ATTRIBUTION THEORYsuggests that trait attributions may be made spon-
taneously much more often than causal attributions.
In response to the second question, a variety of
studies suggest that people are most likely to make
attributions when they encounter unexpected
events or events that have negative implications
for them.
SOCIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF
ATTRIBUTIONAttribution is a cognitive process of individuals;
much of the extant research on attribution is,
accordingly, highly individualistic. In the 1980s,
however, researchers began to pay increasing at-
tention to the sociological relevance of attribu-
tion. The process of attribution itself is fundamen-
tally social. Attribution occurs not only within
individuals but also at the interpersonal, inter-
group, and societal levels. Moreover, the process
of attribution may underlie basic sociological phe-
nomena such as labeling and stratification.
Interpersonal attribution. At the interperson-
al level, attribution is basic to social interaction.
Interpersonal encounters are shaped in many ways
by attributional patterns. Behavioral confirmation,
or self-fulfilling prophecies, illustrate the behav-
ioral consequences of attribution in social interac-
tion; attribution of specific characteristics to social
actors creates the expectancies that are then con-
firmed in behavior. Considering attribution at this
interpersonal level demonstrates the importance
of different social roles and perspectives (actors vs.
observers) as well as how attribution is related to
evaluation. The self is also important to the attri-
bution process; the evidence for attributional ego-
tism (self-esteem enhancing attributional biases),
self-presentation biases, and egocentrism is per-
suasive. Attributions also affect social interaction
through a widespread confirmatory attribution
bias that leads perceivers to conclude that their
expectancies have been confirmed in social
interaction.
Research has challenged the universality of
egocentric biases by examining differences in
attributional styles according to race, class, and
gender. Several studies (Reese and Brown 1995;
Wiley and Crittenden 1992; Broman 1992; An-
drews and Brewin 1990) have shown that women
are less likely than men to make self-serving dispo-
sitions. In a study of academics’ accounts of their
success in the profession, Mary Glenn Wiley and
Kathleen Crittenden (1992) argue that women
explain their success in a more modest manner
in order to preserve a feminine identity, at the
expense of their professional identities. This
attributional style may make it more likely for
women to blame themselves for various types of
negative situations. Consistent with this reason-
ing, Bernice Andrews and Chris Brewin (1990)
found that female victims of marital violence tend-
ed to blame themselves for their experience of
violence. Childhood experiences of physical or
sexual abuse increased women’s chances of
characterological self-blame when, as adults, they
found themselves in abusive relationships. (Other
research, however, notes that the relationship be-
tween attributions and adjustment is complex and
not always so straightforward; see McMillen and
Zuravin 1997.)Race and class characteristics also create dis-
tinct attributional patterns; research on these fac-
tors has been more likely than research on gender
to consider possible interactive effects on attributions.
In a study conducted by Fathali Moghaddam and
colleagues (1995) on attributional styles of whites,
blacks, and Cubans in Miami, for example, middle-
class black respondents were more likely to blame
negative outcomes on discrimination than were
lower-class blacks. Lower-class whites were the
only group to attribute failure to themselves
personally.The great preponderance of research on so-
cial interaction has been based on relationships
between strangers in experimental contexts, which
may seem to undermine the claim that attribution
is significant for interpersonal interaction. The
best evidence of this significance, then, is the
increasingly large body of research on the role of
attribution in the formation, maintenance, and
dissolution of close relationships. There is sub-
stantial evidence that attributions are linked to
relationship satisfaction and behaviors such as
conflict resolution strategies. There is also evi-
dence that distressed and nondistressed couples
make differing attributions for significant events
in their relationships; these patterns may actually
serve to maintain marital distress among troubled