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Causal Attributions for College Success and Failure

An Asian-American Comparison

Gonzaga University

Eugene L. Gaier

State University of New York at Buffalo

This study compared possible causal attributions for college success and failure in American and Asian students via a sample of 358 undergraduate students who were administered the Multidimensional-Multi-Attribution Causality Scale. American, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Southeast Asian subjects reported a pattern of "effort ability-task-luck" forboth success and failure. The "self-serving bias" in attribution was supported only for the factor of ability. Compared with Asian students, American students attributed academic achievement significantly more often to ability than did Asian subjects. American students also appeared to believe effort was more important for success than lack of effort for failure. By contrast, Asian students attributed effort as equally important for both success and failure. Students in the four Asian subgroups also appeared more similar than different in causal attributions.

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 1, 146-158 (1994)
DOI: 10.1177/0022022194251009


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