INFLUENCE OF THE SEX OF THE STIMULUS-PERS ON AND OF CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL VARIABLES OF THE SUBJECTS ON CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION

The influence of sex stereotypes, cultural background and academic edu cation on causal attribution is analysed by an experimental design. Th e subjects had to explain successful and failure behavior of videotype d three year old stimulus persons. The sex of the children was experim entally varied by instruction. The results show hypotheses-confirming tendencies concerning the influence of the sex stereotypes and the cul ture. The influence of education and culture was analysed by compairin g the behavior of subjects of vocational schools and colleges from two different cultures, from Switzerland and from the former German Democ ratic Republic. The response of 455 subjects show that the experimenta lly varied sex of the stimulus persons influences in some dimensions t he sex-stereotyped perception of the children and that the sex-stereot yped perception is correlated with some, but not all predicted causal attribution tendencies. The analysis of variance confirm as main-effec t stronger internal attributions for success if the stimulus person is a boy than if she is a girl. The attended attribution differencies be tween the subjects of vocational schools and colleges are only confirm ed for the causal explication of success. Concerning the cultural vari able the results show that GDR-subjects attribute not less sex-stereot ype than swiss subjects. An interaction between sex of the subjects an d culture is observed.