Reisman, S. R., & Schopler, J. (1973). An analysis of the attribution process and an application to determinants of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25(3), 361-368.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0034230
Conducted 2 studies testing a reinterpretation of F. Heider's theory of the attribution processes. The main innovation was a specific separation of the disposition from the person, which resulted in 3 entities: person, disposition, and event. Each of these entities was related to the other 2 by unit relations. 318 undergraduates read short stories about a military battle and were then asked to assign responsibility for either a won or a lost battle to both a major and a captain. Exp. I demonstrated that the strength of a unit relation between a person and a disposition could be varied, and that as the strength of this relation increased, a concommitant increase occurred in the amount of responsibility assigned to the person for the event that followed from the disposition. This result was replicated in Exp. II in which a significant trend was found over 5 different strengths of the unit relation. Manipulation of the importance of the event had no effect on the assignment of responsibility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)