Causal Attributions of Disease as Related to Dynamic Personality Variables

Abstract

What do we believe to be the cause of failure and success, of illness and health? Weiner et al. (1971) were among the first in a succession of theorists to systematically analyze causal attributions, characterizing them with respect to stability, locus, control, etc., and relating them to such factors as academic achievement and future expectations. Most studies were confined to the laboratory. Causal thinking in illness situations had been studied even before that (e.g., Mabry, 1964). This interest bred speculations about how knowledge about an individual’s causal attributions could possibly increase the accuracy of predictions of his success or failure in coping with future life events. A study by Lowery and Jacobsen (1985) particularly investigated the association between causal attributions of disease and the course of illness in different patient groups. Neither here nor in other studies of this kind was the outcome particularly clear-cut. A general feature of most studies of the causal attributions of disease has been the reference to the subjects’ own illness. Much less effort has been invested in finding out how people generally picture the causes of health and illness, and particularly the problem of how causal attributions relate to a subject’s personality characteristics. The present study is a first, unassuming attempt to address this topic.