Sociodemographic and Political Correlates of University Students’ Causal Attributions for Poverty

Abstract

The effects of sociodemographic and political variables on causal attribution for poverty were measured among college students using the LOGIT form of the general logistic regression. Consistent with past research, our study indicated that students reporting higher parental social class, conservative political orientations, and opinions in favor of the death penalty were significantly more likely to agree with an individual causal attribution for poverty than other students when the effects of all other variables were held constant. It is suggested that such variables be examined as developmental factors in differences in attributional styles.