Attributional biases among clinicians and nonclinicians

Presented 27 randomly chosen clinicians (psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers) and 18 nonclinicians with a series of statements that describe deviant and nondeviant actor behavior and employ McArthur's (1972) social psychological constructs of emotion, action, and opinion. Ss made a series of causal attributions of actor behaviors. Data were subjected to both univariate and multivariate analyses of variance. The data showed a clear dispositional attribution bias among both clinicians and nonclinicians across all stimulus statements. Further specific tests revealed that clinicians did not differ from each other or from nonclinicians in their attributions and that a significantly greater dispositional bias occurred with deviant actor behavior and in situations that featured actor actions over opinions over emotions. These results were discussed in terms of their theoretical implications and in terms of their applicability to clinical practice.