Leaving school, facing unemployment, and making attributions about the causes of unemployment

Abstract

Attribution may be an important mediating variable for the unemployed whose self-evaluation could depend upon whether they believe unemployment is primarily a function of internal or external causes. Two studies are described in which the causal attributions of unemployed school-leavers and control groups are compared. The second study also obtained longitudinal data so that attributions prior to leaving school could be compared with those obtained at least 4 months later. In both studies, the leavers who were out of work were found to favor more external attributions than their employed peers. The longitudinal data revealed that prior to leaving school the groups did not differ and that contrary to expectations it was not the unemployed who changed their attributions, but the employed who had shifted significantly toward a more internal set of causal ascriptions.