Homeric Attribution of Outcomes and Divine Causation

Abstract

Abstract:One branch of attribution theory in social psychology studies how people explain the outcomes of what they and others attempt. In Homeric epic, both narrator and characters stress ability. Effort is taken for granted unless it is inadequate. Task difficulty is salient only when characters try to persuade others. Luck is very important in the poems, but is not marked as such. Where luck would be especially significant, divine intervention appears instead. The characters, however, can often only infer divine intervention, and their ability to infer the gods' motives is limited. Claims about divine action are rhetorically motivated.