Attributions of causality for drinking behavior made by alcoholics and by normal drinkers

Alcoholic individuals often are assumed to deny personal responsibility for their alcholism and to assign causation to external situational factors. To evaluate this assumption, 20 alchololics and 14 nonalcoholics made causal attributions for a recent personal drinking episode and for the drinking behavior of three target individuals (an abstinent alcoholic, a nonabstinent alcololic, and a nonalcoholic). Results showed that both alcoholic and non-alcoholic subjects tended to make external attributions for their own drinking behavior. Subjects' attributons for the target individuals depended on bot the targest' and subjects' drinking histories. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to models of alcoholism and to actor-observer differences in casual attribution processes.