?” questions: causal attributions.
