ABSTRACT
In contrast to the sparse literature on the naïve analysis of action, there is a considerable body of research on the methods people use to make causal attributions for behaviour. It might be thought that a method for making a causal attribution would depend on the kind of theory about behaviour held by the attributer, so that proposals about methods would follow from proposals about naïve theories of action and behaviour in general. In fact this has not been the case: Proposals about methods of causal attribution have mainly concentrated on the use of empirical cues as guides to causal loci, and have treated them as if people used them in an atheoretical manner. Whether this can be right will be considered later in the chapter. I shall begin with a review of the main proposals.
