Abstract

Heider's theoretical framework and other researchers' empirical findings about responsibility judgment(RJ) were reviewed critically in the present paper. In spite of the meanings of responsibility(e.g. moral responsibility, causality, and liability so on) are varied with contexts which it was used, most of researchers including Heider didn't specify them in their works. As a result, their findings are in conflict now. If we classify responsibility into moral responsibility, causality, and liability, most of conflicts in the theoretical and empirical researches of RJ would be resolved. Although several criteria which determine each type of responsibility are different from one another, it seems that they consist of a Guttman-type scale to measure the target's overall responsibility. Finally, some suggestions to be considered for further researches of RJ are mentioned.