Measuring Parental Attributions- Conceptual and Methodological Issues

Journal of Family Psychology1998, Vol. 12, No. 4, 459-480

Copyright 1998 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.0893-320(V98/$3.00

Measuring Parental Attributions:Conceptual and Methodological Issues

Daphne Blunt BugentalUniversity of California, Santa Barbara

Michelle NewChildren's National Medical Center

Charlotte JohnstonUniversity of British Columbia

Joanne SilvesterCity University

A selective review is offered of current issues and new developments in themeasurement of parental attributions for social behavior. Attributions have alterna-tively been conceptualized as involving (a) memory-dependent knowledge struc-tures (i.e., interpretive styles that are dependent on the parent's history) or (b)stimulus-dependent appraisal processes (i.e., interpretations that are dependent oninformation available in the immediate context). Consideration is given to thetheoretical underpinnings of different types of attributional measures and theimplicit models within attribution research (e.g., attributions as mediators, attribu-tions as moderators). Finally, psychometric issues within different attributionalapproaches are discussed, including consideration of the factors that optimize orconstrain the utility of different measures.

Developmental and family researchers havebegun to pay increasing attention to parentalattributions in recent years (e.g., Bugental &Goodnow, 1998; Miller, 1995). Their interestlies in the assumption that the ways in whichparents explain caregiving events have impor-tant implications for their immediate emotionaland behavioral responses, as well as for thelong-term quality of family relationships. Notsurprisingly, the volume of research concernedwith parental attributions is growing and, withit, the number of ways in which researchers

Daphne Blunt Bugental, Department of Psychol-ogy, University of California, Santa Barbara; Char-lotte Johnston, Department of Psychology, Universityof British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia,Canada; Michelle New, Children's National MedicalCenter, Washington, DC; Joanne Silvester, Depart-ment of Psychology, City University, London, UnitedKingdom.

Order of authorship was determined alphabetically.Correspondence concerning this article should be

addressed either to Daphne Blunt Bugental, Depart-ment of Psychology, University of California, SantaBarbara, California 93106, or to Charlotte Johnston,Department of Psychology, University of BritishColumbia, 2136 West Mall, Vancouver, BritishColumbia, Canada V6T 1Z4.

choose to define, operationalize, and investigateparental attributions. The focus of this article ison the theoretical underpinnings and measure-ment of parents' social attributions in families ofchildren and adolescents. Specifically, we areconcerned with the conceptualization and assess-ment of parental attributions for their own andtheir children's social behavior and interactions(as opposed to academic or achievement out-comes). As such, the article stands as acomplement to other work that has summarizedthe empirical work in this field (e.g.. Miller,1995) or that has focused on attributions ofadults with respect to their relationships withother adults (e.g., Bradbury & Fincham, 1990;Brewin, MacCarthy, Duda, & Vaughn, 1991).

Increasing Interest in Parental Attributions

Interest in parental attributions emerged inresponse to increasing concern with the role ofcognitions within caregiving relationships. Itbecame apparent that parental affective andbehavioral responses to caregiving events areinfluenced by variations (across settings andindividuals) in the interpretations given to thoseevents (Bugental & Shennum, 1984; Dix &Grusec, 1985; Dix, Ruble, & Zambarano, 1989;Geller & Johnston, 1995b; Smith & O'Leary,

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460 BUGENTAL, JOHNSTON, NEW, AND SILVESTER

1995). Global parental attitudes or beliefs hadnot proven useful as a means of explainingvariations in parenting (e.g., Holden & Edwards,1989). Parental self-reports proved to revealmore about currently accepted parenting prac-tices than what parents actually did (Becker &Krug, 1965). Interest increasingly turned toparents' causal analysis of their family relation-ships and interactions with children (Bugental &Goodnow, 1998; Goodnow, 1988). This ap-proach differed from earlier approaches in that itfocused on interpretive questions (e.g., "Whenyour child misbehaves* why is that?") ratherthan questions of feelings and attitudes (e.g.."How much pleasure do you experience intaking care of your child?") or questions ofbelief and advocacy (e.g., "Should youngchildren be spanked when they disobey?").Parental attributions came to be seen asinterpretive filters through which meaning isassigned to the behaviors and characteristics ofchildren and to the nature of the parent-childrelationship.

Looking at variations in attributions acrosscontexts, particular attention has been given tothe role of parents* causal appraisal of children'sproblem behavior. When children's actions posea challenge, threat, or demand to the caregivingsystem, the meaning assigned to children'sactions influences parental affect and choice ofcoping or discipline strategies (Affleck, Allen,McGrade, & McQueeney, 1982; Power, Gersh-enhorn, & Stafford, 1990; Stratton & Swaffer,1988). For example, in contrast to the mothersof children without problems, mothers who facechronic aggressive behavior in their childrenhave typically been found to reveal a hostile ornegative bias in their interpretations of theirchildren's actions (e.g., Baden & Howe, 1992;Bickett, Milich, & Brown, 1996; Dix &Lochman, 1990; Strassberg, 1995). The nega-tive affect that parents experience in response tochildren's problem behaviors appears to reflecttheir perception that these behaviors are bothpervasive and intentional (Joiner & Wagner,1996).

Looking at variations in attributions acrossindividuals, certain explanatory patterns arefound to increase parents' risk for continuingproblems within the parent-child relationship.For example, chronically depressed mothers aremore likely to interpret their children's behav-iors (even those that are benign) as negative and

maladjusted (Geller & Johnston, 1995a; Griest,Wells, & Forehand, 1979; Mash & Johnston,1990); ultimately, the interpretations made bysuch parents have negative consequences fortheir children. As a second example, parentswho are at risk for becoming physically abusiveare found to show distinctive attributionalpatterns. For example, Larrance & Twentyman(1983) found that physically abusive andneglectful mothers make significantly moreinternal and stable attributions for their ownchildren's negative behaviors than do compari-son mothers. Abusive parents are also morelikely to believe that their children are intention-ally acting to annoy or challenge them (Bauer ScTwentyman, 1985) and to assign primaryresponsibility to children as controllers ofinteractional conflict (e.g., Bugental, Blue, &Cruzcosa, 1989).

Unanswered Questions

Although the need for consideration ofparental attributions within caregiving interac-tions has become increasingly clear, the exactrole and nature of attributions within suchrelationships still is not always well defined.Three broad questions provide a rationale forthis article. First, increasing consideration needsto be given to the theoretical underpinnings ofthe various measures of parental cognitions(e.g., Bugental & Goodnow, 1998; Holden &Edwards, 1989). Thus, it is important to ask:Under what circumstances do parental attribu-tions operate as aware, reflective, moment-to-moment appraisal processes of ongoing events;that is, when do attributional processes dependprimarily on information available in theimmediate interaction context? Alternatively,under what circumstances do parental attribu-tions operate as stable interpretive styles thatfunction automatically and with little aware-ness; that is, when do interpretive processesdepend primarily on the parent's relationshiphistory?

Second, further consideration needs to begiven to the positioning of attributional pro-cesses within models of caregiving. When areattributions conceptualized as mediators withinrelationships? For example, do certain types ofundesired child behavior quite generally elicit"intentionality" attributions from caregiv-ers—an interpretation that increases negativeaffect, more controlling parenting tactics, or

MEASURING PARENTAL ATTRIBUTIONS 461

both. Alternatively, when are attributions concep-tualized as moderators within relationships? Forexample, do certain types of undesired childbehavior elicit different attributions from differ-ent caregivers—differences that will then haveconsequences for affective and behavioral re-sponses. Or as other options, when are parentalattributions conceptualized as independent vari-ables (e.g., as a source of influence on caregivingpractices) and when are they conceptualized asdependent variables (e.g., as outcomes ofparticular kinds of caregiving experiences)?

Third, we are concerned with the variousmeasurement issues that are important in theassessment of parental attributions. We giveseparate consideration to the issues that opti-mize or constrain the validity of memory-dependent attribution measures (i.e., measuresthat assess attributions that are dependent on theparent's history) and the measurement issuesthat have evolved in the formulation of stimulus-dependent attribution measures (i.e., measuresthat assess attributions that are dependent oninformation available in the immediate context).Finally, we discuss issues for the future in themeasurement of attributions, highlighting theopportunities afforded by some of the newdevelopments in the field.

General Approaches to Attributions

Attribution theory has traditionally beenconcerned with the causal search for meaning asa way of framing one's response to life events oras a means of understanding the significance ofthose events for the future. Historically, therehave been the following two traditions in theapproach to these attributional processes: (a)concern with attributions made in response toparticular patterns of stimulus events and (b)concern with attributional processes that reflectthe individual's history. The first approach isconcerned with regularities in the ways in whichpeople make use of stimulus information toexplain events. The second approach is con-cerned with stable individual differences inexplanatory processes. The first set of processeshas sometimes been referred to as attributiontheories, whereas the second set of processeshas sometimes been referred to as attributionaltheories (Antaki & Brewin, 1982; Kelley &Michela, 1980). In this review, we are concernedwith both types of processes. We refer to the firsttype of attributions as stimulus-dependent attri-

butions and to the second type of attributions asmemory-dependent attributional style. The twotraditions are described as focusing on differentprocesses but not as "being" mutually exclusive.

Stimulus-Dependent Attributions

Researchers following the first tradition havefocused on such issues as the kinds ofexplanations that parents commonly offer forparticular kinds of child behavior. These stimu-lus-dependent attributions are typically seen asappraisals formed via controlled, effortful,aware processing (Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977).Concern with stimulus-dependent attributionsmay be thought of as emerging within a classicalattribution theory framework (with roots inHeider's 1944 theory); for example, Kelley(1967) was concerned with the extent to whichattribution processes are based on the covaria-tion of outcomes across time, situation, andperson. Weiner developed a theory-based tax-onomy that reflected the basic dimensionsunderlying attributional process (e.g., locus,intentionality, stability, controllability); this tax-onomy was then used to explore the role ofattributions as mediators between antecedentevents and ensuing affect, motivation, andbehavior (e.g., Weiner, 1990; Weiner et al., 1972).

The framing provided by Kelley (1967) andWeiner (1990; Weiner et al., 1972) formed thetheoretical bases for research concerned withboth (a) the effects of stimulus events onattributions and (b) the effects of attributions onsubsequent responses. This approach allows forthe development of individual differences as aresult of covariation experiences, that is, stimu-lus events that have co-occurred on a regularbasis. Such experiences may then serve asmoderators of the interpretation given to stimu-lus events. For example, the causal inferencesdrawn by parents after having a second childhave been found to differ from the inferencesdrawn based on parents* experiences withfirstborns (Himmelstein, Graham, & Weiner,1991). This difference may reflect the expandedrange of stimulus covariation information that isavailable to parents with two or more children(Himmelstein et al., 1991). This approach maybe thought of as providing a rational account ofparental attributions, in which causal explana-tions are constructed and continuously modifiedas a function of changing interactional eventsand changing contexts.


Memory-Dependent Attributional Style

Researchers following the second traditionhave been concerned with attributions as stableknowledge structures—a memory-based patternthat is typically thought of as involvingrelatively unaware, automatic processing, and asoccurring spontaneously. We will use the termmemory-dependent attributional style to refer tointerpretations that are rooted in semanticmemory (generalized notions of "how thingsare") rather than episodic memory (memory forspecific events; Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Parents'early social experiences, primarily with theirown parents, form the basis for knowledgestructures concerning caregiving and childbehavior that are stored schematically in long-term memory. Such structures then act as centralorganizers of parental responses (Grusec, Hast-ings, & Mammone, 1994). Parents' long-termexperiences with their own children may also bethought of as a source of influence on memory-dependent attributional style. Such approachesare distinguishable from stimulus-dependentattributions in that, once established, they areseen as relatively insensitive to the effects ofnew information.

One line of memory-dependent attributionalresearch originated in the work of Kelly (1955)and the psychology of personal constructs, asretrained by Higgins and Bargh (e.g., Bargh,Lombardi, & Higgins, 1988) within a contempo-rary social cognition perspective. From thistheoretical vantage point, parental attributionsmay be seen as personal knowledge structuresthat are relevant to caregiving relationships.Such knowledge structures act as chronicallyaccessible schemas that are easily retrieved inresponse to relevant events (e.g., Bugental,Lyon, Krantz, & Cortez, 1997). A similarapproach to parental attributions has been takenby those who come from an information-processing framework (e.g., Nix, Pinderhugnes,Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1997). Both approachesfocus on the extent to which attributions (asmemory-dependent knowledge structures) areaccessed as a means of interpreting ambiguousor novel events.

Another line of memory-dependent attribu-tional research is reflected in the attributionalreformulation of the learned helplessness litera-ture (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978).Within this literature, attention turned to stableexplanatory patterns that acted to influence

responses to negative life events. The concernwas less with the main effects of attributionsthan with their role as interpretive and affectiveguides to experience. Research that comes fromthis perspective explores the extent to whichmaladaptive child outcomes or family outcomesare associated with a "helpless" attributionalstyle (e.g., Donovan, Leavitt, & Walsh, 1990).

In contrast, social learning theorists conceptu-alized memory-based attributions as expectan-cies acquired as a function of the individual'ssocial learning history and serving to guidefuture responses to others. Theorists comingfrom Bandura's (1982) perspective focused onsocial efficacy as a source of influence onparenting (e.g., Grusec & Mammone, 1995).From a somewhat different perspective, researchthat emerged within Rotter's (1966) locus ofcontrol tradition (Lefcourt, 1992) focused oncontingencies within parents' learning history asa source of influence on their perceived locus ofcontrol and thus their choice of parenting styles(e.g., Levenson, 1973).

Finally, parental attributions have been framedas cultural co-constructions (Goodnow, 1996;Valsiner, in press). From this vantage point,causal notions regarding caregiving relation-ships are collaboratively constructed by thevarious stakeholders within such relationships.This approach to parental cognitions representsa well-developed field that is rooted in culturalpsychology and lies outside the scope of thisparticular article.

Measurement of Memory-DependentParental Attributional Style

In this section, we briefly review the featuresof existing measures that are explicitly orimplicitly concerned with the assessment ofstable knowledge structures (e.g., attributionalstyle) that transcend specific stimulus events. Inreviewing existing parental attributional stylemeasures, we describe test formats and theimplications of formatting features for informa-tion-processing patterns. In addition, we de-scribe the psychometric information that isavailable on these instruments (following apattern that is consistent with Holden andEdward's 1989 review of instruments used formeasuring parental attitudes toward child rear-ing). Rather than closely comparing instrumentson a case-by-case basis, we are ultimatelyconcerned with the relative utility of different


types of instruments for different research andclinical purposes. The review is limited to thoseinstruments that focus on attributions for socialoutcomes, on which there is published informa-tion, and that were found in a PsycLIT searchusing the descriptors attribution, locus ofcontrol, and parents. Measures are described interms of (a) attributional target, (b) format, (c)dimensions, (d) reliability, (e) reactivity, and (f)validity (see Table 1).

Attributional Target

Measures of parental attributional style in-clude an alternative focus on the perceivedcauses of (a) parental outcomes (e.g., the extentto which parental attributions about childrenpredict parents' overall welfare), (b) children'sbehaviors (e.g., the reasons why children fail tocomply), and (c) relationship outcomes (e.g., thereasons why a dyadic system succeeds or fails).Although all of these concerns can be explainedfrom different theoretical positions, differentapproaches have focused on different questions.For example, the first focus is consistent withnotions of perceived efficacy within relation-ships; that is, the concern is with generalizednotions that one can produce desired outcomesas a function of one's actions. The secondgrouping of measures is concerned with parents'explanatory biases in interpreting children'sbehavior and has typically been explained fromthe standpoint of social learning theory orinformation-processing theory. The third group-ing of measures is concerned with the relativecontribution of self and others to dyadicrelationship outcomes. This last approach ismost consistent with emerging interests inrelationships schemas (e.g., Baldwin, 1992;Bugental, 1993) and with long-standing inter-ests in attachment styles or "working models"of relationships (e.g., Bowlby, 1980; Bretherton,1990). Thus, it may be seen that attributionmeasures that bear a superficial resemblanceoften are concerned with different assessmentquestions or different underlying constructs(Grusec & Mammone, 1995; Lovejoy, Verda, &Hays, 1997).

The preponderance of instruments have fo-cused on the perceived causes of undesiredevents (e.g., negative child behaviors or conflict-ual interaction). In general, there is greatersupport for the predictive power of attributionsmade for negative (or ambiguous) events than

for positive events (Peterson, 1991). Althoughattributions may be artificially elicited inresponse to a specific inquiry about positivebehaviors (e.g., "Why did your child share histoys?'*), the fact that respondents can provide ananswer to such questions does not necessarilyindicate that attributional activity would other-wise occur (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). Spontane-ous attributions are also more likely to occur inresponse to events that require interpretationbecause they pose some type of uncertainty.Such events may provide few cues as to howthey might be explained; that is, they areambiguous, unexpected, unclear, or novel (Has-tie, 1984; Wong & Weiner, 1981). However,instruments rooted in a locus of control traditionare less likely to make a distinction betweendesired and undesired events—the LeendersLocus of Control Scale (LOCO; Leenders, 1984,1985) and the Parental Locus of Control Scale(PLOC; Campis et al., 1986) as exceptions—reflecting the idea of a generalized tendency toperceive the world in a particular way.

Format

Stimulus format. The vast majority of free-standing measures of memory-based parentalattributions make use of self-report techniquesand a questionnaire format. Instruments arefairly evenly divided between those that directlyask for agreement with attributional statements,and those that ask for attributions about ahypothetical event presented as a brief writtenvignette. Vignettes, as used by the InfantAttribution Scale (Donovan & Leavitt, 1989),the Mother-Adolescent Attribution Question-naire (MAAQ; Grace, Kelley, & McCain, 1993),the Parental Style Attribution Questionnaire(PAQ; Sobol, Ashbourne, Earn, & Cunningham,1989), the Parent Attribution Test (PAT; Bugen-tal et al., 1989), and the Parenting PossibilitiesQuestionnaire (PPQ; Nix, Pinderhughes, Dodge,Bates, & Pettit, 1997)—a format that has beenused increasingly—have a particular advantagein that they may conjure up a vivid image ofparticular kinds of events.

Instruments differ in the extent to which theyfocus on hypothetical, ambiguous events orevents more directly tied to the respondent'sexperience. Measures derived from a socialcognitive perspective (e.g., the PAT and thePPQ) are more likely to use ambiguous events, a

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strategy that is consistent with the assessment ofrelevant knowledge structures. That is, in theabsence of clear stimulus cues, respondentsnecessarily rely on their stable ways of interpret-ing the stimulus—a "default" response. Instru-ments derived from a social learning perspective(e.g., Sobol et al.'s, 1989, PAQ or Walker'sParent Attribution Questionnaire [PAQ; Walker,1985; Walker & Masters, 1989]) are more likelyto use events that are similar to those therespondent is likely to have experienced, astrategy that is consistent with the assessment ofwell-learned, history-based expectations.

Response format. Item format shows littlevariation across instruments; that is, items(answered directly by parents or used by thosejudging parental responses) typically involve 4-to 10-point Likert scales. As an exception, theLeeds Attributional Coding System (LACS;Stratton, Munton, Hanks, Heard, & Davidson,1988) makes use of a category system. That is,attributional statements, produced by parentsduring discourse, are coded into discrete catego-ries (e.g., controllable/uncontrollable). Sum-mary scores are then created as a function ofaggregated data, for example, the proportion ofattributional statements that were "controllable."

Characteristics of Dimensions

Item content of measures modeled after theAttributional Style Questionnaire (Seligman,Abramson, Semmel, & von Baeyer, 1979)typically makes use of subscales that are basedon theoretically chosen dimensions (stability,globality, locus), as is the case for the InfantAttribution Scale, the LACS, the MAAQ, Sobolet al.'s PAQ, and Walker's PAQ. This strongtheoretical framing is consistent with theposition taken by attributional theorists whofocus on attributional style from the standpointof the reformulated theory of learned helpless-ness (e.g., Abramson, Dykman, & Needles,1991; Peterson, 1991).

Measures with a grounding in social learningtheory or a social information-processing ap-proach, on the other hand, more typically makeuse of factor analysis or multiple-dimensionalscaling in constructing subscales on an empiri-cal basis, for example, the Interpersonal Senseof Control Scale (ISOC; Cook, 1993); the PAT;the Parenting Self-Efficacy Scale (PSE; Jain,Fish, & Stifter, 1997); the PLOC; the ParentingLocus of Control Scale (Koeske & Koeske,

1992); and the Parenting Sense of CompetenceScale (PSOC; Gibaud-Wallston & Wandersman,1978). That is, this approach more typicallyrelies on parents' naive organization of causal-ity. Consistent with Weiner's (1986) conceptual-izations, these analyses regularly reveal dimen-sions that focus on controllability.

Reliability

Reliability information is available on mostparental attributional style measures. However,primary reliance has been placed on internalconsistency rather than on stability (with theISOC, the PAT, and the PSE as exceptions). Inview of the presumed stability of the attribu-tional styles assessed through these measures,greater attention needs to be given to theassessment of test-retest reliability. That is, it isimportant to demonstrate that parents invoke thesame explanatory systems across time.

Reactivity

Reactivity information has not been regularlyavailable on parental attributional style instru-ments and has been seriously underconsideredas a source of measurement error. Lovejoy,Verda, and Hays (1997) corrected this omissionfor three of the more commonly used instru-ments (the PAT, the PLOC, and the PSOC) bycorrelating scores on each of these measureswith the Crowne-Marlowe Social DesirabilityScale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960). Somedifferences appeared, with lower levels ofreactivity (as reflected in correlations with socialdesirability scores) being found for the PAT thanfor the PLOC and the PSOC. The relatively lowlevel of reactivity found for the PAT may reflectthe fact that the instrument's item content wasbased on causes generated by parents. Attribu-tional items generated in this fashion may be lesssubject to social desirability effects than are itemsgenerated by experimenters on a theoretical basis.

Memory-dependent attributions have typi-cally been viewed as serving to organizeparental responses with little or no awareness.However, it is assumed that parents are able toreport on such explanatory processes and arealso able to "correct" such explanations if theyare at variance with culturally accepted views.The dual role of self-report ("uncorrected" vs."corrected") accounts sometimes yields seem-ing contradictions in the literature. For example,high levels of autonomic reactivity in response


to uncontrollable child behavior have beenfound to be associated both with very highperceptions of parental control (e.g., Donovan &Leavitt, 1989; Donovan et al., 1990) and withvery low perceptions of parental control (e.g.,Bugental et al., 1993). This seeming paradoxmay be resolved if recognition is given to thedifferential transparency of attributional mea-sures and to the extent to which parents presenttheir actual feelings of control (as appears to bethe case for the PAT) or an "illusory" ordefensive view of their control (as suggested byDonovan for her measure). Parents who chroni-cally view themselves as powerless have beenfound to attempt to "defend against" thisculturally unacceptable view (Bugental et al.,1997). For example, when constrained by thedemands of dual tasks (a constraint that limitsimpression management), parents with lowperceived control describe children as moredominant or powerful than they are (a schema-consistent depiction). Conversely, when notconstrained in this way, parents with lowperceived control (defensively) describe them-selves as more dominant or powerful than thechild. This reversal suggests that the sameindividuals may reveal completely oppositeimpressions based on the extent to which theyare motivated and able to manage the impres-sion they give. Thus, if we are to understand themeaning of parental attributional style mea-sures, it is essential that greater attention begiven to the effects of impression management.

Validity

Convergent validity. Convergent validity isavailable for the more commonly used parentalattributional style measures, either through theefforts of their authors or others using theseinstruments. As one type of convergent validity,attention has been directed to the relationshipbetween parent attributional variables that comefrom different theoretical perspectives. Theevidence that is available suggests that measuresbased on perceived parental efficacy are notsignificantly related to locus of control type ofmeasures (Bondy & Mash, 1997; Lovejoy et al.,1997). This nonconvergence suggests that thesedifferent measures may be focusing on funda-mentally different questions.

Little evidence is available with respect to theoverlap between attributional style constructsand other conceptually related constructs, for

example, attachment style or working models ofrelationships. As an exception, Grusec andMammone (199S) have explored this potentialassociation. They found that women who scoredas having a low perceived balance of power onthe PAT were more likely to score as "dismiss-ive" (avoidant) on the Adult Attachment Inter-view (AAI)—a measure that focuses specifi-cally on parent-child relationships in stressfulsettings. In addition, those who scored as havingan exceptionally high balance of power on thePAT were more likely to score as "preoccupied"(ambivalent) on the AAI. In contrast, the PAThas not been found to be related to attachmentpatterns within romantic or other adult relation-ships (Lovejoy et al., 1997). This discrepancysuggests the potential specificity of parentalattributions to the caregiving domain.

Discriminant validity. As a second concern,it is important to know the extent to whichparental attribution measures overlap or aredistinguishable from other rival constructs, forexample, affect and self-esteem. Current find-ings suggest that measures differ in the extent towhich they show discriminant validity. Forexample, efficacy-based measures (e.g., thePSOC) tend to be significantly related tomeasures of dispositional affect (e.g., thePositive and Negative Affect Schedule, the BeckDepression Inventory); no equivalent affect-attribution relationship was found for the PAT(Lovejoy et al., 1997). It may be that affectivevalence is more intrinsically tied to efficacy-based notions of attribution.

No clear picture has emerged with respect tothe relationship between parental attributionsand self-esteem. For example, the PSOC hasbeen found to be related to both parentingself-esteem (Johnston & Mash, 1989) andgeneral self-esteem (Gibaud-Wallston & Wan-dersman, 1978). At the same time, the PSE(another efficacy measure) has been found to beunrelated to personal self-esteem (Jain, Fish, &Stifter, 1997). It is clear that further work isneeded in establishing the independence of parentalattributional measures and rival constructs.

Criterion-related validity. In any consider-ation of criterion-related validity, the selectionof an appropriate strategy will depend on thequestions asked. Memory-dependent attribu-tions are conceptualized as stable constructs thatserve as guides to the interpretation of caregiv-ing events. At the same time, their role has been


conceptualized in different ways. For example,if parental attributions are conceptualized asgeneralized expectancies that directly influencemany aspects of parenting, it is appropriate tomeasure their predictive power within a maineffects model (e.g., the extent to which parentalattributions predict child behavior or caregivingoutcomes across children or across contexts).Alternatively, if attributions are viewed as"default" explanatory systems that are accessedin response to uncertainty or potential threats,their validity is more appropriately measured bytesting their predictive power in the presence ofambiguity or challenge (a moderator model).

Those investigations concerned with thedirect relationship between parental attributionsand caregiving outcomes have typically used amain effects validation strategy. From thisperspective, there is a concern with attributionsas predictors of (a) the subjective parentingoutcomes experienced, (b) differential family orchild outcomes experienced, or both. Forexample, those parents who attribute highefficacy to themselves as parents are also morelikely to experience positive parenting outcomes(e.g., Jain et al., 1997; Johnston & Mash, 1989).In addition, a number of researchers haveexplored the general relationship between a"helpless" attributional style and negativeparenting outcomes. As predicted, "helpless"parents are more likely to experience familydysfunction, to be abusive or neglectful, and toexperience low satisfaction (e.g., Boddy, 1995;Grace et al., 1993; Silvester, Bentovim, Stratton,& Hanks, 1995; Stratton et al., 1986, 1988).Reversing the direction of focus, Larrance andTwentyman (1983) found that physically abu-sive mothers saw child misbehavior as moreintentional than did control mothers.

A second approach among researchers inter-ested in assessing the direct relationship be-tween attributions and caregiving outcomesfocuses on the parental attributions as dependentvariables, that is, the ways in which parentalattributions are influenced as a function of theirlong-term experiences with children. For ex-ample, parents of children who show variousbehavior problems (e.g., noncompliant or oppo-sitional-defiant behaviors) have been found tobe more likely to feel out of control as parentsand to blame children for their undesiredbehaviors (e.g., Baden & Howe, 1992; Roberts,Joe, & Rowe-Hallbert, 1992).

As a limiting factor within linear validationmodels, the direction of effects is often unclear.That is, it is often difficult to determine whetherparental attributions emerge in response to theircontinuing experiences as parents or whetherparents who bring a particular attributional styleto the relationship induce particular caregivingoutcomes. Although such dilemmas are typi-cally resolved by the assumption of reciprocaleffects, researchers are increasingly turning tolongitudinal designs that allow a better under-standing of the differential course and directionof effects and of the development of mutualinfluences over time (e.g., Dodge, Bates, &Pettit, 1990). In addition, shared method vari-ance (self-reports of attributions and self-reportsof caregiving outcomes) sometimes poses athreat to secure causal inference within thesedesigns. Such limitations are resolvable throughgreater use of multimethod assessment ofattributions.

Other researchers have been concerned withattributions as moderators of parental reactionsto particular kinds of caregiving events. Fromthis standpoint, parental attributions are oftenviewed as a risk factor rather than a direct sourceof influence on parenting across settings andchildren. Typically, attention has been directedto the ways in which certain parental attributions(e.g., low perceived control, hostile attributionalbiases) sensitize parents to problematic butambiguous parenting events or child behaviors(Bugental, 1992; Dodge, 1986; Donovan &Leavitt, 1989).

Researchers who view attributions as modera-tors or qualifiers of the interpretation given tocaregiving stimuli have given particular atten-tion to the predictive power of parental attribu-tions in ambiguous settings. The value of thisstrategy is illustrated by studies by both Dix andcolleagues (Dix & Reinhold, 1991; Dix, Rein-hold, & Zambarano, 1990) and Strassberg(1995). These investigators found that attribu-tional biases in mothers of problem childrenwere more strongly revealed in response tostimuli presenting ambiguous instances of childmisbehavior (e.g., delays in compliance orattempts at bargaining with the parent) than inresponse to clear, unambiguous instances ofchild compliance or noncompliance. It is likelythat the attributions elicited by these moreambiguous stimuli are memory-based and re-flect parents' overlearned knowledge structures.


However, it should also be acknowledged thatambiguous stimuli may also elicit attributionalproblem solving that relies on rational, awareprocesses. Thus, it is seen that the lines betweenmemory-dependent and stimulus-dependent at-tributional processing are not always clear andthat greater effort is needed to directly test thetypes of processing that different measures pullfrom parents.

Stimulus-Dependent Attribution Measures

The measures of parental attributions consid-ered thus far have focused on the assessment ofstable, memory-based attributions with originsin the parent's own history or long-termexperiences as a parent In contrast, researchfocused on stimulus-dependent attributions hasmore typically focused on deliberate causalreasoning that occurs in response to specificcaregiving events or specific children. As wastrue for memory-dependent attributions, re-search coming from this second focus may alsovary in the positioning of attributions within thecaregiving process. For example, parental attri-butions may be seen as occurring as mediatorswithin the reciprocal influence processes thattake place within caregiving relationships.Behaviors of children may elicit particularparental attributions, which, in turn, will influ-ence parenting responses, which will influencechildren. Alternatively, parental attributionsmay be thought of as moderated by contextualknowledge (e.g., the age or presumed ability ofthe child, knowledge of mitigating circumstances).

In reviewing the literature on stimulus-dependent attributional assessment, we drewprimarily on research that has made use ofstudy-specific assessment tools. Understand-ably, less use has been made of measures ofstable attributional style in exploring relativelyshort-term attributions, child- or behavior-specific attributions, or context-mitigated attribu-tions. However, as noted above, the linebetween memory-dependent and stimulus-dependent attributions represents a fuzzy bound-ary. That is, initially fluid stimulus-dependentinformation ultimately accumulates over time toform stable, change-resistant knowledge struc-tures. In addition, the controlled, aware ap-praisal processes suggested for stimulus-dependent attributions may range from "middle-of-the-night" ruminations to very fast (eventhough not fully automatic) "snap" judgments.

In regard to the uses made of stimulus-dependent attributions, we discuss attributionaltarget, format (eliciting stimuli and responseformat), reliability, reactivity, and validity.

Attributional Target

Measures of stimulus-dependent attributionsand memory-dependent attributions share aconcern with the perceived causes of (a)parental outcomes, (b) children's behaviors, and(c) relationship outcomes. However, researchthat makes use of stimulus-dependent attribu-tions has directed somewhat greater attention to"normative" attributional processes, that is, theways in which parents typically interpretcommonly observed variations in children'sbehaviors (e.g., Dix & Grusec, 1985; Dix,Ruble, Grusec, & Nixon, 1986; Dix et al., 1989).At the same time, however, a large number ofinvestigators have focused on parents' causalattributions for children's problem behaviors(e.g., Bickett et al., 1996; Dix & Lochman,1990; Johnston & Patenaude, 1994; Sonuga-Barke& Balding, 1993).

Format

Eliciting stimuli. Research concerned withdifferences in parental attributions associatedwith either normal or abnormal child behavior(tested either within main effect, reciprocaleffect, or moderator models) is critically con-cerned with the ways in which child stimuli arepresented. As a result, there has been a relianceon eliciting stimuli that are explicit and clearexemplars of the behavioral classes. Correspond-ingly, the emphasis has been on experimentercontrol of the eliciting stimuli. Because stimuliare created to convey specific behavioral orsituational information, there has been a relianceon hypothetical and more easily controlledstimuli rather than on the presentation of morerealistic but relatively uncontrolled target events.For reasons of increased control, as well asconvenience, the hypothetical stimuli havetypically been presented in written format,although video presentations are occasionallyused (e.g., Dix & Reinhold, 1991; Smith &O'Leary, 1995). Some investigators presentdescriptions of behavior in hypothetical orunknown children (e.g., Dix et al,, 1989;Strassberg, 1995), whereas others ask parents toimagine their own child showing the stimulus


behavior (e.g., Johnston & Freeman, 1997; Mills& Rubin, 1990).

Despite this heavy reliance on hypotheticalstimuli, more realistic, actual behaviors of theparents' own children may have some advan-tages. Such approaches provide stimuli thatencourage parents to respond in the assessmentsituation as they have responded to events thatthey have actually experienced (a condition thatmay optimize reliance on episodic memory ofparticular kinds of events with specific chil-dren). For example, Freeman, Johnston, andBarth (1997) and Gretarsson and Gelfand (1988)both used a recalled-incident interview tech-nique to elicit parental recollection of specific,recent behaviors exhibited by their own chil-dren. With these behaviors as stimuli, parentswere then asked to recall the attribution;!]appraisals they made for the child behaviorswhen they occurred. Others have used video-mediated recall of attributions, in which parentsare shown videotapes of their children's behav-ior in a recent parent-child interaction as stimulifor attributional assessment (e.g., Johnston &Freeman, 1997). Johnston and Freeman's (1997)study used all three types of stimuli (writtenvignettes of hypothetical child behaviors, re-called behaviors, and videotaped behaviors) inassessing attributions for different types of childbehavior among parents of nonproblem childrenand children with attention-deficit hyperactivitydisorder (ADHD). Results of this researchindicated that the three forms of assessmentproduced similar patterns of behavior and parentdifferences. In addition, responses to the threemethods of stimulus presentation were signifi-cantly correlated with each other. However, thecorrelations were small to moderate in size,suggesting that the methods provide uniqueinformation about parental attributions.

Response format. Stimulus-dependent attri-butions, like memory-dependent attributions,have typically been assessed by traditionalLikert-type scales. Occasionally, parents havebeen asked for open-ended responses to causalattributional questions (e.g., Johnston, Rey-nolds, Freeman, & Geller, 1998; Mills & Rubin,1990). In such research, coders classify parentalresponses into categories that reflect particularattributional dimensions (e.g., intemality) orclusters of dimensions (e.g., internal, control-lable, stable). For example, parental explana-tions of child behavior might be coded as

emphasizing dispositional or situational causes(e.g., Gretarsson & Gelfand, 1988), the extent towhich the child's intention was prosocial orhostile (e.g., MacKinnon-Lewis, Lamb, Ar-buckle, Baradaran, & Volling, 1992), or theextent to which responses reflect internal versusexternal or stable versus unstable causal motives(e.g., Larrance & Twentyman, 1983).

A recent study by Johnston et al. (1998)compared parental responses with open-endedquestions to more traditional Likert-type ratingsof causal attributions. The study found thatalthough the methods produced reasonableagreement, they were far from overlapping, andeach contributed unique information concerningparents' causal reasoning. The design of tradi-tional measures constrained parents to think ofand make ratings for a single cause; however,when parents were allowed to provide attribu-tional responses to open-ended questions, then-responses typically included multiple causalfactors, and often these factors were contradic-tory. For example, parents often combined bothdispositional (e.g., "he's usually a kid who likesto share") and situational (e.g., "there were lotsof toys, so it was easy to share") factors in theirresponses. Thus, it may be that measures thatask for ratings of single causes place anunnatural limitation on parents who, in actualfact, see much greater complexity in the causalorigins of their children's behavior.

Reliability

Because stimulus-dependent measures areoften framed as experimental tasks, the concernis usually with the ability of the target stimuli toinvoke the predicted pattern of parental re-sponses on the attributional dimensions, ratherthan with traditional psychometric issues. Inmost studies, multiple exemplars of stimulirepresenting different stimulus parameters (e.g.,age of child, type of child behavior) arepresented to the parent and responses areaggregated across the multiple items. However,the reliability of this aggregate score is seldomtested or reported. The number of vignettes orexemplars of each type is limited by practicalconstraints. For example, if the investigator isinterested in three dimensions of parentalattributions (e.g., locus, stability, and globality)and in the influence of four behavior types, usingonly three exemplars of each type still requiresthat the parent make a total of 36 ratings.


Obviously, with a limited number of items, theinternal consistencies of the aggregated attribu-tion responses will remain low (e.g., Johnston &Freeman, 1997). Given that this low reliabilitywill cap the validity that can be shown for thesemeasures, a call for greater attention to theseissues of internal consistency seems obvious.Whether test-retest reliability is important instimulus-dependent measures may depend onthe particular attributions being elicited. How-ever, to the extent that the assessor wishes toargue that the attributional responses are norma-tive or are typically elicited by a particularstimulus event, then attention must also be paidto establishing the stability of these measures.

Reactivity

The susceptibility of various stimulus-dependent measures to the influence of socialdesirability has not received extensive attentionin the literature. However, there is every reasonto believe that these measures are susceptible toparental attempts at impression management. Tothe extent that parents can easily determine thesocially appropriate response and are motivatedto provide such a response, then measures ofstimulus-dependent attributions are likely toreflect such management efforts. Only modestcorrelations are typically found between stimu-lus-dependent parental attributions and actualparental responses to the same child stimulus(e.g., Dix et al., 1986; Geller & Johnston,1995b). This lack of association may reflectproblems with the reactivity of measures; forexample, parents may be reluctant to voice theiractual views about the causes of children'sbehavior and, as a result, may provide "sociallycorrect" attributions. These "corrected" attribu-tions may, however, be quite different from theactual attributions that serve to mediate therelationship between child and parent behavior.For example, a recent study by Johnston andFreeman (1997) revealed that parents of chil-dren with ADHD reported attributions for childsymptoms that were consistent with a nonblam-ing, medical view of ADHD (e.g., a behaviorthat is biologically based and that is uncontrol-lable by the child); at the same time, theseparents continued to express disapproval (im-plicit blame) of the child's behavior. It is likelythat the attributions reported by such parentsreflect their knowledge of socially acceptedviews of ADHD rather than their more naive

causal views. Biases of this type are likely tooperate in all settings in which parents are askedabout the presumed causes of their children'sundesired behavior—in particular, among thoseparents (e.g., middle class parents) who aresensitive to current scientific views of problem-atic child behavior.

Validity

When research makes use of stimulus-dependent attributions, concern is typicallyfocused on a limited type of criterion-relatedvalidity. The preponderance of such researchhas been concerned with the bidirectionalrelationship between parental attributions andspecific stimulus events (e.g., child behaviors).Other research has focused on context as amoderator of the relationship between stimuliand attributions.

Child behavior and parental attributions. Anumber of studies have demonstrated thatparental attributions vary consistently depend-ing on the type of child behavior beingconsidered. Among parents of nonproblemchildren, it has been demonstrated that parentstypically credit internal child factors (e.g.,ability, effort) as the causes of positive behav-iors, such as altruism, and excuse negativebehaviors, such as norm violations, as due toexternal, transient, or uncontrollable causes(e.g., Dix & Grusec, 1985; Dix et al., 1986,1989).

In addition, a large number of investigatorshave focused on differences that emerge inparents* causal attributions for symptoms ofvarious childhood disorders (e.g., Johnston &Patenaude, 1994; Sonuga-Barke & Balding,1993). Using a bidirectional model, suchresearch has been concerned with differences inattributions across parents, grouped according tothe behavior disorders of their children. Forexample, Bickett et al. (1996) and Dix andLochman (1990) found that mothers of aggres-sive children revealed a hostile or negative biasin their interpretations of child behavior, com-pared with mothers of nonproblem children.Recently, Johnston and Freeman (1997) foundthat parents of children with ADHD saw bothinattentive-overactive and oppositional childbehaviors as more stable and less controllableby the child than did parents of nonproblemchildren. In these studies, the implicit model hasbeen one that emphasizes cumulative, reciprocal


effects between child characteristics, parentalcognitions, and parental responses.

Context as a moderator. Other research hasspecifically addressed the issue of contextualfactors. As one contextual factor, parents arelikely to modulate their attributions for chil-dren's behavior as a function of the child's stageof development. For example, it has beenobserved that parental attributions vary depend-ing on the age of the child considered, with olderchildren held more accountable for their behav-ior (e.g., Dix et al., 1986; Fincham & Emery,1988). As a second contextual factor, parentalattributions may also vary as a function of theimmediate circumstances that qualify the signifi-cance of child behavior. For example, Milnerand Foody (1994) demonstrated that the pres-ence of mitigating information reduced blamingattributions for child misbehavior. Interestingly,the mitigating information interacted with adults'risk status for being abusive such that mitigationeffects were only seen among low-risk adults.Johnston et al. (1996) and Borden and Brown(1989) have both studied how knowledge thatthe child is medicated affects the attributions forchild behavior offered by parents of childrenwith ADHD.

Issues for the Future in the Measurementof Parent Attributions

This article has provided a theoretical back-ground for ongoing research on parental attribu-tions. Different methods of measuring attribu-tions were traced to different theoretical origins,and the influence of these traditions on conceptu-alizations and interpretations of attributionalfindings were outlined. This review highlightedthe fact that attributional measures are regularlyselected and used without explicit consideration,or even recognition, of the underlying assump-tions or the measurement approach. We wouldargue that closer attention to theoretical issues isa fundamental need in future research. Thepreceding sections of this article have illustratedthat attributional measures differ in the types ofcognitive processes they tap, the memorymechanisms they rely on, and whether they areconceptualized as main effects or moderators inlinking child behavior and parent behavior.These differences must be carefully consideredin designing future studies and in integratingfindings regarding how parents think about childbehavior and parenting.

Tailoring Measures to Research Questions

Consideration of the theoretical underpin-nings of parental attributions fosters consider-ation of the ways in which they may be mostappropriately measured. For example, it sug-gests variations in the eliciting stimuli that aremost relevant. Along one dimension, the use ofgeneral, ambiguous stimuli optimizes assess-ment of memory-dependent, schematic attribu-tional processes that differ across parents,whereas the use of specific, behavioral events ismost likely to optimize the measurement ofstimulus-dependent, episodic memories associ-ated with particular child behaviors. It can alsobe argued that the use of experimenter-generated stimuli representing hypothetical orunknown children is more likely to pull forstable interpretive styles, whereas the use ofparent-generated stimuli is more likely to pullfor responses based on specific episodes in thehistory of parents and children. Further study is,of course, needed to test this conjecture.

Changing Models in the Assessmentof Parental Attributions

Parental attributions have increasingly beenthought of as operating in continuous feedbackloops between cognitions, affect, and behavior.Early models that focused on linear processes(the presumed effects of attributions on caregiv-ing outcomes, the presumed effects of differentkinds of caregiving events on attributionalresponses) have been replaced by considerationof more complex linkages. For example, at thesame time that a parent interprets a child'smisbehavior as intentional and thus becomesupset, the resultant emotional response is likelyto foster an escalating system of negativeinterpretive bias (Dix et al., 1990; Geller &Johnston, 1995a). Thus, a picture emergeswhere the interplay among cognitions, affect,and behavior might be better understood ascontinuous and recursive rather than linear(Bugental & Goodnow, 1998; Crick & Dodge,1994).

In the same way, greater use has been made ofmoderator models and other interactional mod-els. For example, increasing consideration hasbeen given to the role of stable attributions asmoderators of the linkage between caregivingevents and parental affective and behavioralresponses. Those researchers who are concerned


with memory-based attributional processes standto benefit the most from the use of moderatormodels. That is, when attributions are under-stood as overlearned knowledge structures, it isreasonable to assume that they have theirstrongest effects in situations that provide fewinterpretive cues. In the absence of clearinformation, parents necessarily rely on theirown past experience, as encoded in their stableattributional patterns. In similar fashion, thediathesis-stress models that are common withinthe learned helplessness literature reflect con-cern with attributional style as a moderator ofreactions to stress or lost control.

In addition, it is likely that in many parentingsituations, the stable, memory-based and situa-tion-dependent attributional styles of parentsinteract with situational cues to elicit attribu-tional products that are the result of thesedifferent sources and types of information.Although we argue that understanding thedifferences between these attributional pro-cesses is important, it is also the case that morework is needed to understand how theseprocesses work in combination.

Use of Spontaneous Versus ElicitedAttributions

Existing attributional measures also differ inthe extent to which they tap naturally occurringattributions versus attributions that are some-what artificially induced by requirements of theexperiment. There are advantages to creatingmeasurement situations that either assess sponta-neous attributions (e.g., discourse coding sys-tems such as the LACS; Stratton et al., 1988),that are based on parent-generated attributions(e.g., Bugental et al., 1989), or that involveeliciting stimuli that would ordinarily fosterattributional activity (e.g., vignettes describingambiguous child problems that are open toalternate interpretations; Strassberg, 1995).

Analysis of attributions generated duringdiscourse or in response to open-ended ques-tions, although having advantages for theassessment of spontaneous attributions and awide range of applicability, do have thedisadvantage of potential noncomparabilityacross respondents. In discourse methodologies,both the content and quantity of informationprovided across informants will vary. Forexample, some respondents may spontaneouslygenerate a great deal of attributional activity,

whereas others provide only descriptive, non-causal accounts of events. Whether this differ-ence reflects a true variation in the amount ofattributional processing or only a difference inperceptions of the task demands remains unknown.

As a direction for the future, however, there isconsiderable promise for the measurement ofattributions as they occur within natural dis-course. When use is made of directed subjectmatter (e.g., semi structured interviews on aspecific caregiving topic), this approach is likelyto have its highest yield (Boddy, 1995; New,1995). Such measurement systems have particu-lar advantages in that (a) they allow speakers tofocus on material that is personally importantfor them (and thus likely to lead to the retrievalof relevant attributional knowledge structures),and (b) they assess attributions in a context thatclosely approximates that found during actualinteraction (or indeed that occurs during sponta-neous interaction).

It is also likely that more naturalistic attribu-tional assessments (such as the LACS) have anadvantage in socially disadvantaged or lessliterate populations. For example, parents fromlow-education or immigrant backgrounds mayhave difficulty with both the format and theconcepts presented in written questionnairemeasures.

External Validity of Attributional Measures

Knowledge of the external validity of attribu-tional measures is another area deserving of fargreater attention. It is often the case that thesituations in which parental attributions areassessed differ greatly from those in whichattributions may naturally operate. Attributionalmeasures are more typically given under circum-stances during which parents may reflect on andcontrol their responses. Although extendedreflection may also occur in daily life (e.g., theparent who spends a sleepless night concernedabout why her child is failing in school), mostattributional activity in daily life happensconcurrently with other ongoing events. Itoccurs during conversation; it occurs over thebackground noise of household activities; itoccurs while simultaneously reading the newspa-per or driving a child to school. In short, thecircumstances under which spontaneous attribu-tional processes occur are often at odds withthose found in the assessment of attributions. Inparticular, formal assessment of attributions


may allow and even demand considerableimpression management. If parents' attributionsare assessed under conditions that limit thepossibility of self-presentation management(e.g., during discourse; in response to items inwhich "good" responses are not discernible), atruer picture may be afforded of their causalreasoning.

Clinical Utility of Attributional Measures

Finally, the clinical applicability of differentstrategies for the assessment of attributions isnot well understood. Questionnaire measuresthat tap relationship schemas and vignettemeasures developed for particular studies areoften hampered in their clinical utility by a lackof normative information. Although numerousstudies have revealed differences in the perfor-mance of clinical and control groups on thesemeasures (e.g., Bugental et al., 1989; Johnston& Freeman, 1997), the overlap between samplesis typically large enough to caution against useof individual scores as predictors of groupmembership. Clearly, greater psychometric workis needed before attributional assessments canprovide information directly relevant to theassessment and management of individual casesof parent-child difficulties.

Our conceptualization of attributions as in-volving both memory-dependent and stimulus-dependent processes has implications for clini-cal processes as well as for measurement issues.That is, memory-based attributions reflect theoverlearned explanatory processes that havetheir origins in the parents' pasts. In contrast,stimulus-dependent explanatory processes arerooted in information that is currently available.Certain kinds of family problems (e.g., cross-generational perpetuation of biased relationshipcognitions) may have their origins in theoverreliance on memory-based processes andunderutilization of current information regard-ing child behavior or context. As a result, the useof both types of measures (across familymembers) may provide a useful aid withincognitively based clinical assessments andinterventions.

Summary

This review illustrates the lively state ofresearch concerning parental attributions forchild behavior and the many advances that have

been made in assessing and understanding therole of these cognitions in family interactions.However, the review also illustrates the complex-ity of the phenomena and the multiplicity ofdefinitions and measurement strategies thatpopulate the research. We hope that highlightingconceptual and methodological issues in thisarea will clarify the current state of the literatureand offer guidance in future research.

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Received March 18, 1997Revision received June 3,1998

Accepted June 10, 1998

Measuring Parental Attributions- Conceptual and Methodological Issues

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