Age Differences in Causal Attributions From an Adult Developmental Perspective

Abstract

Causal attributions for events varying on level of informational ambiguity, outcome valence (positive, negative), and situation (relationship, achievement) were examined among young, middle-aged, and older adults. Participants rated the degree to which a cause of an event was a function of the primary character, situation, or a combination of both (interactive attributions). All adults made interactive attributions for ambiguous events, dispositional attributions with increasing involvement of the primary character, and situational attributions with less involvement of the primary character. Older adults made more interactive attributions in relationship situations and more dispositional attributions in negative situations. For achievement situations, younger adults made more interactive attributions for ambiguous events.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 67 citations exist upstream.