Attributional style as a personality factor in insurance sales performance in the UK

Abstract

The attribution of causation to favourable and unfavourable events has been implicated in both clinical disorders (e.g. depression) and achievement motivation (e.g. sports and commercial success). The aim of the present study was to examine the role of attributional style in a motivationally challenging occupation, namely financial services sales. The Seligman Attributional Style Questionnaire (SASQ) was administered to 130 experienced salespeople and found to correlate with: ( a ) sales (defined in monetary terms) and ( b ) performance ranking (within the sales force). In contrast to USA data, but confirming other results obtained in the UK, high positive attributional style (CoPos) was more important than low negative attributional style (CoNeg) in predicting successful sales performance.