JOURNAL
OF EXPERIMENTAL
SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY
17, 80-95 (1981)
Measurement and Interpretation of Situational
and Dispositional Attributions
FREDERICK D. MILLER
ELIOT R. SMITH
AND
JAMES ULEMAN
Received October IY, 1979
Four problems with the measurement of situational and dispositional causality
are reviewed. These are: the assumption that dispositional and situational causality are inversely linked: the diversity of the causes considered within the situational and dispositional categories; the difficulties of differentiating between
causes internal and external to the actor; and the low convergent validity of
various closed-ended attribution measures. A study reaffirms the lack of convergence among closed-ended measures and between closed and open-ended
measures as well. In a second study, subjects’ ratings of closed-ended attributions
are taken as indicators that a freely chosen to not freely chosen dimension may
better represent subjects’ attributional thought than the internal/external dimension does. Open-ended data from the convergence study are recoded using this
scheme and achieve significantly better convergence with closed-ended data. The
implications of this redefinition for solving the various measurement problems are
discussed.
Fritz Heider’s (19%) description of the naive analysis of action distinguishes personal forces from environmental forces, a distinction that has
We wish to thank Nancy Greenberg and Jill Salberg of New York University for their
assistance in coding open-ended materials as well as Shelley E. Taylor and Kay Deaux.
Richard J. Harris. and Edward E. Jones for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
Correspondence regarding this paper should be sent to Frederick D. Miller. IC-329C Bell
Telephone Laboratories. Whippany. NJ 07981.
80
0022-1031/81/010080-16$02.00/O
Copyright a 1981 by Academic Press. Inc.
All rights of reproduction in any form resewed.
MEASUREMENTOFATTRIBUTIONS
81
been explored in the many studies of causal attribution that ask subjects
to rate the importance of situational and dispositional causes of events. In
recent years, such measures have been widely criticized for their lack of
convergent and construct validity, and for failing to adequately represent
what people express in causal attributions.
Yet little effort has been
directed toward understanding what people actually do when filling out
causal measures or toward providing a more adequate rationale for measurement strategies.
Heider’s distinction reprises the two independent variables of Lewin’s
classic B = f(P,E) equation and Murray‘s analysis of the interplay of
needs and press. This distinction has had a great influence on attribution
research. Consider, for example. Jones and Nisbett’s (1972) actorobserver hypothesis. They proposed that actors display a bias toward
using situational explanations of behaviors that observers see as dispositionally caused. In tests of this hypothesis (Nisbett, Caputo, Legant, &
Maracek, 1973; Storms, 1973) the researchers’ definitions of dispositional
and situational causes have identified dispositional causes with stable
characteristics of the person-traits,
attitudes, and desires-that
are
transsituational.
Situational causes have been identified with stimuli that
elicit situation-specific responses. Similar definitions of situational and
dispositional causality have been used in much of social psychology, for
example, in research on self defensive biases (Miller & Ross, 1975) or on
the styles of behavior associated with different strategies of self monitoring (Snyder, 1979).
A variety of difficulties arising from the situational/dispositional
distinction have become apparent, particularly its applicability to such specific
issues as intrinsic motivation (Kruglanski,
1975) and the difficulty of
reliably validating hypotheses using situational/dispositional
measures
(cf. Taylor & Koivumaki, 1976, on the actor-observer hypothesis). These
problems have led some researchers to question whether causal attribution can be adequately measured (Ross, 1977). An answer to this question
requires an assessment of the validity of the available measures and a
determination of what those measures indeed do assess. First, however,
the problems with the situational/dispositional
distinction will be reviewed. Four separate problems can be identified. The problems are as
fol1ows:
I. The Hydraulic Assumption: Heider’s original formulation proposes
that situational and dispositional causes are yoked together inversely such
than an increment in one necessarily accompanies a decrement in the
other. This assumption is operationalized
by single-scale measures of
causality with their endpoints labeled “situational causes” and “dispositional causes.” However, the predicted negative relationship between
situational and dispositional causation has not been found in data from
subjects who respond to separate scales of situational and dispositional
82
MILLER,SMITH,ANDLJLEMAN
causality (Taylor & Koivumaki,
1976). Solomon (1978) reviewed the
hydraulic assumption and concluded that researchers should not use
bipolar situational-dispositional
scales or difference scores based on
combining separate situational and dispositional scales, as Storms (1973)
did. Solomon urged researchers to measure situational and dispositional
causality on separate scales.
2. The Category Error: The categories defined by situational and dispositional causality are very broad. Dispositional causes-or causes internal
to the person-may
include stable traits and attitudes, unstable moods
and feelings, and deliberate desires and choices. Situational causes encompass choices presented by the environment, coercion through social
control, and stable environmental factors such as task difficulty. These
two categories cut across dimensions that are of theoretical interest to
social psychologists, such as responsibility and freedom. The use of such
broad categories may confuse both subjects and researchers. as each tries
to understand what sort of situational and dispositional cause the other
had in mind. (See Cantor and Mischel(1979) for a discussion of the utility
of categories of differing sizes.) The situational/dispositional
distinction is
attractive because it allows the use of ordinal scales of causes for which
interval properties, and hence interval statistics, can be assumed. However, the categories of situational and dispositional causation may each be
so broad that a single measure of dispositional or situational causes may
be meaningless. This problem of category width has not been discussed
before. Two solutions can be tentatively suggested. One is to ask subjects
to choose causes from closed-ended categories with narrower definitions.
Another is to gather open-ended attribution responses which researchers
can then categorize in different nominal coding schemes as needed.
3. The Teleological Confusion: Kruglanski ( 1975) and Ross ( 1977) both
identify a flaw in the distinction between situational and dispositional
explanations of deliberate actions: the distinction breaks down whenever
external causes are perceived and deliberately acted on by the person.
The person is always the proximate cause of action, regardless of situational influences. Ross (1977) suggests that in such cases the distinction
between dispositional and situational causes often rests only on the arbitrary phrasing of sentences. Kruglanski (1975) proposed that people
understand deliberate actions as being caused endogenously (as ends in
themselves) or exogenously (as means to further ends) rather than internally or externally. In a recent paper, Kruglanski. Hamel, Maides. and
Schwartz (1978) proposed that each explanatory scheme will be applied
when it will yield information that satisfies the person’s particular needs.
A somewhat different position was advanced by Buss (1978) who argued
that situational and dispositional “causal” attributions are distinct from
“reason” attributions that explain the ends for which action occurs, and
that the solution to the teleological confusion is to distinguish causal
attributions from reason attributions.
MEASUREMENT
OF
83
ATTRIBUTIONS
4. The Convergent Validity Issue: A final methodological problem has
been identified in studies that assess the convergent validity of various
measures of situational and dispositional causality. In a recent paper,
Herzberger and Clore (1979) used a multitrait-multimethod
approach to
show the lack of convergence among a variety of closed-ended attribution
measures. This finding implies either that the scales are unreliable or that
they are measuring different things. Herzberger and Clore gave qualified
support to a two-scale measure. The present authors’ interest in attribution measurement was also stimulated by an initial interest in the issue of
convergent validity among attribution measures.
Below we will briefly report a study that demonstrates the poor convergent validity of a variety of attribution measures.’ Data from a further
study will be presented to illuminate subjects’ understanding of situational
and dispositional causality. A reanalysis of the convergent validity data
will then be used to argue that situational and dispositional measures have
meaning when they are understood in a fashion consistent with subjects’
naive psychology.
STUDY 1: CONVERGENT VALIDITY OF EXPLANATIONS
FOR HYPOTHETICAL EVENTS
Uleman. Miller, Henken, Tsemberis, and Riley (in press) twice failed to
demonstrate the actor-observer
effect in between- and within-subjects
versions of Storms’ (1973) study, using Storms’ two-scale attribution
measure. During debriefing, many subjects reported that the explanations
accompanying the dependent measures were confusing and that they felt
uncertain about using the scales to express their causal judgments.
Though many of the explanations they offered for behavior during debriefing interviews could be categorized as either situational or dispositional by the researchers, the subjects themselves had trouble doing so
using the available scales.
This led to two questions. Did the closed-ended attribution measures
accurately reflect subjects’ causal thought. and did different measures
elicit similar thinking about causality? These questions were evaluated in
a study in which subjects responded to attribution cues on several measures, thus allowing comparisons of responses made in different formats.
Method
Each subject
read four single-sentence
descriptions
of behaviors
and Koivumaki
( 1976) study.
The sentences
described
one friendly
by oneself
and by a friend.
After
reading
each sentence.
the
different
measures
’ We have
describing
conducted
two
the
studies
causes
of the
of the convergent
selected
from the Taylor
and one unfriendly
action
subjects
completed
three
action.
validity
issue
besides
the one
reported
here,
one using
similar
and one using
entirely
different
materials
and subjects.
A full
description
of their results
is deemed unnecessary.
as they support
the findings
on nonconvergence
that are already
in the literature
(Solomon.
1978: Herzberger
& Clore.
1979).
84
MILLER.
The
subjects
University.
administered
followed
these
order
ended
were
99 undergraduates
The experiment
booklet
in which
by the three
SMITH,
dependent
AND
drawn
was conducted
each behavior
measures,
ULEMAN
from
a psychology
in class.
description
each
class
at
New
Each
subject
completed
occupied
a single page
on a page of its own.
Within
York
a selfand was
each
booklet.
three dependent
measures
appeared
in the same order
after each description.
This
was counterbalanced
acres\
booklets,
though
only the 12 orders
in which
the openmeasuresappeared
first or last were used. because
of the limited number
of subjects.’
The
words,
Storms
three dependent
measures
were: ( I) an o~p~n-t~&d
measure
asking.
“In your
why would you (your friend)
behave
this way’?”
(2) a d@wwr
measure
taken
(1973).
consisting
of definitions
and separate
9-point
scales of dispositional
situational
causality:’
dispositional
tional causes”
whose
attributions;
and “wholly
difference
difference
measure.
Responses
to the open-ended
situational
definitions
was
then
measure
were
coded
to wholly
dispositional
causality.
The
of situational
and dispositional
causality
sures. Traits.
were classified
taken
.X8.
moods.
volitions,
as dispositional
Disagreements
represent
situational
prior
causes.
experiences.
Situational
on a 5-point
regarding
codmg
scale
running
and characteristic
patterns
causes
included
the actions
were
versus
“wholly
of terms
$ltuaas the
from
wholly
coding
was done so as to mimic
the
provided
with the closed-ended
mea-
istlcs of other people and characteristics
of the setting.’
judges.
Interjudge
agreement
on the full sample of storable
p was
to
and (3) a 9-point
hi/~olor
scale with ends labeled
dispositional
causes”
and the same definitions
own
from
and
resolved
of behavior
or character-
All responses
were coded by two
responses
was 77%. Spearman’\
through
discussion.
The results indicated
low convergent
validity
among the various
measures of dispositional
and situational
causality.
Correlations
were computed among the dependent
measures
following
each sentence.
These
were then combined
across sentences
using Fisher’s
r-to-z transformation. Most strikingly,
responses
to the open-ended
measure did not correlate significantly
with any other measures.
The only significant
correlation
was between
the bipolar and difference
scales, though that correlation
(r
= .61) indicated
only a modest equivalence
of the two measures.
In
addition,
the situational
and dispositional
scales of the difference
measure showed
a weak positive
correlation
(Y = .12. n.s.1. replicating
J A fourth
measure,
actor‘s
future
behavior
discussed
here.
” These definitions
asking subjects
IO rate the certainty
with which
was also included
among the counterbalanced
were:
Different
factors
can
influence
a person‘s
they could
measures.
predict
the
but is not
behavior.
factora
are: (a)prrsorlu/
ckuruct~risric~.s:
These include a person’s
personality,
traits.
ter. personal
style,
attitudes,
and mood,
and (bl churucterisrics
of t/w situution:
include the task a person is involved
in. the actions
of other people. and the physical
Two
such
characThese
setting.
q In scoring
open-ended
responses
we emphasized
the semantic
difference
that troubled
Ross ( 1977). In order to be scored a dispositional
response.
the subject’s
answer
had to refer
speciiically
to the actor’s
traits. moods.
or volition.
Causal statements
that only Implied the
actor’s
presence
were scored as situational.
Of358 open-ended
responses.
I IS were entirely
dispositional.
76 entirely
situational.
35 largely
situational.
92 evenly
mixed . 24 largely
dispositional.
and 13 uncodable.
In the subsequeni
reanalysis
of these data 342 open-ended
responses
mislaid.
are
reported
because
the
raw
data
from
four
subjects
(Ih
responses)
had
been
MEASUREMENT
CORRELATIONS
BETWEEN
TABLE
I
CLOSED-ENDED
ATTRIBUTIONS
ATRIBUTIONS
IN STUDY I
Self/
friendly
Open by
bipolar
Open by
situational
Open by
dispositional
Open by
difference
-.I3
scale
scale
score
85
OF ATTRIBUTIONS
Self/
unfriendly
Other/
friendly
.I3
.I3
.oo
.Ol
.I?
.09
- .?8
AND OPEN-ENDED
Other/
unfriendly
.05
-.O’
.I5
-.I
.I8
p.14
r -
c
.05
.oo
.23
-.24
.I4
-.I5
Taylor and Koivumaki’s findings of nonsupport for the hydraulic assumption. The correlations between open and closed-ended measures are
summarized in Table 1. These weak effects are not due to characteristics
of the distributions of scores on the various measures, all of which were
reasonably normal in shape and had adequate variances.
A second striking aspect of the responses to the different dependent
measures was that they elicited differing patterns of attributions in response to the same cues. Two-way repeated measures analyses of variance using origin of the behavior (self/friend) and positivify
of the behavior (friendly/unfriendly)
as within-subject classifying factors were performed on each of the attribution measures. The open-ended responses
provide support for the actor-observer effect, though examination of the
cell means for this analysis indicates that this effect was due largely to a
difference in explaining positive behaviors of the self and others. This
produced a significant interaction between origin and positivity. The
Storms difference scale also yielded a significant main effect supporting
the Jones and Nisbett hypothesis, but no interaction. The bipolar scale
yielded a significant positivity effect as reported by Taylor and
Koivumaki.
This confusion of effects is summarized in Table 2, where it can be seen
that the dependent measures appear to produce different patterns of
effects. though they were all completed by the same subjects responding
to the same stimuli. While there is support in these data for both the
actor-observer and positivity hypotheses, the support varies as a function
of measurement strategy.5
5 Because
the dependent
analytic
procedure
testing
Harris.
1977. p. XI).
measures
in these analyses
were
for a difference
among patterns
interval
scales, no multivariate
of means was appropriate
(cf.
86
MILLER,SMITH.
ULEMAN
AND
TABLE?
EFFECTS
OF WITHIN-SUBJECT
ACTOR-OBSERVER
INTERACTIONS
Degrees
ON THE
of
freedom”
POSITIVE-NEGATIVE
SCALES,
(1.72)
Difference
(1.91)
FACTORS
AND
1
Positivity
F = 33.180,
p < .OOl
F = 9.946.
p = ,003
n.5.
! 1.86)
STUDY
Actor/
observer
Open-ended
Bipolar
AND
THREE
F =
Interaction
n.s.
F = 10.387,
p = .002
n.s.
n.s.
11.705.
n.s.
p < ,001
(i Degrees
of freedom
apply
to all F statistics
in the corresponding
row
of the table
Discussion
The results of this study support what is already widely suspected: that
responses to a variety of measures of situational and dispositional causality display little convergence. The lack of relationship between closedended attributions and open-ended attributions scored according to attribution theorists’ definitions of situational and dispositional causality
indicates that many subjects do not think about situational and dispositional causality as theorists expect. The important question that follows
from this is what, then, are subjects doing in responding to attribution
questions? It is conceivable that they are answering at random, but then
one would not expect reliable findings in closed-ended measures, such as
the positivity effect. Alternatively,
subjects may share a definition of
situational and dispositional causality that is different from researchers’
definitions of these concepts. Study 2 examines subjects’ understanding
of dispositional and situational causality in the hope of illuminating the
strategies they use to answer attributional questions.
STUDY 2: SUBJECTS’ EVALUATIONS OF SITUATIONAL
DISPOSITIONAL ATTRIBUTIONS
AND
Method
Subjects
closed-ended
received
a booklet
containing
attribution
questions
which
four sentences,
the subjects
were
each followed
told had been
by completed
answered
by a
fellow student.
The sentences
described
either a positive
or a negative
act by oneself and by
a friend,
with each of two positive
and two negative
sentence
stems
paired
either
with
oneself
and one’s friend
in different
booklets.
Each sentence
was followed
by the usual
definitions
of situational
and dispositional
causality
and the 9-point
attribution
measures.
filled out either with a 9 on the situational
scale and a 1 on the dispositional
scale (high
situational).
a I on the situational
scale and a 9 on the dispositional
scale (high dispositional).
or a 5 on both scales (mixed).
Attribution
responses
were randomly
assigned
to sentences
in
booklets.
After reading each pair of attribution
measures,
the subject
was asked to fill out I I
nine-point
scales
describing
the attribution.
The
first
five
asked
for ratings
of the
MEASUREMENT
OF
ATTRIBUTIONS
87
attributer-as
honest,
fair. intelligent,
sympathetic.
and likeable-qualities
chosen because
they seemed likely to depend upon the attributions
themselves.
The next five scales asked
the subject what the attributor
meant by the attribution:
did the attributor
regard the actor as
responsible,
free, having chosen
the act. having enjoyed
it. and likely to repeat it. Finally,
the subject
was asked whether
the attribution
was correct.
Sixty
undergaduate
volunteers
at New York
University
completed
the questionnaire
during class time. Because
of the incomplete
within-subjects
design, the data were analyzed
separately
for each of the four types of sentence
(self doing friendly
act, self doing unfriendly
act. etc.). Separate
multivariate
analyses
of variance
were run on the five scales describing
the attributor
and on the five scales describing
the attribution,
and a univariate
analysis
of
variance
was run on the accuracy
judgment.
all using a 3 x 2 (attribution
by sentence
stem)
design.
Results
First, there were no significant effects on subjects’ estimates of the
accuracy of the attributions. Different attributions were not seen as more
or less accurate explanations of events. Similarly, the MANOVA results
showed that different attributions were not seen as diagnostic regarding
rater characteristics such as fairness or intelligence. Across 4 multivariate
and 20 univariate F’s, no significant @ < .05) main effects or interactions
with attribution were found.
In contrast, all four multivariate F’s for the main effect of attribution on
ratings of the attribution were significant. Fourteen of the twenty univariate F‘s were significant, and the direction of the means was the same
in all 20. For these subjects, dispositional attributions implied that the
rater believed that the actor chose the action, did so freely, enjoyed it,
was responsible for it, and was likely to do it again. Subjects rated mixed
and situational attributions as implying less freedom, choice, enjoyment,
responsibility,
and repetition, but did not differentiate clearly between
these two attributions. These analyses are summarized in Table 3.
Discussion
These results imply that subjects define dispositional causality as denoting acts chosen freely by the actor, and situational causality as denoting
acts for which choice and responsibility are limited, at least in this subset
of behaviors where the subject is considering the source of an action and
not seeking to attribute a particular ability or attitude. The behaviors
under consideration are all behaviors that an actor can perform. The task
of the attributor shifts to assessing try, in Heider’s terms. This interpretation is consistent with the definitions of internal and external causality
used in intrinsic motivation studies (Lepper et al., 1973), where internal
causation implies choosing the action, but is inconsistent with the definition in actor-observer
research, such as Storms (1973), where dispositional causality can be identified with stable traits that determine behavior
across situations. It should be recalled that one of Jones and Nisbett’s
original explanations of the actor-observer
effect was a motivational
88
.ANDULEMAN
Y
P
MEASUREMENT
OF ATTRIBUTIONS
89
desire to believe one’s own behavior to be free (and hence responsive to
situational causes) while seeing other people as predictably guided by
stable dispositions that allow little variation. The present data indicate
that subjects believe the opposite. A checkmark on the dispositional end
of a closed-ended measure appears to signify a freely chosen act, not the
operation of a personality trait that rigidly
determines behavior.
This suggests an explanation for the poor convergence of open- and
closed-ended measures discussed above. Our scoring of the open-ended
measures, though consistent with the definitions in the instructions for the
closed-ended scales, may have been inconsistent with the meaning of
subjects’ closed-ended ratings. The relationship between open-ended and
closed-ended scales should be stronger if the open-ended data were coded
in a fashion consistent with subjects’ definitions. To test whether subjects
identify dispositional causality with freely chosen action and situational
causality with actions that are situationally constrained, the open-ended
attributions from Study 1 were recoded using a new scoring system.
Reanalysis
of Study 1
The new coding scheme used three nominal categories: internal acts
were those deliberately chosen by the actor because the actor enjoyed
them or wished to attain some desirable effect; external acts were those
resulting from coercive aspects of the situation, or causes which were not
intentional or not the result of the immediate situation, such as actor’s
mood. The remainder of the open-ended attributions were treated as
unclear regarding whether an act was internally or externally caused. Out
of 342 open-ended attributions in Study 1, 156 were “internal,”
119 were
“external,”
and 67 were not diagnostic. Interjudge agreement was found
for 84% of a sample of ratings.
The recoded open-ended attributions were correlated with the closedended bipolar, difference and individual situational and dispositional measures. Examination of the crosstabs of open- and closed-ended measures
supported the notion that open-ended responses that were unclear about
whether the act was free or not could be placed between internal/free and
external/not free attributions to form a three-level attributional measure
for which interval statistics could be used, as is common practice. This
new coding was virtually orthogonal to the original open-ended coding
(see Table 4). Coded according to this free-not free scheme, the openended attributions were strongly related to scores on the bipolar scale and
significantly related to closed-ended attributions on the other three measures. All the individual correlations and Fisher’s r to I tests that
estimate the combined summary correlations are included in Table 4.
The correlations shown in Table 4, ranging from .25 to .60 (the summary column) are to be compared with those in Table 1. where using the
original codes, the open-ended measure’s correlations with other scales
90
MILLER.SMITH.ANDULEMAN
MEASUREMENT
OF ATTRIBUTIONS
91
ranged from .OOto .15. In every instance, the new coding is more strongly
related to the open-ended measures, 10 of the 16 differences being significant at the .05 level. Clearly the new coding scheme is much better at
capturing the aspect of the subjects’ responses that is common to the
closed-ended measures.
When the recoded open-ended scores were used as dependent measures in a repeated measures analysis of variance examining the effects of
origin and positivity on attributions, both actor-observer
(F(1,65) =
10.82, p = .002) and positivity (F(1,65) = 27,59, p < .OOl) main effects
emerged. Friendly actions were seen as more likely to be freely chosen
and actions by oneself were seen as less constrained then actions by
others. This latter effect is consistent with the notion that observers want
to view others’ behavior as predictable, or at least as more predictable
than their own. The two independent variables did not interact in this
analysis.
DISCUSSION
The data here should encourage researchers who are interested in
pursuing the measurement of causal attributions, if they attend to the
caveat that subjects’ answers must be treated as describing what subjects
mean and not what researchers would wish them to mean. Subjects’ use
of closed-ended categories may be more influenced by the subjects’
understanding of the categories they denote than by researchers’ brief
and, from the subjects’ viewpoint, sometimes muddled instructions regarding those categories. In this regard, we researchers find ourselves in a
position analogous to that of trial judges who sometimes despair of jurors.
unwillingness to abandon their own interpretations of law in the face of
extensive instructions from the bench (Kalven & Zeisel, 1966). Yet, by
attending to the actual content of subjects’ naive psychology, some order
can be restored to our understanding of causal responses.
How then to measure causal attributions? The data provided by Study 2
and by the reanalysis of the open-ended data from Study 1 support the
notion that subjects’ responses to both bipolar and difference measures of
causality are based in part on beliefs that dispositional causality implies
that action was voluntary and deliberate while situational causality denotes action taken under conditions of less choice and greater constraint.
This suggests that subjects’ responses to situational and dispositional
causality scales be regarded as reflecting an underlying chosen-not chosen dimension. It also suggests that in future studies of causal attribution
researchers may want to explicitly measure the degree to which acts are
deliberately chosen by the actor, instead of due to internal or external
causes. Closed-ended choice-no choice measures could be devised easily.
92
MILLER.SMITH.ANDULEMAN
The association ofdispositional causality with choice has been explored
in some recent attributional research on perceived freedom. Kruglanski
and Cohen (1973) demonstrated that observers attribute more freedom to
an actor whose behavior is congruent rather than incongruent with internal dispositions. Trope and Burnstein (1977) and Trope (1978) have also
shown that ratings of freedom are dependent on perceptions of congruence with internal dispositions.
The use of such a distinction sheds some new light on each of the four
problems with situational and dispositional measures described above.
Heider’s original distinction of forces internal and external to the person
was subject to the teleological confirsion pointed out by Ross (1977)-that
many situational influences are internally processed and hence neither
truly internal nor external. This problem is avoided by a chosen-not
chosen distinction. Internal causes are now identified with the deliberate
and desired choices of a person rather than with the presence of a person
as actor, which had the shortcoming of implying that all actions have a
“dispositional”
component. This suggests that subjects’ criteria for an
internal cause appear somewhat more relaxed than Buss’ criteria for a
reason attribution. The present criteria define any freely chosen act as
internal regardless of whether a deliberate intent can be identified. Additionally, our data indicate that subjects make such reason/cause distinctions in responding to the dispositional/situational
scales. This indicates
that these latter are not purely causal scales, as Buss describes them.
Subjects’ internal/choice category can encompass both endogenous and
exogenous attributions (Kruglanski, 1975) as being freely chosen, which
differs from Kruglanski’s suggestion that only endogenous actions are
regarded as free. To argue that exogenous action-for
example, delay of
gratification-cannot
be taken freely implies an extremely alienated concept of choice and volition.
The substitution of a chosen-not chosen dimension also addresses the
category width and hydruulic assrrmption problems. The newly proposed
categories are narrower, especially dispositional (chosen) causality,
which no longer encompasses both rigid traits and volition. The external
(not chosen) dimension may require further specification as it still unites
such disparate influences as coercion and moods. The absence of a negative relationship between dispositional and situational measures may be
due to their imperfect realization of an underlying dimension (chosen-not
chosen) that does operate hydraulically. Chosen and not chosen are
opposites, but situational and dispositional causes can operate either in
unison or opposition in ordinary language, and hence are unlikely always
to be placed in opposition by subjects.
The possibility that bipolar and difference measures are each imperfect
measures of an underlying dimension may explain their only modest
MEASUREMENTOFATTRIBUTIONS
93
convergence. Their convergent validity will remain a problem as long as
they are used to stand for notions of actions originating inside or outside
the person, which are inconsistent with subjects’ thought. The correlation
between open-ended responses and the bipolar scale indicates that a
single scale may be the best way to operationalize the chosen-not chosen
dimension. The weaker relationship with the difference score may reflect
the fact that many subjects checked the same scale point (often an endpoint) on both measures of the difference score. Such responses can
reflect an artifactual confusion, as subjects who wish to respond that both
causes were important can do so by checking the same point on each scale
regardless of its scale value.
Though the choice-no choice dimension has utility, it must be remembered that it has emerged here from research on a limited set of behaviors
in college student samples. It is best to consider such a dimension as a
worthwhile avenue to be explored in further research across a wider
variety of behaviors. However, if we assume that the choice-no choice
dimension has meaning for a majority of our subjects, when judging
the causes of actions, what does this indicate concerning findings
using situational-dispositional
measures? Studies using situationaldispositional measures can be readily reinterpreted in the light of our
results. The reliable positivity effect first reported by Taylor and
Koivumaki (1976) indicates that subjects identify desirable acts as chosen
by people, while identifying undesirable acts as less deliberate. This
seems to hold for acts by oneself and by others. Such findings may reflect
cultural norms. If college students hold moderately optimistic views such
that they expect themselves and their friends to behave in a generally nice
fashion (cf. Kanouse & Hansen, 1972). then it would not be surprising that
they regard positive actions as freely chosen and unfriendly actions as
somewhat less a matter of choice. Similarly, the fundamental attribution
error described by Ross (1977)-a tendency to cite dispositions more than
situations as causes of events-may
reflect cultural beliefs and values that
stress that individuals choose and are responsible for their actions, even
in many instances where the choice is in fact limited. By citing dispositions, observers may be affirming the belief that people usually choose
their own behavior, a widespread belief in our culture.
CONCLUSION
Our data suggest that while notions of internal and external causation as
used by attribution theorists may have to be modified, they may have more
utility and validity than Ross (1977) or Buss (1978) suggest. Social psychologists are often tremendously clever in constructing independent variables, but more attention needs to be paid to obtaining reliable and valid
measures as well. A first step for any naive psychology must be to
establish agreement on terms between professional and naive psycholo-
94
MILLER.SMLTH.AND
ULEMAN
gists. Closed-ended measures have to accurately reflect subjects’ phenomenology. In the early stages of research, open-ended measures may
be preferable to establish the meaning of closed-ended measures, the
latter being preferable for their ease of use once their validity is established. But using closed-ended measures without first validating them can
lead to the sorts of problems Ross ( 1977) and Solomon (1978) insightfully
pointed to. We hope that this paper has been a step forward in clarifying
problems of measurement in one area of attribution, and a goad toward
greater concern with dependent measures more generally.
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