Attribution and Symbolic Interaction: An Impasse at the Generalized Other

Attribution theory and symbolic interactionism have developed independently of each another, although both are concerned with the processes employed by ordinary people to make sense of their everyday world. It was inevitable that developments in the one should at last collide with certain well-established tenets of the other. Recent developments in attribution theory respecting differential attributions by Ego of the causes of his own and Alter's behaviors seem to collide with Mead's notion of the Generalized Other. The authors seek to define the current impasse, which they see as further confounding the problem of intersubjectivity.