Citation

Der-Karabetian A, Preciado M. Percept. Mot. Skills 1989; 68(2): 453-454.

Affiliation

Behavioral Science Department, University of La Verne, CA 91750.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1989, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2717354

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the tendency for mother-blaming among college students to determine if such a bias existed outside the clinical profession. The subjects were 49 men and 50 women at a small private university, who were asked to attribute responsibility for 45 behavioral and personal-psychological problems to one of the following targets: Father, Individual, Mother, and Society. Analysis showed Individual receiving most attributions, followed by Society, Mother, and Father, in that order. Relatively more problems are blamed on Mother than on Father, with a tendency to blame mothers for emotional problems such as dependency and shyness and fathers for behavioral-physiological problems such as child abuse and alcoholism. Intercorrelations of the number of attributions made to different targets clearly suggest that there are parent-blamers, society-blamers, and individual-blamers. Implications of blame attribution for mental health are acknowledged.

Language: en