A cross-cultural comparison of attributional style: Korean versus Scottish mothers

Korean (N=217) and Scottish (N=145) women were asked to report recent stressful life events which were still unresolved at the time of the interview. The women were either mothers in the puerperium (105 Korean, 52 Scottish) or mothers who had an adolescent child preparing for the final school leaving examination (112 Korean, 93 Scottish). Korean and Scottish mothers differed significantly from each other in whom they held responsible for their child's problems (attributional style). Korean mothers tended to blame themselves (internal attribution:), whereas Scottish mothers tended to blame other people or social settings (external attribution). Although these results contradict the general view that Europeans attribute more internally than Asians, an explanation is offered for the findings relating to the different concepts of the self in the two cultures.