An Exploration of the Attributional Styles of Christian Fundamentalists and of Authoritarians

This study tested the hypotheses that the attributional styles of Christian fundamentalists and of authoritarians are distinguished by their greater tendencies 1) to prefer dispositional explanations of others' behavior; and 2) to violate the normative attribution rules proposed by Kelley. A total of 165 psychology students who varied in their commitment to Christian fundamentalism and to authoritarian beliefs performed a series of attributional analyses of others' behavior. The results provided no evidence of a distinctive attributional style among Christian fundamentalists. Authoritarians committed more normative attribution errors, as expected. However, contrary to prediction, authoritarians were less inclined than nonauthoritarians to use dispositional explanations when such explanations were expected.