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I just spotted the tag "attribution" and I think that its usage is not very fortnunate: https://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/attribution.

In psychology, the term attribution is closely linked to Heider's Attribution theory.

Both questions that are tagged with "attribution" so far appear to be not tightly connected to this theory. The question about the perceived driver performance might at least be remotely linked to attribution theory (or can be explained in terms of it), but the question about STDP and causal inference is not (although causal inference can be discussed in terms of the attribution theory).

Therefore:

(1) Which meaning is intended by the "attribution" tag?

(2) Is there a better name for this tag?

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  • Interesting question. It's great to have you involved on the main site and meta.
    – Jeromy Anglim
    Apr 17, 2012 at 7:32

1 Answer 1

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When I used it on this question about perceptions of driving I was using the tag to refer to how individuals assign causality to events and outcomes. E.g., as described in the wikipedia article on the psychology of attribution.

I saw the driving question as relevant to theories of attribution for several reasons. For example, actor-observor bias may partially explain why people think they are better drivers than others and this has close connections with attribution theory. In general, how you attribute positive and negative driving outcomes will presumably be related to how you think about your own driving ability.

Anyway, I guess we could debate whether that tag makes sense on that specific question, but broadly, I intended to use the attribution tag on questions about the psychological concept of attribution.

Perhaps we could add a definition to the tag.

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    I agree that using this tag for your question makes sense given your explanation. A definition for this tag (maybe with a link to the wikipedia article would be helpful).
    – H.Muster
    Apr 17, 2012 at 8:07
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    Okay. I've added a tag definition: cogsci.stackexchange.com/tags/attribution/info
    – Jeromy Anglim
    Apr 17, 2012 at 9:23
  • Great definition, I like it. I removed the tag "attribution" from the STDP quesition because it did not fit there, right? Also accepted your answer, since your definition settled the discussion.
    – H.Muster
    Apr 17, 2012 at 9:47
  • Thanks. The definition comes from Wikipedia :-) Creative commons.
    – Jeromy Anglim
    Apr 17, 2012 at 9:49

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