Attributional Models of Depression, Loneliness, and Shyness

252 CRAIG A. ANDERSON AND LYNN H. ARNOULT
no prototype data exist to test this notion. The interpersonalness of shyness
seems to suggest, however, that its relationship to attributional style
will be strongest in interpersonal situations.
Before examining the data on the attributional style relationships, consider
how attributions and attributional styles are measured. Early researchers
simply presented subjects with two or more causes that were
to be rated, checked, or compared. One popular approach had subjects
rate the importance of ability and luck as determinants of their outcome.
A better, but still inadequate, approach used the four attributional factors
from Weiner's early Locus x Stability model. These approaches
suffered from several major problems. First, subjects were restricted to
causes that may not have been relevant to them or to their task. Second,
many of the researchers made claims about the effects of different causal
dimensions, but dimensionality was never directly assessed. Third, by
presenting a list of causal factors the researchers may have made salient
one or more causes that the subject would not ordinarily consider. If we
adopt the two-stage attribution process presented earlier it becomes clear
that these methods permit the researcher to influence the attributions
at the problem-formulation stage. Other problems with these and similar
measurement approaches are cogently discussed by Elig and Frieze
(1979), and Deaux and Farris (1980).
One solution to several of these problems is to gather only open-ended
attributions. That is, one simply asks the subject to write out the cause
or causes of the event in question. These open-ended causes may then
be classified or rated by other judges. This technique is usually considered
too time consuming and is sometimes plagued with interrater reliability
problems. A related solution is to use a forced-choice type
format, but to derive the experimenter-provided list of causes from an
open-ended pretest study. This technique also has drawbacks. The researcher
cannot make unambiguous statements about the dimensionality
of the attributions. Also, the problem of making all the listed
attributions equally salient exists. This technique does allow the researcher
to get fairly naturalistic attributions with an objective measurement
technique, which may be sufficient for many research
questions (see Anderson et al., 1983).
For research primarily directed at causal dimension questions, the best
solution appears to be to have subjects generate open-ended attributions,
which they then rate on the causal dimensions of interest. In the
typical attributional style study, subjects imagine themselves in hypothetical
situations, write out the major cause of each situation outcome,
and then rate each cause on the relevant causal dimensions (see Anderson
& Amoult, in press; Seligman, Abramson, Semmel, &von Baeyer,