Attributional Style Research Articles

Development and validation of a questionnaire of attribution styles of patients with Covid-19

Development and validation of a questionnaire of attribution styles of patients with Covid-19

Validation of an Academic Self-Attribution Questionnaire for Primary and Secondary School Students: Implications of Gender and Grade.

The way in which students attribute causes to their successes and failures in school has important implications for their development. The objectives of our research were to validate the Academic Success and Failure Attribution Questionnaire (ASFAQ) and to analyze the gender and grade differences in the ASFAQ data for primary and secondary school students in Spain. For the construction and analysis of the psychometric characteristics of the scale, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed. To compare the ASFAQ scores based on gender and school year, a parametric t-test for independent samples and a one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used. A total of 562 students in the fifth (n = 228) and sixth year (n = 186) of primary studies and the first (n = 134) and second year (n = 94) of secondary studies participated in the research. The results showed the adequate factorial structure, internal consistency, and validity of the ASFAQ, in addition to statistically significant differences by gender and school year. This research provides scientific evidence about the psychometric properties of the ASFAQ to assess and understand attributional style in the educational context, as well as current and consistent empirical evidence related to gender and grade differences in the attributional patterns of academic success and failure for primary and secondary school students.

Social Perception Deficit as a Factor of Vulnerability to Psychosis: A Brief Proposal for a Definition.

Disturbances in social cognition are a core feature of schizophrenia. While most research in the field has focused on emotion perception, social knowledge, theory of mind, and attribution styles, the domain of social perception has received little specific attention. In this paper, we suggest that this issue can be explained by the lack of a precise and unitary definition of the concept, this leads to the existence of different competing uses of the concept and their conflation with other domains of social cognition. Relying on resources coming from the ecological approach to psychology and the phenomenological tradition in psychiatry, we propose that the concept of Social Perception should be used to refer to low-level pre-reflective processes underlying the awareness of interpersonal interactions with and between others. Clinical data suggests that people with schizophrenia have problems perceiving social situations as opportunities for social engagement, so, in order to fulfil this explanatory need, we propose that the term should be used to capture this important—yet neglected—domain of social cognition. We conclude with the discussion of some future directions for research derived from our proposal.

Elite Athletes' Perfectionistic Striving vs. Concerns as Opposing Predictors of Self-Handicapping With the Mediating Role of Attributional Style.

Self-handicapping is not only present among amateurs, but also even among the most elite athletes. The vast majority of the research investigates self-handicapping in academic context among students with mediocre performance. However, scientific examinations of predictors among top performers in the field of sports is terra incognita. Among the predictors of self-handicapping, perfectionistic strivings, and concerns as well as attributional style, were demonstrated as relevant ones among samples in prior studies. However, these links have never been examined among elite athletes who can be characterized by various aspects of perfectionism. In this study, the link between self-handicapping and perfectionistic striving and concerns was examined both directly and indirectly through the potential mediating effect of attributional style among elite athletes (N = 111) where more than half of the participants was competing at international level such as European and World Championships or Olympic Games. As it was expected, a positive relationship was found between perfectionistic concerns and self-handicapping, whereas the findings suggested a negative relationship between perfectionistic striving and self-handicapping. These connections were partially mediated by attributions for negative sport-related events. It appears that explanations for negative events are crucial in connection with protecting oneself through self-handicapping even among top athletes. The present work is a first step of a broader program in which the goal is reducing self-handicapping of top athletes through attributional retraining intervention.

A Web-Based Escape Room to Raise Awareness About Severe Mental Illness Among University Students: Randomized Controlled Trial

BackgroundPeople with severe mental illness (SMI) face discriminatory situations because of prejudice toward them, even among health care personnel. Escape rooms can be a novel educational strategy for learning about and empathizing with SMI, thus reducing stigma among health care students.ObjectiveThis study aimed to examine the effect of the Without Memories escape room on nursing students’ stigma against SMI.MethodsA pre- and postintervention study was conducted with a control group and an experimental group. A total of 306 students from 2 Andalusian universities participated in the study. Data were collected through a pre-post study questionnaire, consisting of an adapted version of the Attributional Style Questionnaire and a questionnaire on motivation for cooperative playful learning strategies. The control group carried out an escape room scenario without sensitizing content, whereas the experimental group carried out an escape room scenario on SMI, with both escape rooms being carried out in a 1-hour session of subjects related to mental health. To answer the research questions, a 2-way analysis of variance with repeated measures, a linear regression, and a 2-way analysis of variance were performed.ResultsAfter the intervention, a significant reduction (P<.001) was observed in the experimental group in stigmatizing attitudes compared with the control group, in which no statistically significant changes (P>.05) were observed. In contrast, the linear regression (t195=−22.15; P<.001) showed that there was an inverse relationship between flow and the level of reduced stigma. When controlling for having or not having a close relative, the intervention was also shown to be effective (P<.001) in reducing the stigma displayed, both for people with affected and unaffected relatives.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that the Without Memories escape room can be used as an effective tool to educate and raise awareness about stigmatizing attitudes toward SMI in university students studying health care. Future testing of the effectiveness of educational escape rooms should be designed with new programs through playful strategies of longer duration to evaluate whether they can achieve a greater impact on motivation, acquisition of knowledge, and awareness. In addition, the feasibility of implementing the Without Memories escape room in other careers related to health and community should be investigated.

The impact of the empowerment program of female-headed refugee households on their self-esteem, self-efficacy, hope and attributional styles

The impact of the empowerment program of female-headed refugee households on their self-esteem, self-efficacy, hope and attributional styles

The Relationship Between Self/Value Discrepancies and Anxiety: The Mediation Effect of Depressogenic Attributional Style

The Relationship Between Self/Value Discrepancies and Anxiety: The Mediation Effect of Depressogenic Attributional Style

The relationship between jumping to conclusions and social cognition in first-episode psychosis

Jumping to conclusions (JTC) and impaired social cognition (SC) affect the decoding, processing, and use of social information by people with psychosis. However, the relationship between them had not been deeply explored within psychosis in general, and in first-episode psychosis (FEP) in particular. Our aim was to study the relationship between JTC and SC in a sample with FEP. We conducted a cross-sectional study with 121 patients with FEP, with measures to assess JTC (easy, hard, and salient probability tasks) and SC (emotional recognition, attributional style, and theory of mind). We performed Student’s t-test and logistic regression in order to analyse these associations.We found a statistically significant and consistent relationship of small-moderate effect size between JTC (all three tasks) and impaired emotional recognition. Also, our results suggest a relationship between JTC and internal attributions for negative events. Relationships between JTC and theory of mind were not found. These results highlight the importance of psychological treatments oriented to work on a hasty reasoning style and on improving processing of social information linked to emotional recognition and single-cause attributions.

Are Tourism Practitioners Happy? The Role of Explanatory Style Played on Tourism Practitioners’ Psychological Well-Being

Research on tourism has gradually focused on the study of well-being, but relatively little attention has been paid to the psychological well-being of tourism practitioners. This study adopted the theoretical lens of explanatory style and the PERMA model (P = positive emotion, E = engagement, R = relationships, M = meaning, A = accomplishment) to investigate the influence of tourism practitioners’ explanatory style on their psychological well-being (PWB). The survey study demonstrated that explanatory style was significantly related to PWB; whilst an optimistic explanatory style was positively related to PWB, a pessimistic explanatory style was negatively related to it. Additionally, in the context of Chinese culture, tourism practitioners were inclined to attribute PWB to internal, stable, and specific causes. This study falls within the extensive field of occupational health psychology and theoretically contributes to the literature by connecting positive psychology and its effects on practitioners in the tourism context. Meanwhile, there are similarities and differences between the PWB and explanatory style in the Chinese cultural context and in the Western context. This finding has practical implications for generalizing the PWB of tourism practitioners in different cultural backgrounds, especially in countries with Eastern cultural backgrounds, further improving the sustainable development of tourism destinations.

A Single-Session Online Cognitive Bias Modification of Interpretations Modified for Adults With Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms

Anxiety and depression are common, co-occurring, and costly mental health disorders. Cognitive bias modification aims to modify biases to reduce associated symptoms. Few studies have targeted multiple biases associated with both anxiety and depression, and those that have lacked a control condition. This study piloted a single-session online cognitive bias modification (known as CBM-IA) designed to target two biases associated with anxiety and depression—interpretation bias and attribution style—in adults with varying levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Participants (18–26 years) with at least mild levels of anxiety/stress and depressive symptoms on the DASS-21 were randomly allocated to an intervention (n = 23) or a control (n = 22) condition. The training consisted of a single-session online CBM-IA to encourage positive interpretations and a positive attribution style.Interpretation bias, attribution style, anxious and depressive mood states, and anxiety, stress and depressive symptoms improved at posttraining and at follow-up, irrespective of condition. Changes in interpretation bias from pre- to posttraining were significantly associated with changes in anxious mood state. CBM-IA, as implemented in this single-session pilot study, did not significantly reduce targeted biases and symptoms compared to a control condition. This adds to the mixed evidence on the efficacy of single-session CBM-I for altering biases and symptoms.

The Impostor Phenomenon and causal attributions of positive feedback on intelligence tests

The Impostor Phenomenon (IP) is characterized by an external-instable-specific attributional style (i.e., Impostors perceive successful performance as due to chance). To our knowledge no study has yet tested this notion in real-life situations. Therefore, we invited 76 participants to complete computer-based numerical and verbal intelligence tasks, gave them positive feedback, irrespective of their actual performance, and assessed their attributions of the positive performance feedback. While the self-reported IP was unrelated to psychometrically measured intelligence (rs ≤ 0.07), those high in IP discounted their performance and attributed the cause for their performance as external-instable-specific (r = 0.40). The findings hold when controlling for age, gender, and actual performance. Our study extends the knowledge on the associations between the IP and causal attributions of performance. We discuss how addressing attributional styles could benefit interventions for the IP.

On the Relation Between Religiosity and the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories: The Role of Political Orientation

Religious and conspiracy beliefs share the feature of assuming powerful forces that determine the fate of the world. Correspondingly, they have been theorized to address similar psychological needs and to be based on similar cognitions, but there exist little authoritative answers about their relationship. We delineate two theory‐driven possibilities. If conspiracy theories and religions serve as surrogates for each other by fulfilling similar needs, the two beliefs should be negatively correlated. If conspiracy and religious beliefs stem from the same values and cognitions, this would speak for a positive correlation that might be diminished—for example—by controlling for shared political ideologies. We approached the question with a meta‐analysis (N = 10,242), partial correlations from large Christian‐dominated datasets from Germany, Poland, and the United States (N = 12,612), and a preregistered U.S. study (N = 500). The results indicate that the correlations between religiosity and conspiracy theory endorsement were positive, and political orientation shared large parts of this covariance. Correlations of religiosity with the more need‐related conspiracy mentality differed between countries. We conclude that similarities in the explanatory style and ideologies seem to be central for the relation between intrinsic religiosity and endorsing conspiracy theories, but psychological needs only play a minor role.

КАУЗАЛЬНАЯ АТРИБУЦИЯ УСПЕШНОСТИ СПОРТИВНОЙ ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ ШКОЛЬНИКОВ, ЗАНИМАЮЩИХСЯ ТХЭКВОНДО

Statement of the problem. The article defines the value of causal attribution as a cognitive aspect of motivation and the most important determinant of the orientation of the world perception. The article describes the characteristics of the optimistic and pessimistic style of attribution. The features of causal attribution in situations of shared responsibility remain little explored to date. In the process of socialization, they play an important formative role. The experience of such situations at school age is associated not only with educational activities, but with inclusion in sports activities for many schoolchildren. The purpose of the article is to analyze the results of a study of the characteristics of causal attribution of successes and failures in situations of training, communication with a coach and competition among schoolchildren involved in taekwondo. The research methodology was the analysis of the problem of causal attribution in situations of shared responsibility on the basis of scientific sources and the results of an empirical study of the causal attribution of the success in sports activity among schoolchildren. The study involved schoolchildren engaged in taekwondo (N = 44) aged from 9 to 12. We looked at how novice athletes evaluate their own contribution, the coach’s contribution to the causal bases of a positive or negative result, and the likelihood of their recurrence in the future. A questionnaire with rating scales was used as a method for obtaining empirical data. Mathematical processing included descriptive statistics and correlation analysis using Spearman’s coefficient. The research results showed that novice athletes estimate their contribution to the success of the training process and performance at the competition as a significant contribution, to a lesser extent considering themselves responsible for the productivity of communication with the coach. Girls value their responsibility for the outcome of various situations higher than boys. The respondents assessed the contribution of the coach to the success in the competition and the formation of mutual “coach-athlete” understanding as significant. The results of the correlation analysis made it possible to conclude that in the structure of the interconnection of the characteristics of causal attribution, the assessment of the influence of both contributions (one’s own and that of a coach) on mutual understanding in communication is systemic. Conclusion. Causal attribution of situations in sports activity among novice combatants is optimistic in general, while the confidence of a young athlete in his own abilities to influence competitive success is related to how highly he or she evaluates his/her own contribution and the contribution of a coach to the quality of their mutual understanding.

Self-directed passive-aggressive behaviour as an essential component of depression: findings from two cross-sectional observational studies

BackgroundThe self-control model of depression suggests depressive symptoms to derive from distorted self-monitoring, dysfunctional self-evaluation and reduced self-reward as well as increased self-punishment. Building on this model a relationship between self-directed passive-aggressive behaviour, that is, harmful inactivity, and depression has been assumed. This association has been supported by a recent study in an inpatient sample. However, it remains unclear if patients with depressive disorders report more self-directed passive-aggressive behaviour than patients without depressive disorders and if self-directed passive aggression mediates the associations between distorted self-monitoring and dysfunctional self-evaluation with depressive symptoms.MethodsStudy 1 compared self-directed passive-aggressive behaviour levels between 220 psychotherapy outpatients with (n = 140; 67.9% female; Mage = 40.0) and without (n = 80; 65.0% female; Mage = 36.2) depressive disorders. Diagnoses were made based on the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV. Study 2 examined self-directed passive-aggressive behaviour as a mediator of the relationship between distorted self-monitoring and dysfunctional self-evaluation and self-reported depressive symptoms in 200 undergraduate Psychology students.ResultsCompared to outpatients without depressive disorders, outpatients with depressive disorder reported significantly more self-directed passive aggression (d = 0.51). Furthermore, Study 2 verified self-directed passive-aggressive behaviour as a partial mediator of the relationship between dysfunctional attitudes (abcs = .22, 95%-CI: .14, .31), attributional style (abcs = .20, 95%-CI: .13, .27), ruminative response style (abcs = .15, 95%-CI: .09, .21) and depressive symptoms.ConclusionSelf-directed passive-aggressive behaviour partially mediates the association between distorted self-monitoring and dysfunctional self-evaluation with depressive symptoms. Future longitudinal studies need to examine a potential causal relationship that would form a base to include interventions targeting self-directed passive-aggressive behaviour in prevention and treatment of depression.Trial registrationBoth studies were preregistered at the German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS00014005 and DRKS00019020).

Mediators between Positive and Negative Parenting and Child Depressive and Anxious Symptoms: Findings from a Diverse, At-Risk Sample

Background: Although children’s depressive and anxious symptoms have been broadly construed as internalizing problems, the current study sought to identify factors that may differentially contribute to these two mental health problems in a high-risk sample. Prior research has not adequately tested both depressive versus anxious symptoms simultaneously, nor has it adequately considered the role of negative versus positive parenting simultaneously, thereby neglecting the potential overlap in both sets of constructs. Overlooking such potential statistical overlap obfuscates how factors may differentially contribute to either depressive versus anxious symptoms. Existing research has also focused on lower-risk community samples. Method: The present study investigated whether children’s negative self-concept or maladaptive attributional style mediated the link between both negative and positive parenting in a racially diverse, at-risk sample of 65 primary school-age children recruited from mental health agencies. Results: When tested together, more negative parenting, but not less positive parenting, retained direct effects on both depressive and anxious symptoms. Both negative self-concept and maladaptive attributional style fully mediated the association between less positive parenting and children’s depressive symptoms, whereas positive self-concept, but not attributional style, mediated between less positive parenting and anxious symptoms. Conclusions: The current findings underscore potential differential intervention targets for these two internalizing problems and highlight the need for future research to consider both depressive and anxious symptoms, and related predictors, simultaneously to control for their shared variance.

보육교사의 내재적 직무동기와 교수 효능감: 귀인성향의 조절효과를 중심으로

The purpose of this study was to investigate moderating effects of teachers’ attributional style on the relation between intrinsic work motivation and teaching efficacy in child care centers. Subjects were 120 teachers employed in workplace child care centers. Collected data were analyzed by mean of process macro 3.0 for moderation process analysis for PASW Statistics 21.0.BR Results of this study focusing on internal locus of control of attributional style are as follows. First, teachers

Association of cancer caregiver stress and negative attribution style with depressive symptoms and cortisol: a cross-sectional study.

PurposeWe examined the effect of informal cancer caregiver stress and negative attribution style (NAS) on depressive symptoms and salivary cortisol.MethodThe sample came from a hospital bone marrow unit and caregiver support organizations and included 60 informal cancer caregivers (51.7% partners) of individuals with cancer (provided care for a median of 27.5 h per week for 12 months) and 46 non-caregiver participants. In this cross-sectional study, participants completed questionnaires assessing NAS and depressive symptoms and provided saliva samples to measure cortisol.ResultsLinear regressions demonstrated that cancer caregiver stress (p = 0.001) and the cancer caregiver stress by NAS interaction (p = 0.017), but not NAS alone (p = 0.152), predicted depressive symptoms. Caregivers independent of their NAS and non-caregivers high in NAS reported high depression while non-caregivers low in NAS reported low depression. Neither cancer caregiver stress (p = 0.920) nor NAS alone (p = 0.114), but their interaction, predicted cortisol (p = 0.036). Higher NAS was associated with a higher cortisol in both groups while non-caregivers had higher cortisol than caregivers.ConclusionsIf the findings can be replicated, consideration of NAS in existing interventions to support informal cancer caregivers in managing chronic stress appears warranted.

The profile of unusual beliefs associated with metacognitive thinking and attributional styles.

Cognitive interpretations of daily events may differ in people from the general population who hold unusual beliefs. It is also important to understand whether different belief profiles exist to appreciate which patterns of beliefs are less psychologically healthy. Cluster analysis was used to form unusual belief profiles in a general population sample (n = 578; M age = 22 years, SD = 6.98; 80% female) across paranoid, paranormal, and magical ideation beliefs, and we assessed whether they differed in attribution style and metacognitive beliefs about worry. Four clusters were formed: low on all measures (low all); high on all measures (high all); comparably higher on paranormal beliefs (paranormal group); and comparably higher on paranoid beliefs (paranoid group). For total Metacognitions Questionnaire‐30, the high all and high paranoid clusters did not differ, and both clusters scored higher than the high paranormal group, who all scored higher than the low all cluster. For attributional styles (Attributional Styles Questionnaire), lower scores on internal positive attribution were found for the high all and high paranoid clusters compared to the low all and high paranormal clusters. The high paranormal cluster had higher scores than the high paranoid cluster on self‐serving bias. Differences in attributional style appeared to be driven by mental health diagnosis. Our results suggest different profiles of unusual beliefs are detectable in the general population that differ in their metacognitive beliefs and perceived causation of events in their environment. Future studies investigating delusional proneness need to consider multiple unusual beliefs as well as assessing mood state and distress.

Predictors of University Adaptation and Grades for Direct Entry and Transfer Students

This study compared the differences between students entering university directly from high school vs. those transferring from other higher education institutions for the variables of the academic self-control model (general resourcefulness, academic resourcefulness, academic self-efficacy, preparedness, failure attributions, and university adaptation). The goals of the research were to test the following: (1) the full academic self-control model using a large sample of undergraduate students to predict university adaptation and final grades; (2) if the pathways of association implied by the model are equally predictive regardless of whether students are direct entry, university transfer, or college transfer; and (3) if the means of the variables differed among these three groups. Results replicated previous studies showing that, for the entire sample, general resourcefulness, preparedness, explanatory style for failure, and academic self-efficacy were strongly predictive of academic resourcefulness, which, in turn, was strongly associated with university adaptation and grade. Moreover, the indirect and direct pathways of the model were found to be equivalent for the three student groups. Comparisons of the groups’ means for the psychological variables revealed the university transfer group to have the most favourable scores followed by the college transfer group. The findings suggest that both college and university transfer students bring valuable skills to undergraduate programs and the keys to their university adaptation and academic achievement are the same as for direct entry students.

Impact of OXTR Polymorphisms on Subjective Well-Being: The Intermediary Role of Attributional Style.

Polymorphisms in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene are related to individual differences in negative emotions, such as depressive symptoms and anxiety. However, it remains unclear what the potential roles of OXTR polymorphisms are in subjective well-being (SWB), which is negatively correlated with depressive symptoms. We examined attributional styles as mediator between SWB and five polymorphisms of the oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR rs53576, rs2254298, rs1042778, rs2268494, and rs2268490) among 627 full-time college freshmen (M age = 20.90, SD = 0.82 for male; M age = 20.81, SD = 0.92 for female) using structural equation modeling. The results showed that individuals with the OXTR rs2254298 AA genotype and rs53576 AA/GA genotype reported higher scores on SWB, which suggested that individuals with this genotype experienced more happiness. Moreover, external attributional style partially mediated the association between OXTR rs2254298 polymorphism and SWB (β = 0.019, 95%CI [0.001, 0.036], p = 0.035). In conclusion, our findings demonstrated that the genetic variations of OXTR played a role in the individual differences of SWB, and external attribution style could mediate the association.