ascription

Ascription is the act of attributing a property, quality, or identity to someone or something. It covers statements that assign traits, origins, or roles to subjects, often based on social, linguistic, or normative processes. The word derives from Latin ascribere, “to write onto,” and entered English through the sense of attributing characteristics or origin.

In philosophy and linguistics, ascriptions are the representation of predicates applied to referents. For example, “The object is red” or “The plan is sound” expresses an attribution of a property or evaluation. Philosophical discussions examine when such ascriptions are true, how context, indexicals, and belief states affect truth conditions, and how errors in attribution arise.

In sociology and anthropology, ascription contrasts with achievement. An ascribed status is a social position assigned at birth or through characteristics beyond an individual's control, such as race, gender, or family lineage. An achieved status is earned through actions or choices, such as occupation or education. Ascription shapes social roles, access to resources, and life chances, and is a focus of theories on social stratification and mobility.

In other fields, ascription can refer to the attribution of responsibility, origin, or ownership, such as the ascription of a belief to a group or the attribution of a property to a physical object in a legal or historical context. Critics note that heavy reliance on ascribed characteristics can undermine agency or perpetuate stereotyping, while defenders see ascription as a necessary social and interpretive mechanism.