Causal Attributions of Ex-Criminal Tribal and Urban Children in India

Summary Attribution of responsibility to social events by children of ex-criminal tribes and nontribal urban children of Allahabad City, India was studied. Sixty children were equally distributed for three age levels and two levels of ethnicity. All children read six hypothetical events which were either socially desirable or undesirable and attributed causality for those events either to person or to situation. A 2 × 3 × 2, Ethnicity × Age × Social events, analysis of variance was performed on person attribution scores. The main effect of ethnicity was not significant, but its interactions with age and social events were significant. In general, ex-criminal tribal children attributed causality to person for undesirable events and to situation for desirable events. No such differences were found in the case of urban children. These findings were examined in the light of differences in early socialization and school environment.