Diss. phil.-hist. Bern, 1983.

This thesis investigates the causal attributions that students make for teacher behaviour towards them, with the focus being on behaviour likely to be considered "negative." The term "causal attributions" refers to the causes that people give for the behaviour of others (and themselves). Causal attributions impact on emotions and behaviour and, as a consequence, can have a powerful influence upon individuals and those with whom they live and work. Attribution theory was prominent within the 1980s, although originated before this time. Despite this, interest in attribution theory has endured and the theory continues to be applied in research from a range of different disciplines. Although earlier studies have investigated causal attributions within schools, these have often focused upon the causal attributions of teachers. Few studies have focused upon the causal attributions of students and a limited number have focused upon the causal attributions that students make for teacher behaviour. Following an extensive literature review, no studies were found which investigated the relevance of Weiner's models (e.g., Weiner 1995; 2006; 2010) to student causal attributions for "negative" teacher behaviour towards them, including the impact upon the students' emotions and the level of responsibility assigned to teachers as a result of the behaviour. Participants comprised over three hundred Year 10 students from three secondary schools within a north-west local authority who completed a questionnaire containing a scenario and both open-ended questions and those which require scaling of responses. Following this, a follow-up study was designed and this was piloted with a further eight Y10 students to gain their experiences and views of completing the questionnaire. The results of the research suggested that, overall, students attributed the "negative" teacher behaviour to external influences (mainly "stress") and that, on the whole, they would feel "anger" as a result of the behaviour. The results do not fully support the tenets of attribution theory in general, nor those of Weiner in particular. However, based on the results of the research presented in this thesis, potential extensions to Weiner's theories and models are proposed and methodological issues relating to exploring attributions are discussed, as are suggestions for future research.

No description available.

Building sustainable customer relationships through effective service recovery is a worthwhile goal for all airline companies in an era of intense competition. Developing service recovery strategies that can strengthen customer loyalty in the event of service failure has become a major challenge for the airline business, but yet has received little attention from academics. To address the dearth in the literature, this study sets out to investigate how customers' perceptions of perceived justice of service recovery and those factors external to the recovery encounter, including service failure attributions and company reputation, impact their loyalty recovery in the airline context. This study uses a quantitative method based on a surrey approach. A selfadministered questionnaire was purposively distributed among airline customers at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok, Thailand. The study was tested using data collected from 480 travellers who had previously experienced a full service airline's flight delay in the past 12 months and was analysed with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). First, the results of this research confirm the robustness of the Expectation Disconfirmation Paradigm (EDP) for understanding customer perceived justice of service recovery in an exchange relationship context by emphasising significant positive effects of all dimensions of justice in restoring positive customer relationships. Second, the findings clarify the interrelationships between postrecovery customer trust, customer's overall company satisfaction and customer loyalty by highlighting the important role of which trust plays in recovering customer loyalty. Third, The results further demonstrate how customer perceived justice of service recovery is contingent upon service failure attributions and company reputation. Lastly, the research provides airline managers with useful guidelines on developing cost-effective service recovery strategies focusing on maximising customer loyalty in different service failure situations.

Inhalt: 1 Zur alltagspsychologischen Bedeutung von Kausalinterpretationen 2 Theoretischer und empirischer Bezugsrahmen 2.1 Grundlegende Konzepte der Attributionstheorie - 2.1.1 Die klassischen Modelle der Attributionsforschung - 2.1.2 Neuere kognitive Erklärungsansätze der Kausalattribution 2.2 Empirische Befunde zum Problem der selbstwertbezogenen Attribution - 2.2.1 Selbstwertbezogene Attributionen eigener Handlungsergebnisse - 2.2.2 Das Wettbewerbsparadigma - 2.2.3 Selbstwertbezogene Voreingenommenheiten aus der Beobachter-Perspektive - 2.2.4 Geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede bei der Kausalattribution von Erfolg und Mißerfolg - 2.2.5 Zusammenfassende Bewertung der Untersuchungsergebnisse 2.3 Zum Stand der Theorie - und Methodendiskussion im Rahmen selbstwertbezogener Voreingenommenheiten - 2.3.1 Ich-Beteiligung und Zentralität - 2.3.2 Der informationstheoretische Erklärungsansatz - 2.3.3 Zur Methodik der Erfassung selbstwertbezogener Attributionen - 2.3.4 Die Bedeutung sozialer Vergleichsprozesse für die Kausalattribution 3 Empirische Untersuchung zur Erfassung von kausalattributionen für Verhaltensergebnisse anderer Personen 3.1 Darstellung des Untersuchungsansatzes 3.2 Fragestellung und Hypothesen 3.3 Ablauf der Untersuchung - 3.3.1 Aufgaben der Voruntersuchung - 3.3.2 Durchführung der Hauptuntersuchung 3.4 Schritte der Datenanalyse - 3.4.1 Auswertung der Attributionsskala - 3.4.2 Uberprüfung der Untersuchungshypothesen 3.5 Diskussion und Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse

Trier, Universität, Thesis (doctoral), 1999.

No description available.

Inter-group blame for AIDS has been documented across a myriad of cultures. The dynamics of the blame have not been systematically theorised. A cross-cultural study of social representations of AIDS in South Africa and in Britain was used to forge a theory of inter-group blame. Semi-structured, depth interviews were carried out with sixty young, educated, urban South African and British lay men and women. In both cultures ten white heterosexuals, ten black heterosexuals and ten homosexuals (white and black; a number with HIV/AIDS) were interviewed. Textbase Alpha and SPSS-PC were used to analyse the data. Elements of the social context were content analysed: South African and British Government AIDS campaigns and policy-maker discourse. A similar process of inter-group blame was found in the two cultures: Social representations placed responsibility for the origin and spread of AIDS with out-groups. Groups who were blamed for AIDS by hegemonic thinking held themselves responsible for AIDS. The content of the blaming aspersions in the two cultures differed: While colonial, family-centred and individualistic ideologies circulated in both cultures, social representations of AIDS were also infused with Apartheid-linked ideologies in South Africa and with conspiracy theories in Britain. The British data was characterised by high levels of reflexivity concerning AIDS-related blame. The cross-cultural tendency to project blame for AIDS onto others is determined by psycho-dynamic forces. However, historical and ideological forces shape who is blamed and who internalises the blame for AIDS. Inter-group blame had negative consequences for both the 'blamers' and the 'blamed'. The former felt invulnerable to AIDS. The latter internalised the blame emerging with spoiled identities. The thesis concludes with a set of proposals for modifying the pattern of inter-group blame through mass mediated AIDS campaigns.

I arbetslivet upplever individer olika situationer, både positiva och negativa. Attribution är ett sätt att snabbt och till synes enkelt tolka och förklara individers reaktioner i dessa situationer. Syftet med uppsatsen var att undersöka attribution på arbetsplatser och att undersöka eventuella skillnader eller samband mellan attribution, utbildning och ålder. Respondenter med olika utbildningsbakgrund rekryterades genom kontakt med olika arbetsplatser. Respondenterna fick besvara en enkät där de fick beskriva fyra upplevda situationer, två positiva och två negativa. Resultatet visar aktör- och observatöreffekten genom att individer tolkar olika situationer på olika sätt gällande dimensionerna orsak och stabilitet där observatören tillskrev situationen högre till dessa dimensioner än aktören. Resultaten visade samband mellan attribution och ålder där ökad ålder korrelerande med bedömningen av stabilitet och inre kontroll. De visade även på skillnader i attribution beroende på utbildningsnivå där lågutbildade och högutbildade bedömde flera av skalmåtten olika gällande de positiva situationerna. Föreliggande uppsats visar på att ytterligare forskning på attribution i arbetslivet behövs.

Zugl.: Bern, Hochsch. für Sozialarbeit, Diplomarbeit