Spontaneous Causal Attributions: A Cross-Cultural Study Using the Sentence Completion Test

Abstract

The hypothesis was that Japanese students use spontaneous causal attributions less frequently than American students because of their cultural background. To measure spontaneous causal attribution, an original sentence completion test was constructed. The subjects were 123 American and 111 Japanese undergraduate students. Analyzing the descriptions given on the test showed that, as hypothesized, Japanese students were less likely to make spontaneous causal attributions than American students. Instead, Japanese students described ways of resolution to overcome negative outcomes more frequently.