50 Years of Attribution Research

in1958. In psychology it is only rarely the case that a singlepublication serves as a lighthouse, providing both the pointof departure and a continuing reference point for subse-quent researchers. Such has been the case for Heider’sbook, which played a pivotal role in starting one of socialpsychology’s most extensive research programs (Lakatos,1978). As Jones et al. (1972) put it: “It is due to Heidermore than to any other single individual that attributiontheory can be ‘attributed’” (Jones et al., 1972, p. xi). Wewill say more about the history of attribution research inour introduction to the articles of the special issue. Here, afew words about the author of the book seem appropriate(for additional information, see Weiner, 2001; Heider,1983).Fritz Heider’s (1896–1988) life overlapped a largestretch of the development of academic psychology, fromits beginnings in the 19th century to the present, and mir-rors many of the developments that took place during thistime. He began his “life as a psychologist” (Heider, 1983)as a student of philosophy and psychology in Graz (Aus-tria), where he attended the lectures of Alexius Meinong,the founder of both the Graz School of Gestalt Psychologyand one of the first experimental laboratories in the historyof psychology. Meinong also supervised Heider’s disserta-tion. Later, Heider came under the influence of the GermanGestalt Psychologists, whom he met during the 1920s inBerlin; among them Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler,and Kurt Lewin (the latter being a close friend of Heider).Like mainstream psychology, which shifted from Europeto the US during the first half of the 20th century, Heiderleft Germany in 1930 to work in the US, at first with KurtKoffka at Smith College and from 1947 as Professor ofPsychology at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. Heiderwas already in his early sixties when he published