Poverty in developing nations: a crosscultural attributional analysis

A survey of anti-poverty activists and non-activists in Canada and the Phil ippines was conducted to assess their beliefs about the causes of poverty i n developing nations. Principal components analysis revealed that the respo ndents' poverty attributions could be distinguished along five main dimensi ons: exploitation, characterological weaknesses of the poor, natural causes , conflict, and poor government. Group breakdowns revealed several signific ant differences related to respondents' countries of residence and social i deologies. A path analysis suggested that attributions fully mediated the r elationship between social ideology and participation in anti-poverty activ ism. (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.