When people ask "why" questions, and the heuristics of attributional search.

Abstract

Five experiments making use of a self-probe methodology in both simulated and real conditions demonstrated that individuals do engage in spontaneous attri-butional search. This search is most likely when the outcome of an event is negative and unexpected. Content analysis of attributional questions also sug-gested that causal search is biased toward internality after failure but toward externality following success. This reverse of the oft-reported hedonic bias im-plicates the adaptive function of causal search. The data also revealed that the most commonly used heuristic in attributional search is to center on the locus and control dimensions of causality. The importance of heuristics in causal search and the advantages of the self-probe methodology employed in these investiga-tions are discussed. Central to attribution theory is the as-sumption that people spontaneously engage in attributional activities. But there is little or no published evidence to substantiate this claim (Bern, 1972; Wortman & Dintzer, 1978). In the literature of attribution re-search, subjects typically are asked to make attributions either by completing a fixed number of rating scales or by providing open-ended explanations for events. Both methods are highly reactive. In the absence of adequate methodology, the issue of whether lay people engage in spontaneous attributional activities remains unsolved. In this article, we re-examine this issue, identify the major preconditions for attributional search, propose a new self-probe methodol-ogy, and then present data yielded by this methodology. A presumption guiding this article is that it is more fruitful to ask when, rather than if, attribution occurs. No one has proposed that the attribution process goes on at all times. To the contrary, many investigators

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