Harold H. Kelley
Good judgment compares across people, times and settings.
American social psychologist known for attribution theory and interdependence theory.
Causal judgment improves when we compare behavior across people, situations and time.
Who they were
Harold Kelley gave a structure to how we explain behavior. To decide whether a cause lies in the person or the situation, we weigh whether others act the same way, whether the behavior is unusual for them, and whether it repeats. He also mapped how, in relationships, our outcomes depend on each other.
Famous books
What they left on the shelf
Terms they cared about
Ideas worth knowing
Their techniques
How the work was done
Best known as a theorist — their ideas shaped the techniques of those who followed.
Their big idea
Covariation Model
Harold Kelley proposed that people infer causes by weighing three kinds of information — consensus, distinctiveness and consistency — and developed interdependence theory to explain how partners’ outcomes shape cooperation and conflict.
Questions in their spirit
What they’d ask you
Sit with one. Answer online, or in the app.
Carry the idea forward
Kelley — What they’d ask you
Psipas asks you one small, honest question at a time — and builds the picture from your answers.