Equipment malfunctions and attribution of causality

The purpose of this study was to test whether individuals would be more likely to attribute the cause for the malfunction of a new piece of equipment as a manufacturing problem in the equipment or as an inability on their part to properly work with the equipment. The subjects were 600 residents of Florida, selected by a stratified random sample and interviewed in a statewide telephone survey. Subjects were more likely to attribute the cause to themselves rather than the machine. Overall, 71% attributed the cause to themselves, while only 24% said the machine was at fault. There was also an interaction effect in terms of income, with middle-income users more likely to blame the machine and upper-income users more likely to blame themselves. Further, there was also a significant relationship between attribution of cause and age, with older respondents being more likely to attribute cause to themselves. These results imply that attribution may differ when the potential object of attribution is a machine rather than another person.