Preschoolers' and adults' attributions of who causes interpersonal events

Adults and 4‐year‐olds explained who caused prosocial or antisocial interactions between two characters who differed in two dimensions that underlie interpersonal traits. Participants saw pictures depicting every pairwise combination of four characters (good/powerful, good/weak, bad/powerful or bad/weak) as initiators or recipients of six actions. Both children and adults made causal attributions to ‘good’ characters for prosocial behaviours and to ‘bad’ characters for antisocial behaviours. Potency influenced the frequency of attributions. Adults and children differed in the justifications of their attributions and in their reconciliations of contradictory information, e.g. a positive character initiating an antisocial act. Explanations of social events are based on characteristics of both interactants in combination with whether the event is prosocial or antisocial. The findings thus extend work on children's ‘theory‐of‐mind’ to the realm of interpersonal interactions, where beliefs, desires or dispositions of either of two characters can cause an event. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Causal attributions for unemployment in Barbados

The importance of various explanations for unemployment in their country was rated by 468 predominantly young people from the Caribbean island of Barbados. The twenty explanations provided, which were taken from other studies, showed a clear structure. The six factors that emerged from them were lack of effort on the part of the unemployed, lack of ability, failure of trade unions, effects of government policy, regional and world-wide changes, and poor industrial management. Endorsement of these explanations was related to sex, age, and education, but was not related very clearly to employment status.     

Causal attributions of shy subjects

Causal attributions of shy students (N = 36) were compared with those of a comparison group of students (N = 36) in 10 situations. The major hypothesis was that shy students would have a self-defeating pattern of attributions as compared to the norm group, but only in specific situations. Significant differences between the two groups emerged when explaining outcomes of situations considered to be problematic for shy individuals. Causal attributions may reflect realistic and situation-specific self-perceptions.     

Causal attributions in premenstrual syndrome

Abstract

The relationship between causal attributions and symptoms was investigated with self-report inventories in patients with premenstrual syndrome (n=38) and controls (n=26) during the premenstrual as well as the intermenstrual phase of the cycle. Patients with prospectively confirmed premenstrual exacerbations of physical and psychological symptoms more frequently attributed their complaints during premenstruum to the cycle than was the case during the intermenstrual period. Controls showed no differences in types of explanations for complaints in either phase of the cycle. It appeared that patients used not only the menstrual cycle, but also psychological distress and physical exertion, more often then controls as an explanation for complaints during both phases of the cycle. Implications of the finding that patients used medical as well as non-medical explanations for complaints during the cycle are discussed with regard to treatment strategies for PMS.     

Causal attributions for losing as perceived by adolescents

To assess the causal attributions for losing perceived by both early and late adolescents, a sample of 150 high school students responded to a questionnaire comprising three categories of activities (sport, academic, and social) in which they had not won or achieved a desired outcome. The obtained attributions for not winning were categorized into four areas: task difficulty, luck, effort, or ability. Adolescent girls indicated significantly more internal attributions and boys more external attributions. Seventh graders' attributions were external and twelfth graders' were internal. No differences emerged as a function of high and low self-esteem. Implications for the structure of achievement tasks are discussed.     

Causal attributions from adolescence through adulthood

Attributional reasoning for events varying on level of informational ambiguity and context (relationship, achievement) were examined from adolescence through older adulthood. Participants rated the degree to which a cause of an event was a function of the primary character, situation, or a combination of these; wrote essays assessing underlying reasons for attributions; and responded to ego level, attributional style, and intolerance for ambiguity questionnaires. Older age groups made more interactive (relativistic) attributional ratings than did younger age groups for ambiguous events. Compared to adult and middle-aged adults, older women demonstrated a drop in dialectical attributional reasoning as assessed by the essays. Ego level, tolerance for ambiguity, and verbal ability predicted more dialectical attributional reasoning above and beyond the effects of age.     

Causal attributions for heart disease: A systematic review

Abstract

The aims of this systematic literature review are to describe the pattern of attributions made for the causes of heart disease, and to determine how this pattern varies with the method by which attributions are elicited, and the respondent group.

A search yielded 47 papers and reports, containing 54 datasets. Lifestyle factors and chronic stress were the most common causes cited across all datasets. Attributions to stressors and fate or luck were more likely to be reported in studies that used interval rating scales than in studies that used dichotomous ratings. Cardiac patients were more likely to mention stressors and fate or luck as causes of heart disease; non-patients rated being overweight and hypertensive as more important

The differences observed between the responses of patients and non-patients may be due to actor - observer differences, or to a methodological difference: patients are often asked to report their own experiences whereas non-patients are asked about the general case.     

Causal attributions of obese men and women in genetic testing: Implications of genetic/biological attributions1

The present study sought to investigate genetic/biological attributions of obesity, their associations with a predisposition to obesity and their crossectional and longitudinal implications for weight regulation in obese individuals presenting for genetic testing and counselling. A total of 421 obese men and women underwent psychological and anthropometric assessment and a mutation screen of the melanocortin-4 receptor gene. At study entry, women revealed more genetic/biological attributions than men on the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire adapted to obesity (86.2% versus 59.7%). Genetic/biological attributions of obesity were associated in both sexes with a family history of obesity, assessed through Stunkard's Figure Rating Scale. In both sexes, genetic/biological attributions were unrelated to weight regulation beliefs and behaviour (i.e. self-efficacy, controllability beliefs, restrained eating and physical activity), assessed through standardised questionnaires or interview at baseline and at six-month follow-up. In addition, causal attributions and weight regulation beliefs and behaviour were not predictive of body mass index at six-month follow-up. Overall, the results indicate that causal attributions of obesity to genetic/biological factors in obese individuals presenting for genetic screening and counselling are crossectionally and longitudinally unrelated to weight regulation and longer-term weight outcome. Those who attribute their obesity to genetic/biological factors likely have a familial obesity risk.     

Group performance and interpersonal evaluations as determinants of egotistical attributions in groups1

Group members often try to claim personal credit for the successes of their group while avoiding blame for group failures. Two experiments examined the effects of evaluations from their fellows on such egotism in groups. In Experiment 1, 96 subjects participated in four-person, problem-solving groups, and, after completing the group tasks, rated the competency and worth of each of the other group members. Subjects then received bogus written feedback indicating that the group had either succeeded or failed, and that the other members had considered them: (a) the most competent member of the group, (b) the least competent, or (c) of average competence. Group performance and personal evaluations interacted in influencing subjects' perceptions of their personal performances, relative responsibility for the group performance, and potency within the group, generally supporting predictions derived from self-esteem and equity theory. Subjects claimed more responsibility for success than for failure only when they were favorably evaluated by their peers, and claimed the least responsibility for group success when they were unfavorably evaluated. The latter acceptance of negative peer evaluations was examined in Experiment 2, which manipulated the consensus of the evaluations given 76 high or low self-esteem subjects. Regardless of their self-esteem or the consensus of the evaluations, subjects again seemed to accept unfavorable evaluations. High self-esteem subjects did, though, rate their personal performance and relative responsibility higher than low self-esteem subjects.     

A Gricean approach to the use of consensus and distinctiveness in causal attributions of verbally described interpersonal events

Various causal attribution theories, starting with the covariation model, argue that people use consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency information to causally explain events and behaviors. Yet, the visual presentation of the covariation model in the form of a cube is based on the assumptions that these dimensions generally affect attributions independently, symmetrically, and equally. A Gricean analysis suggests that these assumptions may not generally hold in the case of causal judgments for verbally communicated interpersonal events. We had participants judge the causal role of an actor and a patient in interpersonal events that were described through actor‐verb‐patient sentences under high versus low consensus and distinctiveness (Studies 1, 2, and 3) or without such information (Studies 2 and 3). As predicted by Gricean logic, consensus and distinctiveness effects on causality ratings depended on the target whose causal role participants assessed, on the information about the alternative dimension, and, most consistently, on consensus and distinctiveness being high versus low. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Distortion in control attributions for real life events

A pool of life events was prerated as either positive or negative and likely or unlikely to recur. Undergraduate subjects then rated their control over their own life events and the average student's control over his/her life events. As predicted, subjects self-attributed more control over positive than negative events and self-attributed more control than they attributed control to others for positive events. However, self-attributions and attributions to others of control for negative events did not differ. Results thus provided support for self-enhancement but not for self-protection. It was also predicted that control motivation would lead subjects to (a) self-attribute more control for recurrent than nonrecurrent events, (b) self-attribute more control than they attribute to others over all events, and (c) self-attribute more control than they attribute to others for recurrent but not nonrecurrent events. The first and second of these predictions were confirmed, providing support for the operation of control motivation on real life events.     

Causal attributions during therapy I: Responsibility and blame

The way that responsibility is attributed and blame is expressed and apportioned in families is a crucial but rather neglected issue for family therapy. A case is made for analysing causal attributions as a way to gain a better understanding of these processes. The Leeds Attributional Coding System (Stratton et al. , 1988) was used to analyse all the attributions made early in therapy by eight families which included biological, step- and adoptive parents. Some 1799 attributions made by family members during ten therapy sessions were identified and their attributional dimensions recorded. Both parents and children used attributional patterns consistent with blaming the child and there was evidence of the occurrence of an 'attributional discrepancy', found previously in families of abuse, with more personal and controllable causes being applied to the child. Considering attributional dimensions in combination proved an effective way of identifying incidences of characterological blaming. Limited changes in the form of these attributions, by focusing on change in just one of the dimensions, could convert them into more benign and productive contributions to family conversations.     

Causal judgement from information about outcome magnitude

Information was presented in which a candidate cause was either present or absent, and the outcome variable (number of spots on a patient's skin) could take any of four nonzero values. It was found that cause-absent information carried greater weight than cause-present information. This is contrary to the usual finding for contingency information about binary outcome variables. Judgement was influenced more by extreme values of the outcome variable, and larger outcome values tended to have more effect on judgements than smaller outcome values. The hypothesis that participants compute linear correlation is disconfirmed by these results. Instead, the results show that participants focus disproportionate attention on some kinds of events and neglect others.     

Causal attributions, sanctions, and normal mood variations

The causal-locus hypothesis (CLH) asserts that persons making internal attributions for failure and external attributions for success experience more negative postoutcome moods than persons making the opposite attributions. Three experiments assessed the CLH. Although outcomes consistently affected moods and attributions, attributions did not affect moods. Significant correlations consistent with the CLH were also infrequently obtained. Another theory, the sanctioned-object hypothesis (SOH), was proposed for understanding how causal attributions lead to mood changes. This hypothesis asserts that the application of positive or negative sanctions to objects in the perceptual field is a central determinant of mood and that attributions affect mood when their content and salience activate sanctioning processes. A fourth experiment evaluated the competing theories. The results supported the SOH but not the CLH. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding mood variations and the effects that moods have on the construction of attributions and for adopting methodological alternatives that may be valuable for future laboratory research studying mood variations.     

Causal attributions of physical education majors and mentally retarded adults

This exploratory study examined the causal attributions and expectancies of 51 physical education majors and 25 mentally retarded adults. The majors completed a written questionnaire concerning their causal attributions and expectancies for motor performance of the adults. The adults responded through an interview procedure regarding causal attributions and expectancies for their own motor performance. Analysis did not support the hypothesis that people make stable attributions about the performance of mentally retarded populations and subsequently maintain low expectancies. Previous experiences of failure did not diminish the expectancies of the adults for their own future success.     

Causal attributions and information seeking to explain success and failure

Previous studies of attributions for success and failure have relied upon a theoretically derived set of causal attributions, either luck versus skill (derived from Rotter, 1966) or ability, effort, luck, and task difficulty (Weiner et al., 1971; Weiner, 1972). The same tendency of relying upon a set of logically derived cues has been evident in investigations of information-processing in making attributional judgments for success and failure (e.g., Fontaine, 1972; Frieze & Weiner, 1971). Two studies were conducted which employed an open-ended format to determine the relevance of the causal categories and information which have been utilized in previous studies. Results of these studies supported the validity of previously employed causal categories and information cues as well as establishing other important but previously ignored causes and sources of information.     

Causal empiricism and mental events

Conclusion The present paradox illustrates a deep interconnection between two superficially unrelated metaphysical problems: the nature of mental events and the analysis of causation. I have not tried to resolve the paradox, but only to explain it and to describe the available tactics for resolving it. Although I have also mentioned some of the various considerations that might be advanced in the pursuit of these tactics, I do not claim to have canvassed all such considerations. Since the list of tactics itself is exhaustive, however, and since the four propositions of the paradox are jointly inconsistent, it follows that at least one of these tactics must be correct.