Counselors' Attribution of Responsibility,Etiology, and Counseling Strategy

This study surveyed 167 counselors working at university counseling centers on their etiology and responsibility attributions and models of helping. Participants responded to vignettes describing either a male or female client experiencing symptoms of either an identity or adjustment problem. Counselors endorsed all of P. Brickman et al.'s (1982) models of helping for both problem types. Predictions concerning etiology attributions were partially supported. Counselors selected attributions logically consistent with an internal cause for the identity problem. However, counselors did not make external attributions for the adjustment problem. No significant results were observed for the influence of client sex.     

Power and Gender Influences on Responsibility Attributions: The Case of Disagreements in Relationships

Abstract

In a sample of 156 college students (74 men and 82 women), the authors examined the influences of power status and gender on responsibility attributions and resolution choices during disagreements in personal relationships. The participants read vignettes in which relationship partners disagreed; then the participants placed themselves in the situations depicted and reported their perceived responsibility and resolution choices. The participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 power-status conditions (you have/your partner has greater power in the situation). Power status was based on resource power (i.e., a monetary inheritance) or on perceived power (i.e., financial knowledge). The authors tested 2 alternative power-status hypotheses (justified benefits/rights and ability/accountability) and 1 gender hypothesis. The results supported both power-status hypotheses. In addition, the men's and the women's responsibility attributions and resolution choices (i.e., adhering to their own wishes or deferring to their partner's wishes) revealed differential dependence on the type of power held by the person with greater situational power. The authors suggest issues further research concerning how situational differences in socially based expectations (e.g., power status and gender) may affect conflicts within relationships.     

Power and gender influences on responsibility attributions: the case of disagreements in relationships

In a sample of 156 college students (74 men and 82 women), the authors examined the influences of power status and gender on responsibility attributions and resolution choices during disagreements in personal relationships. The participants read vignettes in which relationship partners disagreed; then the participants placed themselves in the situations depicted and reported their perceived responsibility and resolution choices. The participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 power-status conditions (you have/your partner has greater power in the situation). Power status was based on resource power (i.e., a monetary inheritance) or on perceived power (i.e., financial knowledge). The authors tested 2 alternative power-status hypotheses (justified benefits/rights and ability/accountability) and 1 gender hypothesis. The results supported both power-status hypotheses. In addition, the men's and the women's responsibility attributions and resolution choices (i.e., adhering to their own wishes or deferring to their partner's wishes) revealed differential dependence on the type of power held by the person with greater situational power. The authors suggest issues further research concerning how situational differences in socially based expectations (e.g., power status and gender) may affect conflicts within relationships.     

Covariation and quantifier polarity: what determines causal attribution in vignettes?

Tests of causal attribution often use verbal vignettes, with covariation information provided through statements quantified with natural language expressions. The effect of covariation information has typically been taken to show that set size information affects attribution. However, recent research shows that quantifiers provide information about discourse focus as well as covariation information. In the attribution literature, quantifiers are used to depict covariation, but they confound quantity and focus. In four experiments, we show that focus explains all (Experiment 1) or some (Experiment 2-4) of the impact of covariation information on the attributions made, confirming the importance of the confound. Attribution experiments using vignettes that present covariation information with natural language quantifiers may overestimate the impact of set size information, and ignore the impact of quantifier-induced focus.     

Attributions of responsibility for date and stranger rape

This study examined the effects of the victim-perpetrator relationship on college students' attributions of responsibility for rape. In addition, the rape specificity of these attributions was investigated. College females and males read one of six scenarios that depicted a rape or a proposition, and that varied according to the victim-perpetrator relationship (steady dating partners/acquaintances on a first date/strangers). Then they rated seven responsibility attributions for the rape or proposition. Results indicated that most forms of victim responsibility were stronger for the rape and proposition on a date than for the incidents between strangers, and the findings concerning the perpetrator's responsibility were mixed. The pattern of both victim- and perpetrator-responsibility attributions suggests that both a rape and proposition on a date, compared to incidents between strangers, elicit stronger sex role and sexual attributions. Moreover, male subjects, in comparison to female subjects, gave higher ratings to several responsibility attributions, and these, also, are linked to sex role and sexual considerations. Further, the data revealed that only the perpetrator-responsibility attributions were stronger for the rape than the proposition.This research was supported by the University of Connecticut Research Foundation Grant No. 1171-000-22-00215-35-760. The authors thank Laurin Hafner for his help with the data analysis.     

Attributions of Responsibility in Cases of Sexual Harassment: The Person and the Situation1

When observers learn about a case of sexual harassment, it is common for them to assign responsibility to the victim and perpetrator. However, attributions of responsibility are complex judgments often based on variables beyond the case's details (e.g., attitudes). The present study examined how victim response, victim and perpetrator gender, and participant gender and gender‐role attitudes influenced participants' attributions. Victim and perpetrator responsibility were measured before and after participants knew the victim's reaction in order to examine whether new information would alter participants' attributions. Consistent with previous research, gender differences were found for attributions and attitudes. Victim and perpetrator gender did not affect attributions. However, biases appeared in open‐ended responses. Finally, only females made distinctions of responsibility across victim reaction condition.     

Asymmetrical attributions for approach versus avoidance behavior

Five studies examined responsibility inferences and/or person and situation attributions in positively versus negatively valenced motivational contexts. In Experiment 1, participants received information about a teaching assistant who was promised a reward or threatened with a punishment when asked for compliance with a requested transgression. The teaching assistant was perceived as more responsible for complying given the positive than the negative incentive. This finding was replicated in Experiment 2 using different vignettes and incentives. Experiment 3 revealed that the effect of incentive valence on perceived responsibility for compliance remains significant when statistically controlling for perceived compliance rates. Experiment 4 then demonstrated that there are not only greater responsibility judgments given a positive than a negative incentive but also greater dispositional attributions. Finally, Experiment 5 revealed that a similar incentive valence effect is found in other appetitive versus aversive motivational contexts. Theoretical explanations of this phenomenon are discussed.     

Self-image bias in drug use attributions

The aim was to examine the degree to which people's personal drug use affects how they perceive other drug users, with a view to investigating the possibility that drug use attributions are a function of self-image bias. University students (n = 60), categorized post hoc as drug users or nonusers, completed questionnaires assessing locus, control, and stability attributions about their own personal drug use or imagined drug use. Attributions pertaining to presented vignettes of light and heavy drug use by others were also assessed. Heavy drug use elicited the most "addicted" attributions (dispositional locus, low control, and high stability) and drug-using participants made more addicted attributions about their own personal drug use than did nonusing participants about their imagined use. Additionally, attributions made by non-drug users regarding their imagined personal drug use were similar to those they made for the light drug use described in presented vignettes. Conversely, drug users made attributions which were similar for their personal drug use and for the heavy drug-use vignette. These data lend support to conceptualizing addiction as a product of the functional attribution process-"addict" attributions being applied mainly where drug use is more problematic (heavy) and thus in need of explanation. The data also lend support to the notion that a self-image bias is operating in drug use attributions when people can identify with the behavior of others.     

Religious Attributions and Proximity of Influence: An Investigation of Direct Interventions and Distal Explanations

Investigations into religious attributions have focused on attributer's immediate, proximal causes of events, paying little attention to underlying, distal explanations. In an effort to explain the relatively low incidence of religious attributions and further a new model of proximal-distal attributions, we present two experiments investigating the proximal and distal use of religious and nonreligious supernatural attributions. Participants in both studies were presented a series of sixteen vignettes that varied on several attribution-relevant dimensions. After reading each vignette, subjects gave an initial explanation for the event, and were then probed for any underlying explanations. Experiment 1 used an interview format that allowed participants maximum latitude when explaining the event's outcome. Consistent with our predictions, participants perceived God as having a greater distal than proximal influence, though this difference was not evident for attributions to Satan or nonreligious supernatural agents. Experiment 2 was performed via a microcomputer, with a participant's initial attributional response branching to a set of appropriate distal explanations. Overall, the results suggest that attributer's perceive God working through indirect influences rather than direct intervention, with this effect being moderated by the attributer's level of religiosity. This pattern was evident in the use of God as a distal explanation as well as in the distal explanations to proximal attributions to God.     

The impact of attributions in marriage: a longitudinal analysis

In this study, we investigate the longitudinal relation between attributions for relationship events and marital satisfaction. Thirty-four couples were assessed at two points separated by approximately 12 months. Causal and responsibility attributions for marital difficulties and negative spouse behaviors were strongly related to concurrent marital satisfaction. For wives, later marital satisfaction was predicted by both causal and responsibility attributions after the effects of earlier satisfaction were removed. For husbands, attributions did not predict later marital satisfaction. Marital satisfaction did not predict later attributions for either husbands or wives. Marital satisfaction and the two types of attributions were related to concurrent unrealistic relationship expectations, but these expectations did not predict later marital satisfaction. The results are discussed in terms of a possible causal relation between attributions and marital satisfaction.     

Attributions of responsibility and affective reactions to decision outcomes

Immediate affective reactions to outcomes are more intense following decisions to act than following decisions not to act. This finding holds for both positive and negative outcomes. We relate this "actor-effect" to attribution theory and argue that decision makers are seen as more responsible for outcomes when these are the result of a decision to act as compared to a decision not to act. Experiment 1 (N = 80) tests the main assumption underlying our reasoning and shows that affective reactions to decision outcomes are indeed more intense when the decision maker is seen as more responsible. Experiment 2 (N = 40) tests whether the actor effect can be predicted on the basis of differential attributions following action and inaction. Participants read vignettes in which active and passive actors obtained a positive or negative outcome. Action resulted in more intense affect than inaction, and positive outcomes resulted in more intense affect than negative outcomes. Experiment 2 further shows that responsibility attributions and affective reactions to outcomes are highly correlated; that is, more extreme affective reactions are associated with more internal attributions. We discuss the implications for research on post-decisional reactions.     

On the near miss in public good dilemmas: How upward counterfactuals influence group stability when the group fails

In two studies we investigated the impact of degree of collective failure in a public good dilemma (near miss vs. large miss) on group members' negative reactions (negative affect, attributions of responsibility for the failure, and intention to leave the group). The results show that upward counterfactual thinking has more impact on members' negative responses when experiencing a near miss rather than a large miss. In Experiment 1, the results show that in the case of a near miss (and not a large miss), negative affect and attributions of responsibility were higher when other-focused counterfactuals rather than self-focused counterfactuals were elicited. Negative affect was found to mediate the effect on attributions of responsibility. Experiment 2 replicates these findings on a wider range of negative responses and reveals that the effect of counterfactual thought on willingness to leave the group in the case of a near miss is mediated by attributions of responsibility.     

The Effects of Linguistic Voice on Evaluations and Attributions of Ingroup And Outgroup Members

This current study investigated the effects of English language active and passive voice on evaluations and attributions of responsibility toward an ingroup member or an outgroup member who behaved in either a positive or a negative manner. Prior theoretical and empirical analyses suggested that passive voice transformations would have the effect of: (1) reducing the saliency of the logical subject of a sentence relative to the logical object, thereby (2) reducing attributions of responsibility toward the logical subject. Results indicated that, regardless of group membership, attributions of responsibility for positive behavior, but not negative behavior, were reduced when described in the passive voice compared to the active voice. A passive voice transformation also had the effect of reducing the extremity of ingroup evaluations relative to outgroup evaluations for both positive and negative behaviors. We discuss the implications of these data with reference to social-linguistic analyses of masking and influence.     

Priming Prejudice How Stereotypes and Counter-Stereotypes Influence Attribution of Responsibility and Credibility among Ingroups and Outgroups

The research examines the effect of priming negative stereotypic and positive counter-stereotypic portrayals of African Americans (Study 1) and women (Study 2) on interpretations of actual media events. A counter-stereotypic portrayal of an African American male led participants to subsequently make more external or situational attributions of responsibility to other African American males involved in unrelated media events (i.e., Rodney King and Magic Johnson), whereas stereotypic portrayals led to more internal or personal attributions. Similarly, a counter-stereotypic portrayal of a female tended to increase the perceived credibility of females involved in unrelated media events (i.e., the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings and the William Kennedy Smith/Patricia Bowman rape trial) whereas stereotypic portrayals decreased their perceived credibility. Study 2 also revealed an ingroup-outgroup bias in the interpretation of media events, with females tending to be more sympathetic toward other females. Implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions made for future research.     

Sadly,you made me earn it: The effect of responsibility attributions for sadness on food indulgence

This article addresses the mixed findings of prior studies regarding hedonic food indulgence in sadness. Building upon the idea that self‐licensing may underlie the effect of sadness on food indulgence, the current research identifies responsibility attributions, namely, whether consumers attribute the cause of their sadness to themselves or to others, as an important factor that may affect sense of deservingness, and consequently affect hedonic food consumption in sadness. Four experiments show that sadness enhances food indulgence more when consumers attribute the responsibility for their sadness to others rather than to themselves. Specifically, findings show that (a) when self‐responsibility attributions are unlikely, sadness increases chocolate consumption; (b) sadness leads to a greater sense of deservingness and enhanced food indulgence when people hold others rather than themselves responsible for their sadness; and (c) the responsibility attribution effect on food indulgence in sadness is more pronounced at high levels of sadness and when the event that triggered one's sadness is significant. These findings contribute to our understanding of the factors that influence food indulgence in sadness.     

Assessing attributions in marriage: the relationship attribution measure.

A brief, simple measure of different types of attributions for partner behavior was examined in 3 studies of married couples. Reliability was established by high internal consistency and test-retest correlations. Causal and responsibility attribution scores correlated with marital satisfaction, attributions for marital difficulties, and attributions for actual partner behaviors generated by spouses. Responsibility attributions were related to (a) reported anger in response to stimulus behaviors used in the measure and (b) the amount of anger displayed by wives during a problem-solving interaction with their partner. The extent to which husbands and wives whined during their discussion also correlated with their responsibility attributions. The results address several problems with existing assessments, and their implications for the measurement of attributions in marriage are discussed.     

Third-party forgiveness: (not) forgiving your close other's betrayer

Building on attribution and interdependence theories, two experiments tested the hypothesis that close friends of victims (third parties) are less forgiving than the victims themselves (first parties). In Experiment 1, individuals imagined a scenario in which either their romantic partner or the romantic partner of a close friend committed the identical relationship offense. Third parties were less forgiving than first parties, a phenomenon we termed the third-party forgiveness effect. This effect was mediated by attributions about the perpetrator's intentions and responsibility for the offense. In Experiment 2, first and third parties reported an actual offense and their subsequent unforgiving motivations. The third-party forgiveness effect was replicated and was mediated by commitment to the perpetrator. Perpetrator apology or amends to the victim increased third-party forgiveness. Future third-party research can expand interpersonal forgiveness research beyond the victim-perpetrator dyad.     

Do the right thing: The assumption of optimality in lay decision theory and causal judgment

Human decision-making is often characterized as irrational and suboptimal. Here we ask whether people nonetheless assume optimal choices from other decision-makers: Are people intuitive classical economists? In seven experiments, we show that an agent’s perceived optimality in choice affects attributions of responsibility and causation for the outcomes of their actions. We use this paradigm to examine several issues in lay decision theory, including how responsibility judgments depend on the efficacy of the agent’s actual and counterfactual choices (Experiments 1–3), individual differences in responsibility assignment strategies (Experiment 4), and how people conceptualize decisions involving trade-offs among multiple goals (Experiments 5–6). We also find similar results using everyday decision problems (Experiment 7). Taken together, these experiments show that attributions of responsibility depend not only on what decision-makers do, but also on the quality of the options they choose not to take.     

Mothers’ Attributions About Child Misbehavior: Can Situational Suggestions Change General Perceptions?

Mothers’ attributions about children’s misbehavior were experimentally manipulated to examine causal relationships among attributions, mood, and behavior and assess whether suggestion can change mothers’ general perceptions. Forty mothers of children aged 33 to 71 months were primed with dysfunctional child-referent (child responsible) or environment-referent (situation caused) attributions before a parent-child interaction. Mothers in the dysfunctional child-referent condition placed greater responsibility on children, reported less positive mood and endorsed more overly reactive discipline, and their children displayed more negative mood and misbehavior. The experimental manipulation also affected mothers’ general child attributions. Understanding how attributions form and change has implications for parenting interventions.     

The Influence of Episodic and Thematic Frames on Policy and Group Attitudes: Mediational Analysis

An experiment examined how episodic and thematic political message frames affect attitudes toward older adults and Social Security. When exposed to messages about abolishing Social Security, participants exposed to episodic frames were significantly more likely to endorse message‐consistent attitudes than participants exposed to a thematic frame. In mediation analyses, an episodic frame featuring a counterstereotypical exemplar increased endorsement of individual responsibility for retirement planning, which then led to more negative attitudes toward Social Security. These effects did not occur with a stereotypical exemplar in an episodic frame. The same mediated pathway influenced attitudes toward older adults in a more complex manner. Results provide support for individual responsibility attributions as a mediating mechanism underlying the effects of certain episodic frames.