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PubMed1997

Regularities in the development of children's causality beliefs about school performance across six sociocultural contexts.

We examined whether children's (Grades 2-6) causality beliefs about school performance show similar developmental profiles across 6 distinct sociocultural settings (Los Angeles, n = 657; Tokyo, n = 817; East Berlin, n = 313; West Berlin, n = 517; Moscow, n = 551; Prague, n = 768) with the Means-Ends subscale of the tripartite Control, Agency, and Means-Ends Interview. Although previous research on these same children has shown sizable differences in their self-related agency and control-expectancy beliefs, we found markedly similar developmental patterns in their beliefs about the importance of effort, ability, luck, teachers, and unknown factors as causes of school performance. These regularities in children's implicit theories of school suggest that factors such as cognitive maturation, adaptive self-regulatory processes, and commonalities in educational goals are quite uniform influences in shaping school-related causality beliefs.

Achievement↗

PubMed1997

Expressed emotion and causal attributions in the spouses of depressed patients.

High levels of expressed emotion are thought to be related to the attributions relatives make about the causes of a patient's illness and problem behaviors. Causal attributions occurring during spontaneous speech in 43 spouses of depressed patients were examined. Consistent with theoretical prediction and with previous research in schizophrenia, high critical spouses were more likely than low critical spouses to attribute patients' symptoms and negative behaviors to factors that were controllable by and personal to the patients. High critical spouses also made more attributions that implied that they held patients responsible for their difficulties. Although predictive of spouses' criticism, these attribution dimensions did not predict patient relapse. The results suggest that causal attributions are important for understanding spouses' criticism but are of limited predictive validity with respect to depressive relapse.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

A causal analysis of chronic pain and depression.

There is considerable controversy in the literature regarding the extent to which chronic pain and depression are associated and the possible causal relationship of such an association. The present study examines these issues with a sample of 243 patients diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who were mailed questionnaires for six waves of data collection. The results indicated that RA patients experience higher levels of depressive symptomatology than community samples. Using a two-latent-variable, cross-lagged design, covariance structural modeling was conducted on self-report measures of pain and depression over 6-month intervals. Results most strongly supported a causal model in which pain predicts depression during the last 12 months of the study.

Arthritis, Rheumatoid↗

PubMed1994

Intimate relationships and depression: is there a causal connection?

The causal pathways that link depression and dissatisfaction in intimate relationships were estimated in 115 patients during the first 12 weeks of treatment with cognitive-behavioral therapy for depression. Depression severity, as measured by the Beck Depression Inventory, was negatively correlated with relationship satisfaction at intake and at 12 weeks. However, structural equation modeling was not consistent with the hypothesis that depression severity has a causal effect on relationship satisfaction levels and suggested that relationship satisfaction may have only a weak reciprocal effect on depression severity. As predicted, married patients were substantially less depressed 12 weeks after the beginning of treatment, when controlling for initial depression severity. Contrary to expectations, marital status predicted improvement even when relationship satisfaction was controlled. Unexpectedly, dysthymia at intake was associated with low relationship satisfaction after 12 weeks, when initial relationship satisfaction was controlled, suggesting that chronic, low-level depression may have a stronger association with interpersonal problems than other forms of depression, such as major depressive episodes. The theoretical and clinical implications of the findings are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1978

Depression and causal attributions for success and failure.

The present study investigated the effects of depression on causal attributions for success and failure. Specifically, female university students were separated into depressed and nondepressed groups on the basis of Costello--Comrey Depression Scale scores, and then received either 20%, 55%, or 80% reinforcement on a word association task. Following the task, attributions were made for outcome using the four factors of effort, ability, task difficulty, and luck. In accord with predictions generated from a self-serving biases hypothesis, nondepressives made internal (ability, effort) attributions for a successful outcome (80% reinforcement) and external attributions (luck, task difficulty) for a failure outcome (20% reinforcement). As predicted from consideration of the self-blame component of depression, the attributions made by depressives for a failure outcome were personal or internal. Contrary to expectations, depressives also made internal attributions for a successful outcome. The findings for depressives were discussed in relation to the recently revised learned helplessness model of depression, which incorporates causal attributions. For nondepressives, the findings were considered in terms of the self-serving biases hypothesis.

Achievement↗

PubMed1978

Effect on retaliation of causal attributions concerning attack.

In two studies, men were defeated on either 17%, 50%, or 83% of reaction time trials, received aversive noise, and could ostensibly retaliate by delivering shock to their partner. The noise level delivered was described in Experiment 1 as typical of most other people (high consensus) or atypical of most other people (low consensus) and in Experiment 2 as from a partner who knew (high foreseeability) or did not know (low foreseeability) the kind and level of stimulation controlled by the switches delivering reinforcement to the recipient. Hypotheses were based on the notion that retaliation increases as more personal causality is attributed to a provoker and that more personal causality is inferred in highly foreseeable--or low consensus--50% defeat conditions. As expected, greater differences in aggression between high and low consensus and between high and low foreseeability were displayed in the 50% defeat condition than in the other defeat conditions. Anticipated differences in inferences were obtained.

Aggression↗

PubMed1980

Social anxiety, self-presentation, and the self-serving bias in causal attribution.

Two experiments were conducted to provide evidence concerning the contribution of self-presentation concerns to the self-serving bias in causal attribution (individuals' tendency to assume more personal responsibility for a success than for a failure outcome) and its occasional, but systematic, reversal. In Experiment 1 high- but not low-social-anxiety participants presented themselves in a far more modest light when a committee of high prestige others was to join the experimenter in evaluating their behavior than when the committee evaluation was canceled. In Experiment 2 this reversal of the self-serving bias among high-social-anxiety subjects (in the evaluative context) was replicated, and it was also found that both high- and low-social-anxiety participants portrayed the causes of their behavior in a more modest fashion when they responded via the "bogus pipeline," a measurement technique designed to reduce distortion and dissimulation in verbal responses, than when they responded in the traditional paper-and-pencil format (although the influence of the bogus pipeline above and beyond the committee evaluation in eliciting "honest" responses from subjects only reached significance for low-social-anxiety subjects). These findings are discussed in terms of the varying self-presentation strategies and differing self-concepts of individuals high and low in social anxiety, as well as the self-presentation component to apparently self-enhancing and self-effacing causal attributions for performance.

Achievement↗

PubMed1981

A comparison of two latent variable causal models for adolescent drug use.

The competing simplex (involvement) and common factor models for youthful drug use are statistically compared using causal modeling with latent variables methods in a sample of 1,634 young adolescents. Latent variables of alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drug use were confirmed and causally interconnected in a set of states. The confirmatory factor and the simplex stage models were found to be acceptable representations of the observed data according to both statistical and psychometric criteria. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for theories of emerging lifestyles including drug use, methodology, and policy about psychoactive substances.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1983

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.

Affective Symptoms↗

PubMed1985

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.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1987

Sentencing goals, causal attributions, ideology, and personality.

Disparity in sentencing of criminals has been related to a variety of individual difference variables. We propose a framework establishing resonances or coherent patterns among sentencing goals, causal attributions, ideology, and personality. Two studies are described, one with law and criminology students, the other with probation officers. Relations among the different types of variables reveal two resonances among both students and officers. One comprises various conservative and moralistic elements: a tough, punitive stance toward crime; belief in individual causality for crime; high scores on authoritarianism, dogmatism, and internal locus of control; lower moral stage; and political conservatism. The second comprises various liberal elements: rehabilitation, belief in economic and other external determinants of crime, higher moral stage, and belief in the powers and responsibilities of government to correct social problems. Implications of these results are discussed for individual differences in sentencing, attribution theory, and attempts to reduce disparity.

Authoritarianism↗

PubMed1989

Causal models of adolescent substance use: an examination of gender differences using distribution-free estimators.

On the basis of previous literature (Hays, Widaman, DiMatteo, & Stacey, 1987; Huba, Wingard, & Bentler, 1981), four alternative causal models of substance use were specified, estimated, and evaluated for adequacy of statistical fit for samples of White male (N = 9,164) and female (N = 8,421) adolescents. Results supported the adequacy of a four-variable simplex model, in which alcohol use predicted marijuana use, and marijuana use predicted enhancer and dampener hard drug use. The four-variable simplex model was robust across the male and female adolescent samples. In addition, we found comparisons of maximum likelihood and asymptotically distribution-free estimators to be relatively robust across the causal models specified with respect to the magnitude of the parameter estimates, and with respect to the significance levels of the critical ratios, although chi-square model fit statistics for the maximum likelihood estimates were highly inflated.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1990

A probabilistic contrast model of causal induction.

Deviations from the predictions of covariational models of causal attribution have often been reported in the literature. These include a bias against using consensus information, a bias toward attributing effects to a person, and a tendency to make a variety of unpredicted conjunctive attributions. It is contended that these deviations, rather than representing irrational biases, could be due to (a) unspecified information over which causal inferences are computed and (b) the questionable normativeness of the models against which these deviations have been measured. A probabilistic extension of Kelley's analysis-of-variance analogy is proposed. An experiment was performed to assess the above biases and evaluate the proposed model against competing ones. The results indicate that the inference process is unbiased.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Predictive and diagnostic learning within causal models: asymmetries in cue competition.

Several researchers have recently claimed that higher order types of learning, such as categorization and causal induction, can be reduced to lower order associative learning. These claims are based in part on reports of cue competition in higher order learning, apparently analogous to blocking in classical conditioning. Three experiments are reported in which subjects had to learn to respond on the basis of cues that were defined either as possible causes of a common effect (predictive learning) or as possible effects of a common cause (diagnostic learning). The results indicate that diagnostic and predictive reasoning, far from being identical as predicted by associationistic models, are not even symmetrical. Although cue competition occurs among multiple possible causes during predictive learning, multiple possible effects need not compete during diagnostic learning. The results favor a causal-model theory.

Adult↗

PubMed1989

Support, stress, and recovery from coronary heart disease: a longitudinal causal model.

Measures of support, stress, distress, and cardiac symptoms were obtained from a cohort of 73 male cardiac patients at hospitalization and at 3, 6, and 12 months thereafter. Sets of general and alternative hypotheses regarding the direction of causality among these variables were drawn from the literature on cardiac rehabilitation, stress, and support. Structural equation modeling was used to evaluate the stability and duration of these hypotheses over three time-lags. The results showed strong support for the general hypotheses and minimal support for the alternative hypotheses. Support ameliorated the subsequent experience of stress and distress and had opposing effects to these variables on cardiac symptoms. Support was more influential in the first half of the year than it was in the second half, however, whereas stress was predominant causally in the second half. Implications of this pattern for clinical intervention are drawn and directions for further research are proposed.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Children's reasoning about the causal significance of the temporal order of events.

Four experiments examined children's ability to reason about the causal significance of the order in which 2 events occurred (the pressing of buttons on a mechanically operated box). In Study 1, 4-year-olds were unable to make the relevant inferences, whereas 5-year-olds were successful on one version of the task. In Study 2, 3-year-olds were successful on a simplified version of the task in which they were able to observe the events although not their consequences. Study 3 found that older children had difficulties with the original task even when provided with cues to attend to order information. However, 5-year-olds performed successfully in Study 4, in which the causally relevant event was made more salient.

Child Development↗

PubMed2004

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.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

The causal role of interpretive bias in anxiety reactivity.

Elevated anxiety vulnerability is associated with a tendency to interpret ambiguous stimuli as threatening, but the causal basis of this relationship has not been established. Recently, procedures have been developed to systematically manipulate interpretive bias, but the impact of such manipulation on anxiety reactivity to a subsequent stressor has not yet been examined. In the present study, training procedures were used to induce interpretive biases favoring the threatening or nonthreatening meanings of ambiguous information in a sample of 48 undergraduate students. Following this interpretive training, participants' emotional reactions to a stressful video were assessed. The finding that the manipulation of interpretive bias modified emotional reactivity supports the hypothesis that interpretive bias can indeed play a causal role in anxiety vulnerability.

Anxiety Disorders↗