The punitiveness paradox: When is external pressure exculpatory - And when a signal just to spread blame?

This experiment explored the joint effects of the severity of the unintended consequences of norm violations and the strength of external pressure to violate norms on attributions of responsibility in two cultures. Americans and Singaporeans both responded to more severe consequences with escalating internal attributions and individual punishment, and both made more external attributions in response to growing peer pressure to violate norms. However, the two cultures had diverging reactions to mounting peer pressure as an excuse. Americans assigned less blame to individuals, whereas Singaporeans held firm on individual culpability while extending more blame to the peer group. The results clarify how blame-attenuating attributions in one society can be blame-expanding in another.     

Cultural contributions to constructing locus-of-control attributions

Locus of control attribution patterns have been demonstrated to predict a variety of behavioral and adaptational characteristics in a number of societies. As a consequence, questions concerning the comparability of those attributions across cultures have been of interest to social and personality theorists as well as to their more action-oriented colleagues. In the present study, the processes used by Indian college students to form those attributions have been studied and compared with those used by a similar sample in the United States. A structure-factor approach was used, because it allowed for a comparison of attribution patterns within and between cultures as well as the drawing of inferences about locus-of-control attributions that are theoretically and practically important. Results supported the utility of such an approach, identified culturally syntonic patterns in both samples, and also identified cross-cultural similarities and differences in locus-of-control attributions.     

The development of children’s sympathy,moral emotion attributions,and moral reasoning in two cultures

The current study investigated the development of children’s sympathy, moral emotion attributions, and moral reasoning in two cultures: Chile and Switzerland. One hundred seventy-six children in two age groups (i.e., 6 and 9 years old) were asked to report their sympathy. Moral emotion attributions and moral reasoning were measured using two hypothetical moral transgressions (i.e., omitting a prosocial duty, stealing from another child). Younger Chilean children reported higher levels of sympathy than younger Swiss children. Across cultures, older children attributed more moral emotions than did younger children. Younger Swiss children used more moral reasoning following judgements about rule violations than did younger Chilean children. The findings are discussed from both a developmental and cross-cultural perspective.     

Causal attributions about schizophrenia in families in China: expressed emotion and patient relapse

Previous studies have indicated a robust link between relatives' causal attributions and levels of expressed emotion (EE). However, these studies have primarily been conducted in Western cultures. The current study, conducted in China, examined the spontaneous causal attributions made by 54 relatives of schizophrenia patients during the Camberwell Family Interview. Chinese relatives made few controllable and personal attributions overall. Yet as predicted, highly critical and/or hostile EE relatives attributed patients' negative behaviors to more controllable and personal factors. High EE and controllable attributions positively predicted relapse, whereas personal attributions unexpectedly protected against relapse. EE mediated the effect of controllable, but not personal, attributions on relapse. Relatives' use of a particular Chinese characteristic (narrow-mindedness) was integral to the personal dimension's protective effect.     

Perception of achievement attribution in individual and group contexts: Comparative analysis of Japanese, Korean, and Asian-American results

The present study focuses on the relational dynamics between individual and group attributions and examines cultural variations of people's perceptions of self-enhancing and group-enhancing attributions. Middle school students in Japan, Korea and the USA (Hawaii) were asked to read a vignette and to evaluate the stimulus person who makes an internal or external attribution for his personal or team's success. The results revealed that: (i) the self-effacing attributor was perceived as likable by the participants from all three cultures, but as less self-confident by Asian-Americans; and (ii) although Japanese and Koreans share similar cultural backgrounds, they had different preferences for the group-enhancing or group-effacing attributions. The different systems of self-enhancement across cultures are discussed.     

Sex differences in attributions for sex-typed tasks1

Recent studies have indicated that males make more egotistical attributions than females, that is, males make more internal attributions for success and more external attributions for failure than females do. These sex differences in attributions were examined in terms of male/female differences in expectancies for success and ego-involvement in the tasks. Male and female subjects succeeded or failed on a masculine or a feminine task. It was found that males made more egotistical attributions than females on the masculine task, but females made more egotistical attributions than males on the feminine task. A covariance analysis revealed that these sex differences in attributions could be explained in terms of the differences between the males and females in expectancy for success and in ego-involvement. Finally, it was found that ego-involvement was a more important determinant of egotisical attributions in the present study than was expectancy.     

Attributions to discrimination and self-esteem: Impact of group identification and situational ambiguity

This study examined group identification and situational ambiguity as moderators of attributions to discrimination and self-esteem following negative feedback. As predicted, high gender-identified women made more discrimination attributions than low identified women when situational prejudice cues were ambiguous, but not when prejudice cues were absent or overt. Also as predicted, women exposed to overt prejudice cues had higher self-esteem than those exposed to ambiguous cues or no prejudice cues. The relationship between discrimination attributions and self-esteem was positive among women exposed to overt prejudice but negative among those exposed to no prejudice. Across conditions, however, the more that women discounted ability as a cause of their negative feedback (i.e., blamed discrimination more than ability), the higher their self-esteem. Results qualify and extend prior research and demonstrate that personal and situational factors moderate both the tendency to make attributions to discrimination and the consequences of those attributions for self-esteem.     

Knowledge Attributions and Behavioral Predictions

Recent work has shown that knowledge attributions affect how people think others should behave, more so than belief attributions do. This paper reports two experiments providing evidence that (a) knowledge attributions also affect behavioral predictions more strongly than belief attributions do, and (b) knowledge attributions facilitate faster behavioral predictions than belief attributions do. Thus, knowledge attributions play multiple critical roles in social cognition, guiding judgments about how people should and will behave.     

Intuitions about situational correction in self and others

People's attributional phenomenology is likely to be characterized by effortful situational correction. Drawing on this phenomenology and on people's desire to view themselves more favorably than others, the authors hypothesized that people expect others to engage in less situational correction than themselves and to make more extreme dispositional attributions for constrained actors' behavior. In 2 studies, people expected their peers to make more extreme dispositional inferences than they did themselves for a situationally constrained actor's behavior. People's expectation that they engage in more situational correction than their peers was diminished among Japanese participants, who have less desire to view themselves as superior to their peers (Study 3), and among participants who were led to view dispositional attributions more favorably than situational attributions (Study 4).     

Before and After the German Reunification: Changes in Observers' Commentaries on Achievements in a Natural Experiment1

East Germany (EG) and West Germany (WG) had been divided by the inner-German frontier for more than 4 decades. In 1989, the frontier fell, and in 1990, East and West Germany were reunified. To study differences in attributional patterns as a consequence of this political change, the attributions of WG TV-sport commentators during the 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games were analyzed for their frequency and antecedents. Results show an increase in internal and stable attributions after success in contrast to failure attributions; the former to a greater extent in 1992. In 1988 and in 1992, the positive achievements of EG athletes were attributed more often to internal causes than were the positive achievements of WG athletes. In 1992, attributions for EG athletes were more likely to be stable than in 1988.     

Attributions and Race Are Critical: Perceived Criticism in a Sample of African American and White Community Participants

The current investigation had two principal goals: (a) to examine whether attributions regarding the intentions underlying criticism from one’s relative predict perceived criticism from that relative and (b) to explore differences between African Americans and Whites in attributions and perceived criticism. A new measure, the Attributions of Criticism Scale, was employed in the present study to assess attributions of perceived criticism. Results showed that the attributions scale demonstrated good psychometric properties in a sample of African American (n = 78) and White (n = 165) community participants. As hypothesized, attributions were correlated with perceptions of criticism. When racial differences in attributions and perceived criticism were explored, results showed that African Americans made more positive attributions but also perceived more destructive criticism than Whites. No racial differences were observed on overall and constructive criticism, but there was some evidence to suggest that African Americans made more negative attributions than Whites. However, these results were inconsistent across recruitment method. Taken together, these findings suggest that positive and negative attributions are important factors in the perception of criticism and that mean levels of attributions and perceived criticism may differ by race. Possible explanations for effects as well as clinical implications and directions for future research are considered.     

Praise or blame? Affective influences on attributions for achievement

Three experiments showed that mood influences achievement attributions and that cognitive processes underlie these effects. In Experiment 1, happy Ss made more internal and stable attributions for success than failure in typical 'life dilemmas'. In Experiment 2, attributions for real-life exam performance were more internal and stable in a happy than in a sad mood. Dysphoric moods resulted in self-critical rather than self-enhancing attributions, contrary to motivational theories, but consistent with cognitive models and the clinical literature on depression. In Experiment 3 this pattern was repeated with direct self vs. other comparisons, and for self-efficacy judgements. The results are interpreted as supporting cognitive rather than motivational theories of attribution biases. The implications of the results for clinical research, and contemporary affect-cognition theories are considered.     

Performance Expectations of Salespeople: The Role of Past Performance and Causal Attributions in Independent and Interdependent Cultures

The study compares the role of self-reported causal attributions of past performance on self-generated expectations of future performance among salespeople from independent and interdependent national cultures. The results suggest that salespeople from independent cultures attribute successful past performance to internal factors (i.e., effort or ability), but not external factors (i.e., luck or organizational support). Salespeople from interdependent cultures, however, attribute successful performances to both internal and external factors. Furthermore, the relationship between past performance and future performance expectation is mediated by internal or external causal attributions depending upon whether the salespeople operate in independent or interdependent cultures, respectively.     

3~5岁儿童对同伴侵害归因的特征研究

以济南市一所普通公立幼儿园的284名3~5岁儿童为被试,采用访谈法考察了儿童对同伴侵害的归因。研究结果表明:(1)3~5岁儿童对同伴侵害的归因包括敌意归因、自责归因、中立归因和无归因四种情况。(2)总体而言,自责归因随年龄增长逐渐增多,无归因逐渐减少,4~5岁是转折期。(3)儿童自责归因和无归因人数比例在财物侵害中最低,中立归因人数比例在财物侵害中最高;无归因人数比例在言语侵害中最高,中立归因人数比例在言语侵害中最低。     

The Relationship of Gender, Gender-Related Traits, and Achievement Orientation to Achievement Attributions: A Study of Subject-Selected Accomplishments

ABSTRACT Female and male college students (N= 251 and 84, respectively) described important accomplishments in their lives and reported attributions for the causes of their success Regression analyses indicated that, as predicted, students' gender explained a small portion of the variance in attributions, and the goals and performance standards of the students' achievement experiences (achievement orientations) accounted for more variance in attributions than did the other predictors Further analyses showed that the domains of students' accomplishments affected their attributions to effort luck, and ability, and that students' achievement goals and performance evaluation standards predicted their attributions to task difficulty, effort, and ability Researchers are urged to explore attributions made concerning self-selected achievements, and to focus on variables other than sex in their search for the determinants of achievement attributions     

Do Middle-Class Students Perceive Poor Women and Poor Men Differently?

In this study, we examined attitudes toward poor women, stereotypes about them, attributions for their poverty, and whether these thoughts and feelings differ from those about poor men. In our Midwestern college students sample (n = 206), attitudes toward poor women were significantly more positive than attitudes toward poor men. In addition, stereotypes of poor women were both more positive and more consistent with gender stereotypes than were those of poor men. Participants endorsed internal attributions for the poverty of both women and men more strongly than external or cultural attributions. However, the content of these attributions was different for the two target groups. Poor women were held responsible for nontraditional familial and reproductive patterns, whereas poor men were held responsible for lack of initiative and self-improvement. For poor men, all types of attributions included references to ability or willingness to work. The three types of attributions were more conceptually distinct for poor women.     

Causal attributions of married couples: when do they search for causes? What do they conclude when they do?

In this study, we examined when and whether married people engage in attributional activity or form causal attributions to explain their partners' behavior. We used an indirect probe to better approximate naturally occurring cognitive activity. We also examined the content of spouses' causal attributions, using both direct and indirect probes. Spouses were asked about frequent as well as infrequent relationship events, and about partner behaviors that had positive or negative impacts on the recipient. Husbands in unsatisfying relationships reported more attributional thoughts than did happily married husbands, whereas wives in the two groups did not differ. Behaviors having negative impacts elicited more attributional activity than did positive behaviors. Behavioral frequency and impact interacted in ways contrary to predictions. Finally, distressed couples were particularly likely to report distress-maintaining attributions and were particularly unlikely to report relationship-enhancing attributions, compared with their nondistressed counterparts.     

Whites' ethnocentrism and their attributions for the behavior of blacks: A motivational bias1

Previous research has shown that people make more derogatory attributions for the behavior of outgroup members than for the behavior of ingroup members. However, these results may be due merely to a cultural stereotype of the outgroup rather than to ethnocentrism (which would entail dislike for members of the outgroup). To examine the effect of ethnocentrism on attributions, irrespective of the cultural stereotype, and to examine whether people who differ in ethnocentrism also differ in their attributions for whites and blacks, high and low ethnocentric whites made attributions for the success and failure of black and white actors on a task which required an ability that was outside the scope of the cultural stereotype of blacks, i.e., ESP ability. Examination of these attributions revealed that the more ethnocentric the subjects were, the more they tended to give whites greater credit for success than blacks, and the more they tended to give whites less blame for failure than blacks. These results were discussed in terms of their implications for the persistence of prejudice and for the effects of motivations on attributions for the behavior of others.