Responsibility For Cause Research Articles

Framing Responsibility for Depression in News Media: A Content Analysis of Depression Coverage on Sina Weibo

Depression stands as a pivotal health issue, notable both within the medical community and in society at large, and it is a leading contributor to disability. The prevalence of depression is on the rise, with a divergence of views on its cause attribution and solution responsibility for addressing it. It is crucial, therefore, to inform the public about these complexities. Given that news media are pivotal in disseminating health information and significantly shape public perceptions, attitudes, emotions, and the assignment of responsibility, this research employs a quantitative content analysis to assess the prevalence of framing responsibility for both the causes and potential solutions of depression at individual, social network, and societal levels. The results show that solution responsibilities for depression were reported more commonly than the causes. Meanwhile, attribution of responsibility for causes was tended to be at the individual, while solutions were on society. Social network played a major role in attributing both casual and problem-solving responsibilities as an independent level. Further, state-controlled media focused on societal responsible for addressing the issue and emphasized individual-level causal responsibilities more than market-oriented media organizations, which is likely to make societal-level responsibility attribution.

Framing Depression

Responsibility framing research on health issues typically investigates the attribution of responsibility for causes and treatment options to either the individual or society. However, social epidemiological perspectives also stress the relevance of an individual’s social network and underline that the three levels of responsibility (individual, social network, and society) interact. Given that media portrayals can affect public perceptions, attitudes, responsibility attributions, and emotions, we examined causal and treatment responsibility attributions on these three levels in the media coverage of depression. Our quantitative content analysis of major German print and online news media from 2011 to 2020 (N = 755) shows that responsibility is not only assigned to the individual and societal level, but both to the social network and to interactions between the three levels. Our findings additionally stress that key events may influence the portrayal of responsibility in media coverage, but resulting changes are only short-term.

Prosocial behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. The role of responsibility and vulnerability

In two pre-registered and fully incentivized studies (N = 501), we investigate prosocial behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Based on a comparison with pre-pandemic data, Study 1 shows that individuals’ general prosociality measured with a (context-independent) Social Value Orientation Slider changed significantly before vs. during the early stage of the pandemic towards increased prosociality. In addition, we identified pandemic-specific context factors for prosocial behavior measured by a series of Dictator games with different recipients. Allocations in the Dictator game increased with the giver's responsibility and the recipients’ vulnerability to the virus. Study 2 replicates and extends this finding in a sample representative for the adult German population in terms of age and gender. We show that, for different actors (self, recipient, politicians), different dimensions of responsibility (responsibility to help, responsibility for the problem cause, and for the solution) are associated with prosocial behavior. Contrary to what could be expected from diffusion of responsibility, prosocial behavior increased not only when individuals themselves felt responsible to help but also when they perceived politicians to be responsible to help. Assigning responsibility for the cause of the COVID-19 crisis to recipients and politicians was associated with a decrease in prosocial behavior. However, responsibility for the solution had no influence. We discuss implications for public policies.

Framing responsibility (Health Coverage)

Framing responsibility (Health Coverage)

Attributions of Responsibility for Obesity: Narrative Communication Reduces Reactive Counterarguing Among Liberals

Informed by theory and research on attributions and narrative persuasion, we compared the effectiveness of narrative and nonnarrative messages in changing attributions of responsibility for causes and solutions related to obesity in the United States. We randomly assigned 500 adults to view one of three messages (narrative, evidence, and a hybrid of the two) emphasizing environmental causes of obesity, or a no-exposure control condition. The narrative condition increased the belief that societal actors (government, employers) are responsible for addressing obesity, but only among liberals. This pattern of results was partially explained by the success of the narrative condition in reducing reactive counterarguing, relative to the evidence condition, among liberals. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications.

Effect of Therapist Color-Blindness on Empathy and Attributions in Cross-Cultural Counseling.

Empathy and attributions of client responsibility for the cause of and solution to a problem were examined for 247 psychologists who were identified as having low, moderate, and high color-blind racial attitudes. Participants responded to 1 of 4 vignettes that controlled for client race (i.e., African American, European American) and client attributions regarding the cause (i.e., depression, discrimination) of a problem. Analyses revealed that the therapists’ level of color-blindness was directly related to their capacity for empathy and also to their attributions of responsibility for the solution to the problem with an African American client but not with a European American client. No relationship was found between therapist color-blindness and attributions of responsibility for cause of the problem. Implications of these results for counseling practice, training, and research are discussed.

Attributions of responsibility in adolescent cancer patients and their parents.

Attributions of responsibility have been shown to be important determinants of illness behavior in adults. This study examines the salience of attributional judgements among adolescents with cancer. Patients and their parents were categorized according to their attributions of responsibility for the cause of and solution to the adolescent's health problems into one of four attributional models. Of the four possible models, only two were represented: the medical and compensatory. Only 37.5% of parent/child pairs were concordant for model choice. Patients whose attributions conformed to those of the compensatory model sought more information (F = 5.1, (P = .03), were satisfied with the information supplied (F = 3.5, P = .07), and expressed the belief that a greater percentage of prescribed medications needed to be taken if a cure was to result (F = 4.1, P = .05). Side effects were more often experienced by patients whose responsibility attributions exemplified the medical model (F = 5.09, P = .03). Model concordance did not relate to parent/child agreement on health-related beliefs, patient age, sex, or compliance measures (P greater than .05). No relationship was found between parent-child model concordance and patient's self-reported medication compliance. The present data do not support the notion that attributions of responsibility for cause and solution of cancer should be important targets of interventions designed to increase medication compliance among cancer patients.

Relationship of femininity, masculinity, and gender to attribution of responsibility

Brickman, Rabinowitz, Karuza, Coates, Cohn, and Kidder (“Models of Helping and Coping,” American Psychologist, 1982, 37, 368–384) have proposed four attributional models defined by two dimensions: responsibility for causes of problems and for solutions to problems. The relationship of femininity masculinity, and gender to the attributtional models was explored in a sample of 205 subjects. Femininity and masculinity were measured with the Interpersonal Disposition Inventory (IDI) and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ). Subjects also responded to two measures of the attributional models. Findings included a significant association between femininity and low internal attribution of responsibility for problem solving. Results are discussed in terms of sex role and gender differences in help seeking.