JOHN RYAN and M.W. BOSCIA

USING ATTRIBUTION THEORY TO HELP FRAME MORALDILEMMAS: AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE PRESIDENT CLINTON

– MONICA LEWINSKI CASE

(Accepted 17 April 2002)

ABSTRACT. This study extends the application of attribution theory to analyze moraldilemmas. Kelley’s model of causal attribution is proposed as a pedagogical tool in helpingstudents organize and evaluate complex moral dilemmas while avoiding common percep-tion errors. By posing three questions, students are challenged to identify patterns andcontext of behaviors that help arrive at the source cause(s) of those behaviors. To testthe usefulness of Kelley’s model in analyzing moral dilemmas, the President Clinton –Monica Lewinski case is empirically tested. Results support the usefulness of Kelly’smodel of causal attribution as a valid and useful tool for students in framing complexmoral dilemmas and avoiding common perception and attribution errors.

KEY WORDS: attribution theory, moral judgment, organizational behavior, perceptionerror

Undergraduate business courses in organizational behavior typically coverthe topic of perception and attribution theory (e.g., Greenberg and Baron,2000; Kreitner and Kinicki, 2001; Hellriegel, Slocum and Woodman,2001). Part of the treatment of the attribution process takes up the question:why do employees behave the way they do? In trying to understand anemployee’s behavior, it is important for the manager to accurately select,organize and interpret appropriate information and then determine if thebehavior is primarily the result of external, situational causes or causesinternal to the employee. For example, if a manager believes the cause ofan employee’s performance behavior is external, the managerial prescrip-tion would be external (e.g. changes in tools, resources, work methods,or job design). A manager that judges the employee to be the cause of theperformance behavior (e.g. lack of ability, experience, effort or motivation)would make an internal prescription (e.g. training, rewards or reprimand).Accurate managerial perception and attribution underlie appropriate mana-gerial action. Unfortunately, individuals base their behaviors on what theyperceive and interpret reality to be, not necessarily on what reality is.Common errors in perception include: fundamental attribution error, whichis the tendency to overestimate personal or internal causes and under-estimate external or situational causes; self-serving bias, the propensity to

Teaching Business Ethics 7: 123–137, 2003.© 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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ascribe personal success to internal causes and failures to external causes;halo effect, which is the evaluation of another person solely on the basisof one attribute; and stereotyping, which is forming a set of beliefs aboutthe characteristics or attributes of a group of people. Theoretical frame-works of the attribution process help students overcome these commonperception errors and guide them in making more accurate and objectivejudgments.

The purpose of this study is to extend the application of attributiontheory to analyze moral dilemmas. More specifically, the locus dimensionof attribution theory as theorized by Kelley’s model (1973) is proposed as apedagogical tool in helping students organize and evaluate complex moraldilemmas while avoiding common perception errors. To test the usefulnessof Kelley’s model in analyzing moral dilemmas, the President Clinton –Monica Lewinski case is empirically tested. Results support the usefulnessof Kelly’s model of the locus dimension of causal attribution as a valid anduseful tool for students in framing complex moral dilemmas and avoidingcommon perception and attribution errors.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Attribution Theory

Making causal explanations for other peoples’ behavior, called attribu-tions, is a basic and common human tendency. Through attributing theactions of others to causes, viewers can make sense of their environment,guide their own behavior, and form predictions of the future (Lee, Hallahanand Herzog, 1996). Attributions can be excellent predictors of subsequentaffective and behavioral responses to events (Weiner, 1985). Attributiontheory is concerned with people’s perceptions of why a behavior, event, oroutcome has occurred. Attributions of causes are made for a wide varietyof outcomes, including success or failure, social acceptance or rejec-tion, physical conditions, such as death or disease, or behaviors such asaggressive actions or requests for help (Weiner, 1985, 1993). Even thoughthe domain of attribution theory is vast, all causes share the same threedimensions, locus, stability and controllability. Each of these dimensionswill be discussed briefly.

Locus refers to whether the cause lies within or outside of the indi-viduals involved. Observers attribute other’s actions to a combination ofcauses. These causes may be related to the situational factors that areexternal to the other person. In contrast, the causes may be based on theobserver’s perception of the other person’s disposition. According to Krull

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(1993), the initial automatic attribution may be either overly dispositionalor overly situational. The nature of the initial attribution could be affectedby the characteristics of the perceiver, such as inferential goals or culture.An initial attribution that is predominantly dispositional may be adjustedto take situational factors into account. Overly situational initial attributionmay also be corrected to include dispositional factors.

Attribution researchers also distinguish between stable and control-lable causes versus unstable and uncontrollable causes (Weiner, 1985).The stability dimension refers to whether the cause is constant or varyingover time. Causes may be viewed as unstable, such as effort or luck. Incontrast, aptitude and personality are examples of stable causes. An attri-bution for an event is usually made to the cause with the most stability(Weiner, 1985). When the cause of a particular outcome is considered tobe highly stable, the cause will influence expectations for similar behaviorin the future. Also, similar outcomes are likely to be attributed to that stablecause (Kelley, 1972; Graham and Weiner, 1997).

Controllability refers to whether an individual has the power to changethe nature of a cause of a good or bad outcome. Individuals’ beliefsabout the controllability outcomes are a fundamental part of understandingevents (Shapiro, Schwartz and Astin, 1996). When a cause is subject togreater controllability, there will be stronger inferences of personal respon-sibility (Weiner, 1993). Graham, Weiner and Zucker (1997) argue thatwhen the cause of a bad outcome is perceived as controllable, such as whenthe outcome is attributed to a lack of effort, then the individuals associatedwith the bad outcome are held responsible. This attribution tends to elicitanger and a desire to punish those responsible, while sympathy is withheld.On the other hand, uncontrollable causes may elicit sympathy and littleanger.

The predictive power of attribution theory has limitations. A certainset of beliefs about a perceived person may not always result in an attri-bution that is consistent with those beliefs (Weber and Gillespie, 1998).Perceivers often identify multiple causes rather than a single one whenexplaining real-world events (Leddo, Abelson, and Gross, 1984; Locksleyand Stangor, 1984; Read, 1987; Tversky and Kahneman, 1983). However,the role of any single cause may be discounted when other potential causesare made salient (Einhorn and Hogarth, 1986). When there are multiplecausal possibilities, then, based on the principle of discounting (Kelley,1972), each individual cause will be considered less important when eachappears sufficiently capable of producing the outcome (Shaver, 1985).

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Explanatory Style

The attribution process is part of the way in which people relate to othersand the environment. In everyday life, people attempt to ascertain prob-able causes for what they observe by constructing causal explanationsfor these events. The term “explanatory style” refers to one’s tendenciesto explain all events in some systematic way. Research has been shownthat explanatory style can be influenced by such personal traits as depres-sion, achievement, physical health, and culture (Abramson, Metalsky andAlloy, 1989; Flett and Hewitt, 1998; Lee and Seligman, 1997; Peterson andSeligman, 1984; Peterson and Ulrey, 1994). Shepperd, Arkin, Strathman,and Baker (1994) found that negative affective reactions tend to be moreextreme when failures are attributed internally to a lack of ability ratherthan a lack of effort. Also, when people are more accountable to others,their causal reasoning increases in complexity, which, in turn, makes themless prone to making overly internal attributions (Tetlock, 1985).

The value of any causal explanation is the degree of “fit” perceivedbetween the outcome of an event and the antecedent information leadingup to that outcome (Pennington and Hastie, 1988). Research has shownthat people sometimes ignore information that is relevant to makingcausal judgment, use the relevant information incorrectly, or use irrele-vant information (Hawkins and Hastie, 1990; Koehler, 1996; Tversky andKahneman, 1971).

When evaluating an outcome with several possible explanations, peoplenot only limit the amount of information they consider in forming causalattributions, but at the same time exaggerate how much they know andthe accuracy of their assumptions (Fischhoff, 1977; Fischhoff, Slovic andLichtenstein, 1977). For example, people may claim hindsight, that they“would have known it all along,” even if they had never been informed thatthe outcome had occurred (Fischhoff, 1975). In addition to hindsight bias,people may also exhibit a perseverance bias where causal explanationsused successfully are more likely to be used to explain subsequent events.This tendency also limits the search for causal information (Ross, 1977;Ross, Amabile and Steinmetz, 1977).

Kelley’s Model of Causal Attribution

One widely accepted model for summarizing and applying the attributionprocess, and mitigating a biased and unreflective explanatory style, is themodel developed by Harold Kelley (1973). The focus of this model ison the “locus” dimension of attribution theory. Business students takinga course in organizational behavior are routinely exposed to Kelly’s modelas a tool in helping explain employee behavior. This current study intends

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to build on this model to help explain why people behave the way theydo in moral dilemmas. The model guides thinking by asking three ques-tions related to three major aspects of the “locus” attribution process:(1) Does this person usually behave this way in this type of situation?(labeled the consistency dimension); (2) Does this person behave differ-ently in different situations? (labeled the distinctiveness dimension); and(3) Do other people behave similarly in this type of situation? (labeled theconsensus dimension). Definitions of the three dimensions of consistency,distinctiveness, and consensus follow (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2001):

Consensus – involves a comparison of an individual’s behavior with that of his or her peers.There is high consensus when one acts like the rest of the group; low consensus when oneacts differently.

Distinctiveness – is determined by comparing a person’s behavior on one task with his orher behavior on other tasks. High distinctiveness means the individual has performed thetask in question in a different manner than he or she has performed other tasks.

Consistency – is determined by judging if the individual’s performance on a given task isconsistent over time. High consistency implies that a person performs a certain task thesame, time after time. (pp. 190–191)

In order to test the ability of Kelley’s dimensions of consensus, distinc-tiveness and consistency to categorize facets of the President Clinton –Monica Lewinski case, a panel of three professors from a small liberal artscollege in Northeastern Pennsylvania generated a list of possible responsesto the three questions posed by the model. The three professors hadextensive background in the disciplines theology, organizational behaviorand accounting. From the generated list of responses, an equal numberof two responses for each of the three questions representing consistency,distinctiveness and consensus were chosen (reported in Table I). In addi-tion, three statements were selected to represent the decision not impeachthe President (Table I).

The question representing consistency, which has a time-oriented focus,asks if the subject consistently behaves in the same way in the same typeof situation over time. Statements 1 and 2 reported on Table I stress histor-ical patterns of behavior (e.g., The allegations concerning the president’srelationship with Jennifer Flowers, Kathy Wiley, and Paula Jones show aconsistent pattern of irresponsible behavior). Therefore it is proposed thatstatements 1 and 2 reported on Table I will load on an unobserved latentvariable labeled consistency.

The distinctiveness question asks if the person observed behaves differ-ently in different situations. The focus of this question is on the specifictask or job. Statements 3 and 4 reported on Table I emphasize how Presi-dent Clinton behaves differently towards tasks and duties not related to

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TABLE I

Attribution model scale items

Consistency

1. The allegations concerning the president’s relationship with Jennifer Flowers, KathyWiley, and Paula Jones show a consistent pattern of irresponsible behavior.

2. President Clinton has a history of dishonesty in these sorts of situations.

Distinctiveness

3. President Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinski is not related to his perfor-mance as president.

4. In other areas of public policy, President Clinton has always been consistent in hispositions and policies.

Consensus

5. Congress should not condemn President Clinton because some congressionalmembers are guilty of similar indiscretions.

6. President Clinton’s behavior toward Monica Lewinski is not that important becauseother presidents have had similar relationships without negative consequences.

Not to Impeach

7. The president should be allowed to continue being president.8. The president lacks the moral leadership to continue being president (reversed

score).9. Congress should send a message of disapproval concerning the president’s actions

but not vote for impeachment.

the Monica Lewinski dilemma (e.g., President Clinton’s relationship withMonica Lewinski is not related to his performance as president). It isproposed that statements 3 and 4 reported on Table I will load on anunobserved latent variable labeled distinctiveness.

The focus of the consensus question is on other people, do othersbehave this way in this type of situation or task. Statements 5 and 6reported on Table I state that politicians, including former Presidents, havebehaved in a manner similar to President Clinton (e.g., President Clinton’sbehavior toward Monica Lewinski is not that important because otherpresidents have had similar relationships without negative consequences).It is proposed that statements 5 and 6 will load on an unobserved latentvariable labeled consensus.

Figure 1 shows Kelly’s model of causal attribution and the relationshipbetween the consistency, distinctiveness and consensus dimensions andexternal/internal attributions.

Kelly’s theoretical model of causal attribution (Figure 1) posits thatunder conditions of high distinctiveness, high consensus and low consist-

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Figure 1. Kelley’s model of causal attribution.Adapted from Myers, D. G.: 1993, Social Psychology, 4th edn., McGraw-Hill, New York,p. 77.

ency, the perceiver will tend to make an external attribution while underconditions of high consistency, low distinctiveness and low consensus,the perceiver will tend to make an internal attribution. Graham, Weinerand Zucker (1997) argue that internal attributions elicit anger and adesire to punish those held responsible for the outcomes. Therefore it ishypothesized that:

H1: The consistency dimension of casual attribution will representan internal attribution and therefore be negatively related to notimpeaching President Clinton.

H2: The distinctiveness dimension of casual attribution willrepresent an external attribution and therefore be positivelyrelated to not impeaching President Clinton.

H3: The consensus dimension of casual attribution will representan external attribution and therefore be positively related to notimpeaching President Clinton.

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METHODS

Sample

Undergraduate business students at a small liberal arts college in north-eastern Pennsylvania participated in this research during the Spring 2000session. Students were traditional age undergraduates (i.e. ages 18 to 21),given credit for participation, and informed of the purpose and use of thestudy. Instructions for completing the questionnaire were given both orallyduring class time and in written form accompanying the questionnaire. Toinsure confidentiality, it was stressed that the questionnaire be anonymous.Completed surveys were returned to the instructors who then recordedthe credit given students for completed questionnaires. One hundred andeighty five completed surveys were returned and used in this study.

Measurement Model Constructs

Not to impeach. To measure the decision not to impeach President, threequestions were selected that represent opinions that either presidentshould not be impeached (e.g., the president should be allowed to continuebeing president) or should be impeached (e.g., the president lacks themoral leadership to continue being president, reversed scored). A highscore on not to impeach the president would represent an external casualattribution, while a low score would represent an internal attribution.Table I reports the items in the not to impeach score. Students respond tothe statements using a scale ranging to strongly disagree, 1, to stronglyagree, 5. The three item scores were summed and averaged to produce asingle not to impeach score.

Consistency. To measure consistency, two items were chosen (Table I)relating to the extent to which President Clinton behaves in the samemanner on other occasions when faced with the same situation (e.g., Theallegations concerning the president’s relationship with Jennifer Flowers,Kathy Wiley, and Paula Jones show a consistent pattern of irresponsiblebehavior). Students respond to the statements using a scale ranging tostrongly disagree, 1, to strongly agree, 5. The two item scores weresummed and averaged to produce a single consistency score.

Distinctiveness. To measure distinctiveness, two items were chosen (TableI) relating to the extent to which President Clinton acts in the same mannerin different situations (e.g. In other areas of public policy, PresidentClinton has always been consistent in his positions and policies). Studentsrespond to the statements using a scale ranging to strongly disagree, 1,

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to strongly agree, 5. The two item scores were summed and averaged toproduce a single distinctiveness score.

Consensus. Two items were chosen (Table I) relating to the extent towhich others, faced with the same situation as President Clinton faced,behave in a manner similar to the President Clinton (e.g. Congress shouldnot condemn President Clinton because some congressional members areguilty of similar indiscretions). Students respond to the statements usinga scale ranging to strongly disagree, 1, to strongly agree, 5. The two itemscores were summed and averaged to produce a single consensus score.

RESULTS

Attribution Model Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using Analysis of Moment Structures(AMOS 3.1, Arbuckle, 1992) of the proposed attribution and not-to-impeach items, reported in Table I, was performed. Each of the statementsreported in Table I, and shown in Figure 2, represent an observed orendogenous variable.

Figure 2 shows the proposed relationship between the endogenousvariables (statements) to the unobserved latent (exogenous) variables ofdistinctiveness, consistency, consensus, and “not-to-impeach”. Figure 2also reports the standardized path coefficients. Each of the six endogenousvariables (statements from Table I) loaded at statistically significant levels(p < 0.001 ) on each their proposed exogenous variables.

The following goodness-of-fit indices were reported by CFA andsupport the adequacy of the 4 factor, 9-item measurement model: goodnessof fit (GFI = 0.94) and adjusted GFI (AGFI = 0.87) (Jöreskog and Sörbom,1989); Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI = 0.93) (Tucker and Lewis, 1973). Toproceed in measuring the structural model, items in each of the factorswere summed and averaged to create a single factor score. Results of theconfirmatory factor analysis support an important objective of the study:that moral dilemmas can be validly framed in distinct casual attributionsrelated to consistency, distinctiveness and consensus.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Table II reports variable means, standard deviations, Cronbach’s alphareliability coefficients and Pearson correlations. An examination of thecorrelations shows initial support for the hypotheses H1, H2 and H3.

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Figure 2. Measurement model of Kelley’s casual attribution.Standardized path coefficients; N = 185; ∗∗∗p < 0.001.

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TABLE II

Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations

Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4

1. Not to impeach 3.38 1.05 (0.80)

2. Distinctiveness 3.55 1.04 0.70∗∗∗ (0.67)

3. Consistency 3.59 0.87 −0.49∗∗∗ −0.48∗∗∗ (0.67)

4. Consensus 2.90 1.15 0.63∗∗∗ 0.65∗∗∗ −0.39∗∗∗ (0.78)

Note: Statistic in parenthesis is Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficient; n = 185; Two-tailed tests of significance were used.∗∗∗p < 0.001.

As hypothesized (H2 and H3), both distinctiveness and consensus arepositively and significantly related to not to impeach while consistency(H1) is negatively and significantly related to not to impeach. However,as correlations fail to control for the influence of the relationship amongvariables (i.e., the ability of some variables to inflate or suppress rela-tions between other variables), the relationship between all variables weresimultaneously analyzed using conventional regression analyses.

Cronbach’s alpha reliabilities, measuring the internal consistency ofeach of the four variables, are: distinctiveness = 0.67, consistency =0.67, consensus = 0.78 and not-to-impeach = 0.80. The alpha values forboth distinctiveness and consistency are below Nunnally’s (1978) recom-mended 0.70 threshold, suggesting the items in each of these two factorsmay load or cross-load on different factors. However, confirmatory factoranalysis supports the factor structure of each of the four measurementvariables and the appropriateness of the proposed measurement model.

Structural Regression Analysis of Hypothesized Attribution Model

Figure 3 represents a path diagram showing the hypothesized relationshipof the dependent variable “not to impeach” as a linear combination of thethree independent variables consistency, distinctiveness and consensus. Aconventional linear regression was performed using Analysis of MomentStructures (AMOS 3.1, Arbuckle, 1992) and results are shown in Figure 3.

Hypotheses H1, H2 and H3 were supported. Consistency was signifi-cantly and negatively related to “not to impeach” (H1) while bothdistinctiveness and consensus were significantly and positively relatedto “not to impeach” (H2, H3). Additionally, the three independent vari-ables accounted for 57% of the explained variance (i.e. R2 = 0.57) of thedependent variable “not to impeach”.

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Figure 3. Structural regression analysis of the hypothesized attribution model.Standardized path coefficients; N = 185. ∗∗p < 0.01; ∗∗∗p < 0.001; R2 = 0.57

DISCUSSION

This study has proposed and tested Kelley’s model of causal attributionas one tool to help students overcome bias and unreflective explanatorystyles when analyzing complex moral dilemmas. By posing three ques-tions, students are challenged to identify patterns and context of behaviorsthat help arrive at the source cause(s) of those behaviors. Results of thisstudy are consistent with Kelley’s model of causal attribution. Students’perceptions of a consistency of behavior significantly loaded on a factorthat Kelley’s model labels consistency. Results further demonstrate thatconsistency of behavior is negatively associated with a willingness tonot impeach the president. This finding is in line with Kelley’s modelthat associates consistency to an internal attribution. When students findevidence that other people, in similar situations, behave in a similar mannerto the observed subject, their perceptions load on a factor that Kelley’smodel interprets as consensus. This factor labeled consensus was posi-tively related to not to impeach the president and is consistent with Kelley’sinterpretation of an external attribution. When students perceive that anobserved subject behaves differently in different types of situations, theseperceptions load on a factor that Kelley’s model labels distinctiveness.The distinctiveness factor was positively related to not impeaching thepresident, a finding consistent with Kelley’s interpretation of an externalattribution.

The purpose of the questions posed by Kelley’s model is to helpstudents explore facts and causal attributions they may overlook because oftheir habitual explanatory styles. The following illustrate the use of thesethree questions. Does the observed person usually behave this way in this

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type of situation (consistency question)? Students are asked to considerpatterns of behavior that are consistent over time in the same type ofcontext. The professor might use this question to demonstrate recencyerror (error in which the appraisal is based largely or solely on the mostrecent behavior rather than on patterns of behavior over time). Does thisperson behave differently in different situations (distinctiveness question)?Here the students are asked to focus on the specific task or job. Onecommon error in making task or job performance evaluations is the welldocumented “halo error” (forming an overall impression or evaluation of aperson based on only one facet on which you place a high value). Studentsare challenged to place the event in question within a larger context ofjob duties and responsibilities. Do other people behave similarly in thistype of situation? This question asks students to consider how other peoplebehave in this type of situation. Here the perceptual error of contrast effectsmight be explored. Contrast error occurs when the comparison groupis incomplete, inappropriate or represented by a minority characteristic(e.g., Politician X lied therefore all politicians are dishonest; ProfessorY is incompetent because she compares unfavorably with the three bestprofessors in the school). Of course the above three questions are intendedonly to gather facts. They attempt to establish “what is” and not “whatshould be”. They are empirical questions, not normative statements. Thegoal is simply clarify the thinking process in establishing the facts ofthe moral case. The next step would involve identifying, analyzing andapplying an ethical reasoning framework appropriate to the context andfacts (e.g., teleological, deontological, virtue theory, etc.).

This study focused solely on the “locus” dimension of attribution theoryto help frame moral dilemmas. Future work might take up the stabilityand controllability dimensions of attribution theory in addressing moraldilemmas. One avenue of research might look at the relationship betweenpersonality (a stability characteristic) and attribution. For example, doindividuals scoring higher on empathy tend to make more internal orexternal attributions? Other dimensions of personality, such as the BigFive (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability,and openness to experience), might be investigated as to their impact onforming attributions.

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King’s CollegeWilkes-Barre, PA 18711USAE-mail: jjryan@kings.edu