Attributions for serious illness: Are controllability, responsibility and blame different constructs?

Abstract

We examined whether judgments of controllability, responsibility, and blame are distinct and sequential psychological constructs. Undergraduates read a brief description of a male with AIDS or lung cancer and rated his controllability, responsibility, and blame in relation to the illness. Participants considered him to be more responsible than blameworthy for his illness, but more in control than responsible for becoming ill. Although measures of participants' behavioural intentions, emotions, and social attitudes were correlated with controllability ratings, such associations were stronger for responsibility ratings and even stronger for blame ratings. Structural equation models provided additional evidence for an attributional hierarchy in which blame is the final step. Nonetheless, emotional and behavioural responses were more completely explained when attributions were considered jointly with personal and social attitudes.

The Case of the Guilty Victim: The Effects of Gender of Victim and Gender of Perpetrator on Attributions of Blame and Responsibility

“…Blame is thought to be the most proximal attributional determinant in behavioral response, actions, judgments about appropriate punishments, etc. (Mantler, Schellenberg, & Page, 2003). Attributions of responsibility and blame have both indirect and direct impacts on behavioral outcomes.…”

Belief in a Just World and Commitment to Long-Term Deserved Outcomes

“…Each of these questions was answered on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 = not at all responsible/not at all to blame, to 7 = totally responsible/entirely to blame. These particular items were used, in part, because distinctions have been drawn in the attribution literature between blame and responsibility (e.g., Mantler et al, 2003;Shaver, 1985) and between behavioral versus characterological blame (e.g., Janoff-Bulman, 1979;Karuza and Carey, 1984). The four items, however, were significantly intercorrelated, mean r = .50, all p s < .01, and loaded on one factor in an exploratory principle components analysis (all factor loadings >.70).…”

The CSGU: A Measure of Controllability, Stability, Globality, and Universality Attributions

“…A number of methodological criticisms have been leveled at the CDS, in particular, concerns over the nature of the controllability subscale (see, e.g., Biddle & Hanrahan, 1998), which contains items referring to controllability, responsibility, and intentionality. Mantler, Schellenberg, and Page (2003) argued that controllability and responsibility are different constructs that are interlinked. For an individual to be perceived as responsible for a cause, he or she must initially be perceived as having control over it.…”