Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
Present results suggest that the effect of both foreseen and unforeseen negative consequences may be viewed in terms of attributions of causality. In Exp I, with 22 male undergraduates, Ss forewarned about the possibility of negative consequences evaluated a chosen task more favorably and made stronger internal attributions of causality for negative consequences than did unforewarned Ss. As expected, in Exp II with 108 male undergraduates, foreseeability of negative consequences had no effect when attributions of causality were directly manipulated and were orthogonal to initial choice and foreseeability. Ss in the high-choice-internal attribution conditions evaluated the task more favorably than Ss in the remaining conditions whether consequences were foreseen or unforeseen. Thus an individual may assume responsibility for negative consequences perceived as contingent on or caused by himself. Foreseeability may imply responsibility by implying an internal locus of causality in much the same fashion as other cues that determine attributions of causality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)
Sogin et al. (Thu,) studied this question.