Causal attribution,coping strategies,and combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder

The present study assesses the intervening role of ways of coping in mediating the effects of causal attribution for negative events on combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The sample consisted of Israeli soldiers who suffered a combat stress reaction episode during the 1982 Lebanon War and were followed 2 and 3 years after their participation in combat. The results showed that an attribution of negative events to stable and uncontrollable causes was associated with both a more frequent use of emotion-focused coping and a less frequent use of problem-focused coping. It was also found that emotion-focused coping and problem-focused coping were more direct antecedents of combat-related PTSD than causal attribution. Finally, it was found that the association between causal attribution and combat-related PTSD was mediated by variations in emotion-focused coping. The discussion attempts to integrate theoretical notions derived from attributional models and Lazarus and Folkman's stress-coping model.     

Individual Determinants of Behavioral Intentions: What tells us that practitioners really want to change hiring strategies?

The current study investigated hiring managers' intentional readiness to change hiring procedures as a function of individual determinants, such as their self‐efficacy beliefs, causal attributions, and past behaviors. Hiring managers from three large organizations were recruited to participate and provide information about their current hiring processes and personal experiences. Results showed that self‐efficacy beliefs had a strong negative relationship with intentional readiness to change. Managers' past behavior, in terms of use of unstructured interviews and external attributions of failure, were negatively associated with intentional readiness to change, while use of unstructured interviews and external attribution of success were positively associated with intentional readiness to change. Furthermore, the interactive effect of causal attribution and use of selection methods played a significant role in explaining intentional readiness for change. The results indicated that recruiting managers who preferred using unstructured interviews and attributed failures to external causes were less willing to change hiring practices than those who made less use of unstructured interviews and explained their failure externally. Implications and limitations are discussed.     

An empirical test of the covariation analysis in causal attribution

The present investigation was designed to reveal the cognitive inference processes associated with both detection and utilization of covariation information in causal attribution. Male undergraduates were (a) informed that a test was easy or difficult and shown a videotape in which (b) the test-taker's performance was high or low, and (c) covariation between the test-taker's effort expenditure and trial-by-trial outcome was present or absent. High performance was attributed to the test-taker's effort and ability, whereas low performance was attributed to the difficulty of the test. However, recognition of the covariance relationship decreased the attribution of high performance to ability and of low performance to test difficulty and increased the attribution of low performance to effort. Effort attribution in the high performance condition was independent of covariation information. The results are discussed in terms of the relationship between covariation information and typical beliefs about the causes of achievement outcomes.     

Time and Singular Causation—A Computational Model

Causal queries about singular cases, which inquire whether specific events were causally connected, are prevalent in daily life and important in professional disciplines such as the law, medicine, or engineering. Because causal links cannot be directly observed, singular causation judgments require an assessment of whether a co-occurrence of two events c and e was causal or simply coincidental. How can this decision be made? Building on previous work by Cheng and Novick (2005) and Stephan and Waldmann (2018), we propose a computational model that combines information about the causal strengths of the potential causes with information about their temporal relations to derive answers to singular causation queries. The relative causal strengths of the potential cause factors are relevant because weak causes are more likely to fail to generate effects than strong causes. But even a strong cause factor does not necessarily need to be causal in a singular case because it could have been preempted by an alternative cause. We here show how information about causal strength and about two different temporal parameters, the potential causes' onset times and their causal latencies, can be formalized and integrated into a computational account of singular causation. Four experiments are presented in which we tested the validity of the model. The results showed that people integrate the different types of information as predicted by the new model.     

An intrasubject approach to causal attribution

The present investigation draws on the judgment research tradition in order to examine the causal attributions made by individual subjects in an often used attribution task. Formal empirical tests of Kelley's (1967) attribution theory have demonstrated that attributions are influenced by the interaction of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency information. None of these studies, however, have separately examined attributions made by individual judges. Implicit assumptions about individual differences, for example, have been made by the template-matching model of causal attribution (Orvis, Cunningham, & Kelley, 1975) but have not been scrutinized at the intrasubject level. Log linear modeling of attributions in the present research showed that while subjects were influenced by the causal information in the task, the relation between this information and attributions was more importantly characterized by individual differences than by uniform patterning. The nature of these individual differences and the significance of an idiographic approach to causal analysis are discussed.     

The best teacher: Mediating effects of experience with employed women on men managers' responses to subordinates' mistakes

What role does experience with working women play in determining men managers' views of women managers? To investigate this question, we analyzed responses of a small sample of experienced men managers with varying degrees of experience with working women. Of primary concern were men managers' attribution of causes for a woman manager's poor performance and their choice of response to such poor performance. The data confirmed that experience with women managers as colleagues and with employed wives affects the stability of men managers' causal attributions as well as the severity of their responses to a woman manager's poor performance. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Attributional Beliefs About the Controllability of Stigmatized Traits: Antecedents or Justifications of Prejudice?1

Correlational studies show that prejudiced people attribute stigmatized traits to controllable causes, and blame stigmatized groups for their own fate. Attribution theory argues that causal attributions cause prejudice, and that changes in attributional beliefs produce changes in attitudes. In contrast, the justification–suppression model describes attributions to controllable causes as justifications of pre‐existing prejudices. Study participants reported their attitudes toward 1 of 4 stigmatized groups, read information that manipulated their attributional beliefs, listed their thoughts, and reported their attitudes again. Supporting the suppression–justification model, initially prejudiced participants spontaneously produced more thoughts about the controllability of stigmatized identities. Refuting attribution theory, manipulating attributional beliefs had no effect on attitudes. Implications for applications of attribution theory to reduce prejudice are discussed.     

Social support,coping, and depressive symptoms in cardiac illness among Hispanic and non-Hispanic White cardiac patients

In Multi-Trait Multi-Method (MTMM) studies of causal attributions for laboratory events, there is little evidence of convergent and discriminant validity for attribution measures. We report the first MTMM study to investigate the validity of two methods of eliciting causal beliefs for an illness, specifically, myocardial infarction. Adult respondents (N?=?107) listed causes of MI, then completed questionnaire rating scales for causal beliefs for MI. Measures were compared using both Campbell and Fiske's approach to MTMM analyses, and a Confirmatory Factor Analysis approach. Neither single item measures causal beliefs, nor scales of causal beliefs derived using exploratory factor analysis provided much evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that a model containing only causal belief factors provided a moderately good fit to the data. Adding a questionnaire method factor significantly improved the fit of the model, as well as substantially changing the pattern of factor loadings: loadings of questionnaire items on causal belief factors were markedly reduced. These results highlight major problems with the measurement of causal beliefs, and in particular question the validity of factor analysis of questionnaire measures of causal beliefs. They also suggest that at least some of the MI causal belief factors reported in the literature are artefacts of common questionnaire method variance.     

Moral Values Reveal the Causality Implicit in Verb Meaning

Prior work has found that moral values that build and bind groups—that is, the binding values of ingroup loyalty, respect for authority, and preservation of purity—are linked to blaming people who have been harmed. The present research investigated whether people's endorsement of binding values predicts their assignment of the causal locus of harmful events to the victims of the events. We used an implicit causality task from psycholinguistics in which participants read a sentence in the form “SUBJECT verbed OBJECT because…” where male and female proper names occupy the SUBJECT and OBJECT position. The participants were asked to predict the pronoun that follows “because”—the referent to the subject or object—which indicates their intuition about the likely cause of the event. We also collected explicit judgments of causal contributions and measured participants' moral values to investigate the relationship between moral values and the causal interpretation of events. Using two verb sets and two independent replications (N = 459, 249, 788), we found that greater endorsement of binding values was associated with a higher likelihood of selecting the object as the cause for harmful events in the implicit causality task, a result consistent with, and supportive of, previous moral psychological work on victim blaming. Endorsement of binding values also predicted explicit causal attributions to victims. Overall, these findings indicate that moral values that support the group rather than the individual reliably predict that people shift the causal locus of harmful events to those affected by the harms.     

Causal Attributions for Poorly Performing Projects: Their Effect on Project Continuation Decisions

This study examined the escalation problem within an attribution theory framework. Students read a case scenario containing causal attribution information that described a poorly performing project under their supervision. They made estimates of its future success, as well as a decision whether to continue it. Perceived stability of causality had the primary effect on expectancy of success. A project whose performance downturn was attributed to a stable cause had a lower expectancy. Locus of causality had a smaller but still significant effect. Project downturns attributed to internal causes had a lower expectancy. Expectancy of success was significantly correlated with project continuation decisions. Discrepancies between these results and those reported by Staw and Ross (1978) are accounted for in terms of Weiner's (1985, 1986) attributional analysis.     

The role of social perspective in perceiving the causes of success and failure1

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that observers' causal attributions about an actor's performance at a task would be affected by their social perspective in observing the situation. Observer subjects were either assigned to serve in a role comparable to that of observer-subjects in most actor-observer experiments or were assigned a distinctive role more divergent from the social perspective of the actor. As expected, observers with a similar social perspective to that of the actor made more flattering attributions about the actor's performance than observers with a dissimilar social perspective. We concluded that actor-observer differences in attribution for an actor's performance in any one experiment cannot be taken as definitive evidence either for or against the defensive attribution idea.     

Telling what they want to know: participants tailor causal attributions to researchers' interests

Based on a conversational analysis of experimental procedures and consistent with the principle of relevance, we predicted that participants' verbal responses will be influenced by their tacit inferences about the researcher's epistemic goals, derived from their knowledge of the researcher's academic affiliation. We tested this prediction in a core area of social‐personality and cultural psychology, causal attribution. University students provided causal attributions about mass murder cases, while the questionnaire identified the researcher either as a social scientist or a personality psychologist. The results indicated that attributions were overall more situational than dispositional, and as predicted, this main effect was qualified by an interaction between conversational cue and type of attribution. Thus, participants gave relatively more situational explanations when the letterhead of the questionnaire identified the researcher as a social scientist compared to when the researcher was identified as a personality psychologist. The reverse pattern emerged for dispositional attributions. Methodological and conceptual implications are discussed. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Can we fight stigma with science? The effect of aetiological framing on attitudes towards anorexia nervosa and the impact on volitional stigma

The present study experimentally investigated the way in which exposure to various aetiological explanations of anorexia nervosa (AN) differentially affected stigmatisation and behavioural intention outcomes. University students (N = 161) were randomly assigned to read one of four aetiological vignettes presenting the causes of AN as biological/genetic, socio‐cultural, environmental, or multifactorial. Results indicate that those who received a socio‐cultural explanation made stronger socio‐cultural causal attributions, fewer biological/genetic causal attributions, and were significantly less willing to sign a health insurance petition for AN. Unexpectedly, the multifactorial group considered individuals with AN as more responsible and blameworthy for their condition. Overall, findings were comparative with previous research and partially support the propositions of attribution theory. Results also suggest that by conceptualising the aetiology of AN as biological or genetic, or at least increasing one's knowledge of these contributing factors, it may be possible to decrease the level of blame‐based stigma associated with AN.     

Annoyance and Behavior

Abstract

The effects of prolonged deprivation and task outcome on causal attribution were examined in a 2 × 2 factorial design with two levels of deprivation (high and low) and two levels of outcome (success and failure). Subjects (N = 60) were selected on the basis of extreme scores on a prolonged deprivation scale; they worked at 10 six-letter Hindi anagram tasks, the difficulty of which was varied to induce success and failure. Subsequently, they were asked to rate the degree to which they considered ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck as the causes of their outcome. Low-deprived subjects, as compared to high-deprived subjects, considered effort and ability major causes of their success (internal attribution) and bad luck the major cause of their failure (external attribution). Prolonged deprivation thus seems to have affected attribution of success and failure.     

Locus of causality and the use of information in the development of causal attributions1

Two studies were conducted to examine whether attributions made about events may be influenced by individual assumptions regarding causation that are age related. In Study 1, 96 subjects at three age levels (four and five years, eight and nine years, and college students) observed a target actor on videotape select an item from an unseen array, and four other actors either agree (high consensus) or disagree (low consensus) with the choice. Subjects were asked to decide why the actor liked the chosen object best—because of something about the actor (person attribution) or because of something about the item (entity attribution). The results showed that perceived locus of causality shifted from entity to person attributions with age. In addition, subjects at all ages were able to utilize the consensus information when they had no opportunity to form their own impressions about the items in the array. In Study 2, 126 subjects at four age levels (five and six years, seven and eight years, nine and ten years, and high school students) chose an item from among an array for themselves and responded to a person (self)/entity attribution question regarding the locus of their own choice. The entity to person shift with age was again found and was supported by additional measures. The results are discussed in terms of children's causal reasoning capacities and social environmental factors affecting developmental change in social judgments.     

Attributing illness to 'old age:' consequences of a self-directed stereotype for health and mortality

Stereotypic beliefs about older adults and the aging process have led to endorsement of the myth that 'to be old is to be ill.' This study examined community-dwelling older adults' (N?=?105, age 80+) beliefs about the causes of their chronic illness (ie, heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc.), and tested the hypothesis that attributing the onset of illness to 'old age' is associated with negative health outcomes. A series of multiple regressions (controlling for chronological age, gender, income, severity of chronic conditions, functional status and health locus of control) demonstrated that 'old age' attributions were associated with more frequent perceived health symptoms, poorer health maintenance behaviours and a greater likelihood of mortality at 2-year follow-up. The probability of death was more than double among participants who strongly endorsed the 'old age' attribution as compared to those who did not (36% vs. 14%). Findings are framed in the context of self-directed stereotypes and implications for potential interventions are considered.     

The temporal stability and predictive validity of pupils' causal attributions for difficult classroom behaviour

Background. Recent studies have investigated the causal attributions for difficult pupil behaviour made by teachers, pupils, and parents but none have investigated the temporal stability or predictive validity of these attributions. Aims. This study examines the causal attributions made for difficult classroom behaviour by students on two occasions 30 months apart. The longitudinal stability of these attributions is considered as is the predictive validity of the first set of attributions in relation to teachers' later judgments about individual students' behaviour. Sample. Two hundred and seventeen secondary school age pupils (114 males, 103 females) provided data on the two occasions. Teachers also rated each student's behaviour at the two times. Method. A questionnaire listing 63 possible causes of classroom misbehaviour was delivered to pupils firstly when they were in Year 7 (aged 11–12) and then again, 30 months later. Responses were analysed through exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Additionally, teachers were asked to rate the standard of behaviour of each of the students on the two occasions. Results. EFA of the Years 7 and 10 data indicated that pupils' attributions yielded broadly similar five‐factor models with the perceived relative importance of these factors remaining the same. Analysis also revealed a predictive relationship between pupils' attributions regarding the factor named culture of misbehaviour in Year 7, and teachers' judgments of their standard of behaviour in Year 10. Conclusion. The present study suggests that young adolescents' causal attributions for difficult classroom behaviour remain stable over time and are predictive of teachers' later judgments about their behaviour.     

The other way around: Effects of causal attributions on estimates of consensus,distinctiveness, and consistency

It was hypothesized that the attributed cause of a given person's behavior will affect inferences about its generalizability over persons (consensus), stimuli (distinctiveness), and circumstances (consistency). Moreover, these effects were expected to parallel the effects of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency information on causal attributions. Experiment 1 provided support for these predictions but also showed that attribution affected consensus judgments less than it affected judgments of distinctiveness and consistency, particularly when consensus was not the first characteristic estimated. Using a different set of stimulus materials and a different manipulation of attribution, Experiments 2 and 3 provided further evidence for the effects of attribution on inferences of consensus information. Experiment 3 indicated that the false consensus effect—actors' tendency to assume that the majority of people share their behavior—may be due to actors' tendency to attribute their behavior to situational factors. Implications of the present studies for biased estimates of consensus and the use of consensus and attribution as mediating variables are discussed.     

The causal influences of attributions on emotions: a procedural priming approach

According to attributional theories of emotion, feelings of guilt presuppose that the causes of a negative event are located within the individual (internal attribution), whereas feelings of anger presuppose that the causes of the eliciting event are located outside the individual (external attribution). This study tested whether these attributions in fact exert the claimed causal influence on emotional experiences. The study employed a procedural priming technique in which neutral events were repeatedly attributed either to oneself (internal attribution) or to another person (external attribution). Subsequently, participants were exposed to a negative event that was ambiguous as to its causes. The results reveal that the prior repeated use of internal attributions enhanced the tendency to experience guilt, whereas the repeated use of external attributions enhanced the tendency to experience anger. These findings support the assumption that attributions exert a causal influence on emotions.     

Relating covariation information to causal dimensions through principles of contrast and invariance

This paper examines the proposition that covariation information guides judgments about the dimensionality of attributions on the basis of causal principles of contrast and invariance, which are derived from Mill's methods of difference and agreement respectively. It is argued that the standard attribution categories specified in earlier research (e.g. person, occasion and stimulus) represent just one extreme of the attributional dimensions and require the principle of contrast, whereas additional attributional categories reflecting the opposite extreme of the dimensions (e.g. external, stable, general) require the principle of invariance. In three studies, subjects were given covariation information, and were asked to rate the properties of the likely cause along the dimensions of locus, stability, globality and control. In line with the predictions, consensus with others, consistency in time, distinctiveness between stimuli and contingency of one's actions showed the strongest effects on judgments of locus, stability, globality and control respectively. Similar results were obtained in a fourth study, where subjects had to judge the influence of eight causes with varying dimensional properties. Moreover, these judgments were rated somewhat higher given causes requiring the principle of invariance rather than the principle of contrast.