M. Perrez et al., INFLUENCE OF THE SEX OF THE STIMULUS-PERS ON AND OF CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL VARIABLES OF THE SUBJECTS ON CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 53(1), 1994, pp. 26-38
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.