Resisting Designations: An Extension of Attribution Theory into a Negotiated Context*

While attribution theory has generated a great deal of interesting research, it tends to be overly deterministic, failing to recognize the social context in which attributions occur. In response to this an attempt is made to place attribution theory in an interactionist framework, with particular emphasis on the conditions under which a target andlor others interested in the target's situation may resist undesired attributions.