Unemployment, Attribution Theory, and Mental Health: A Review of the British Literature

Abstract

Although there has recently been an increase, in Europe, North America, and Australia, in research on unemployment, it has been confined to a relatively small number of specific topics. These have included: the psychological impact of unemployment on self-esteem, feelings of well-being, and morale [1-4]; the relationship between unemployment and mental and physical health [5-9]; the psychological benefits of work, which by definition are denied to the unemployed [10-12]; individual differences in reactions to unemployment [13,14]; historical reviews of research on, and reactions to, unemployment [15-17]; and social-policy implications of largescale unemployment [18-20]. One important though somewhat neglected area of research concerns how people explain, or to what they attribute, unemployment, i.e. , what they perceive as its causes. Extensive research in clinical, social, and occupational psychology has demonstrated the significance for coping ability of people's explanations of their various personal problems [21]. Such explanations are important for both the employed and the unemployed. If the employed believe, for example, that the causes of structural unemployment are people's laziness, unwillingness to move or to be retrained, or too comfortable a life on social security, they are likely to be unsympathetic toward the plight of the unemployed, whereas if they perceive the unemployed to be the victims of macroeconomic or sociopolitical conditions over which they have no control, they are much more