WHAT DO THE MONTREAL MURDERS MEAN - ATTITUDINAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC-PREDICTORS OF ATTRIBUTION

We investigated interpretations of the Montreal massacre by giving 348 students at three universities a questionnaire about causes of the ma ssacre, their affective reactions to the event, and their attitudes on a variety of social issues. Factor analysis revealed relationships be tween the respondents' attributions, feelings, and general attitudes. In particular, there was evidence that attitudes about gender issues w ere central in organizing responses on many other issues. Understandin g of the murders was complex: The majority agreed with several attribu tional statements, including a causal role for television violence and laxity of gun control laws. The two focal attributions in this study were that the murders were a product of societal sexism and that they were random and unpredictable; support for these was negatively relate d and the majority agreed with both positions. Extreme support for the sexism interpretation as opposed to extreme support for the randomnes s interpretation was predicted by being female, not being an engineeri ng major, and having strongly profeminist views. We discuss this in th e context of attitudes towards women and gender issues, and the differ ing personal experiences and reactions of women and men.