Attributions of causality for drinking behavior made by alcoholics and by normal drinkers

Abstract

Alcoholic individuals often are assumed to deny personal responsibility for their alcoholism and to assign causation to external situational factors. To evaluate this assumption, 20 alcoholics and 14 nonalcoholics made causal attributions for a recent personal drinking episode and for the drinking behavior of three target individuals (an abstinent alcoholic, a nonabstinent alcoholic, and a nonalcoholic). Results showed that both alcoholic and nonalcoholic subjects tended to make external attributions for their own drinking behavior. Subjects' attributions for the target individuals depended on both the targets' and subjects' drinking histories. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to models of alcoholism and to actor-observer differences in causal attribution processes.