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Attributional Styles Questionnaire

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

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Definition

Attributional style refers to how people tend to explain the causes of events that occur in their lives (Peterson 1991). The Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ; Peterson et al. 1982) is a 60-item survey that measures individual differences in attributional styles by asking respondents to identify and rate causes for 12 hypothetical situations. Although it is traditionally administered in paper format, it has been administered in electronic form as well (e.g., Proudfoot et al. 2003). A longer version of the ASQ with 24 hypothetical situations is also available (Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire; Peterson and Villanova 1988).

Introduction

The ASQ was developed with strong theoretical ties to the concept of learned helplessness and subsequent attribution theories. Modern attribution theories evolved from studies of learned helplessness in which dogs exposed to uncontrollable electric shocks later failed to escape even when escape was possible. The learned...

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Winthrop University, 126 Kinard Hall, Rock Hill, SC, 29733, USA

    Sarah A. Reiland

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  1. Sarah A. Reiland
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Correspondence to Sarah A. Reiland .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Wichita State University, Wichita, KS, USA

    Brendan Clark

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing AG

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Reiland, S.A. (2016). Attributional Styles Questionnaire. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2-1

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