A review of the literature on attribution theory suggests that attributional templates may be similar to balanced structures, in that they are cognitive constructs that have an organizing influence on thought processes and exert a similar organizational influence on the memory for social information. Therefore, the three basic attributional…

In three experiments, this study investigated what evidence people use in making inferences about causality in complex and uncertain situations. Given evidence consisting of multiple observations of some outcome, with each observation including information about the presence or absence of that outcome and of some of its possible causes, subjects…

That anger engendered by means of insult or frustration is physiologically arousing has been demonstrated. This research was designed to investigate the availability of anger to misattribution, an attribution error, and, by this means, the effectiveness of misattribution in reducing aggressive behavior. (Author/RK)

Tested the hypothesis that older children tend to use motivational attributions in their resolutions of situations in which behavior is incongruent with an actor's more stable attitudes, those relating to his disposition, role, or self interest. (Author/SB)

Examined effects of task and supervisory experience on causal attributions and recommendations for corrective action following poor performance. Results indicated task and supervisory experience did affect attributions, to specific causal factors; however, the effects were not consistently in the predicted direction. (Author/BL)

Investigated reactions of others to the surviving spouse of an individual who commits suicide. Results indicated (compared to those spouses of accident and leukemia victims) that the spouse of a suicide was viewed as being more to blame for the death, as having had a greater chance of preventing the death, and as being more ashamed of the death.…

The attributional perspective on leadership, which suggests the social construction of organizational realities attributes to leadership the activities and outcomes of organizations, was supported by the results of three archival studies and a series of experimental studies. Tables, figures, and 64 references are provided. (DCS)

Compared persons who attended career workshops and those who registered but did not attend. Interviews with nonattenders showed 45 percent had forgotten or felt discouraged, 38 percent gave environmental reasons, and 17 percent indicated they had already met their goals. (JAC)

Twenty-six severely learning disabled students aged 10 through 20 enrolled in a special residential school were interviewed. Most were found to have very little insight into the nature of LD and tended to attribute their learning problems to their own lack of effort. (Author/CL)

Compared reasons given by divorced men and women (N=335) for the failure of their marriages. Structural and demographic variables, including sex, socioeconomic status, religion, age at marriage, parental approval, duration, number of children, and premarital acquaintance were mentioned. Results suggested that different types of marriage breakdown…

The study was to determine when the patterns of causal evidence proposed by Orvis, Cunningham and Kelly (1975) begin to function as schemata in the attributional process. One hundred forty-four subjects took part in the study. (RH)

Seventy-six children ages four to eight were tested first in a reward-allocation task in which they had to divide a reward between two stimulus characters painting a fence. The characters differed in painting abilities, effort put into the job, and amount of fence painted. Then the same children's understanding of causal relationships among…

Thirty learning disabled (LD) and 30 normal achieving (NA) elementary-aged pupils' attributions, expectations, affect, and persistence were assessed. Ability attributions for failure differed for LD and NA pupils. In addition, effort was judged as more important in determining success than failure for both LD and NA pupils. (Author/SB)

Replicates Nisbett, Caputo, Legant, and Maracek (1973) using preschoolers instead of adults to see whether preschoolers tend to attribute cause more to external factors when judging their own behavior than when they are acting as observers of other people's behavior. (RH)

A data analysis model is proposed for studies concerning attribution theory. The model is based on the author's previous work in the area of trait view theory. (JKS)