Why a Rejection? Causal Attribution of a Career Achievement Event

This paper investigates causal attribution of a real achievement event of high importance to the actor-the decision of a refereed professionaljournal on a paper submittedfor publication. We develop a scale of causal attribution on the dimension of general control, and test hypotheses concerning the effect of status and outcome on attributions. The effect of outcome is significant. As predicted, respondents accord more relative importance to controllable causes when outcomes are positive than when they are intermediate or negative. Professional status does not affect authors' causal attributions, but sex does. Females assign relatively more importance to uncontrollable causes than do males, regardless of outcome. We consider the possible implications of these findings for future achievement attempts.