Attributions for Personal Achievement Outcomes among Japanese, Chinese, and Turkish University Students

Abstract

While many studies have been done on the attributional styles of individuals in the North America and East Asia, few have been conducted in Islamic cultures.The present research attempts to both correct this neglect and to replicate the results that have been obtained concerning East Asian samples.We investigated the attributional thinking of Turkish (n = 61), Japanese (n = 94) and Chinese (n = 71) university students.All three samples believed internal causes were more potent than external factors for both success and failure, and for the Chinese and Turks, internal factors were more potent for success than for failure.For the Japanese external factors were more potent for success than for failure, but for the Chinese and Turks external factors were more potent for failure than for success.While it has been argued that the normality of self-enhancing bias might be applicable only to Western cultures, we suggest that a different sort of bias may be operating.The students in the present samples seem to be neither particularly self-enhancing nor self-effacing.Rather they even-handedly accept both credit for their successes and blame for their failures.Many studies have been conducted on the attributional styles of both well-adjusted and ostensibly maladjusted individuals, primarily within the United States (see Weiner, 2001 for a recent review) but also, in recent years, in East Asia, primarily Japan and countries with large Chinese populations (see Crittenden, 1996, and Hong, 2001, for reviews).Few studies have been conducted elsewhere (primarily in Africa, summarized in Smith & Bond, 1998), but very few, if any, in Islamic cultures.Part of the purpose of this study is to redress that neglect by investigating attributional patterns in a non-North American and non-East Asian group.At the same time, we have attempted to replicate the results obtained in previous East Asian samples.Hence, the present study examines attributional patterns in Turkish, Japanese, and Chinese samples of university students.Individuals in Western samples often take credit for their successes while rejecting blame for their failures -1-