A survey of anti-poverty activists and non-activists in Canada and the Philippines was conducted to assess their beliefs about the causes of poverty in developing nations. Principal components analysis revealed that the respondents' poverty attributions could be distinguished along ®ve main dimensions: exploitation, characterological weaknesses of the poor, natural causes, con¯ict, and poor government. Group breakdowns revealed several signi®cant dierences related to respondents' countries of residence and social ideologies. A path analysis suggested that attributions fully mediated the relationship between social ideology and participation in anti-poverty activism.According to a recent Oxfam report (Watson, 1995), one-quarter of the world's population lives in absolute poverty, 35 000 children die each day from malnutrition and preventable diseases, and the gap between rich and poor both within and across nations continues to grow at unprecedented rates. Despite these alarming statistics, the majority of individuals living in auence do little to help the poor in developing nations. This study adopts an attributional perspective in an eort to better understand the cognitive factors that underlie this disturbing trend of neglect and marginalisation of the poor. Three main questions are addressed. What are the main dimensions used by individuals to explain poverty in developing nations? How do these perceptions vary as function of respondents' country of residence and social ideology? And, most importantly, what role, if any, do poverty attributions play in encouraging or discouraging involvement in anti-poverty activism?