Attribution Style Comparisons Between Genders and Between Learning Disabled, Normal Achieving, and Gifted Groups

This study assessed causal attributions on the Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire (CASQ) for 30 learning disabled (LD), 30 gifted, and 29 normal achieving elementary school children. In addition, gender differences in attributional style were examined. The results provided no support for the hypotheses that LD students have more external, unstable, and specific attributions for positive events (maladaptive attributions) and more internal, stable, and global attributions for negative events (maladaptive attributions) than normal achieving or gifted students. Instead, the present study found that overall, the LD and normal achieving students had more adaptive attributions for positive events than the gifted students. Analyses of the CASQ scores for positive events indicated that the LD students had more stable attributions than the gifted group and that there were no significant differences between the groups for internal or global attributions. In response to negative events, analyses of the CASQ scores indicated that the LD students had less internal attributions than the normal achieving or gifted groups; there were no significant differences between the groups in stable and global attributions for negative events. The findings in the present study provided no support for the two gender hypotheses that, compared to males, females have more internal, stable, and global attributions for negative events and more external, unstable, and specific attributions for positive events. The composite score for internal, stable, and global attributions for negative events indicated that females have fewer maladaptive attributions than males. The composite score for external, unstable, and specific attributions for positive events also indicated that females have fewer maladaptive attributions than the males. Analyses of the CASQ subscale scores indicated that all of the measured dimensions of attribution except global/specific attributions for negative events were involved in the composite differences. Hence, females were less external, unstable, and specific than males for positive events and less internal and stable for negative events than males.