Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities 2008, 21, 150155

Attribution Theory Applied to Helping Behaviour Towards People with Intellectual Disabilities Who Challenge
Paul Willner* and Mark Smith*
*Directorate of Learning Disability Services, Bro Morgannwg NHS Trust, UK; Department of Psychology, University of Wales Swansea, Swansea UK

Accepted for publication

21 June 2007

Introduction Attribution theory posits that helping behaviour is determined in part by the potential helpers attributions and emotions regarding the behaviour that requires help. Specically, helping is considered to be more likely if stability is perceived as low, generating optimism for change, and if controllability is perceived as low, engendering high levels of sympathy and low levels of anger. Method We conducted a systematic literature search to identify studies that have tested these predictions in relation to carers propensity to help people with intellectual disabilities who display challenging behaviour.

Results The literature is inconsistent and provides at best partial support for the theory. This situation differs from that seen in the general population, where the predictions of attribution theory are broadly supported. Discussion We consider three potential explanations for this discrepancy: the reliability of the largely vignettebased methodology, the fact that most studies fail to dene helping explicitly and the possibility that attribution theory might apply only to low-frequency behaviours. Keywords: attribution theory, helping, intellectual disability challenging behaviour,

Introduction
There are many reports that the willingness of staff to help service users who display behaviours that challenge, and their choice of strategies for managing these behaviours, may be inuenced by two particular types of psychological responses, causal attributions and emotional responses (e.g. Sharrock et al. 1990; Berryman et al. 1994; Bromley & Emerson 1995; Hastings 1995; Hastings et al. 1997; Dagnan et al. 1998; Stanley & Standen 2000). Several of the studies on challenging behaviour have drawn on a particular model to examine the relationship between these psychological factors and staff responses, attribution theory (Weiner 1985, 1986). Attribution theory asserts that our attributions about the causes of a persons behaviour inuence our emotional responses to that behaviour, and our optimism as to whether or not the behaviour can change; in turn, emotional responses and optimism are predicted to inuence our helping behaviour (Weiner 1985, 1986).

Empirical research suggests that there are three basic dimensions along which causal attributions can be classied (Weiner 1979, 1985): locus (whether the cause resides within or outside the person), controllability (the extent to which the cause of a persons behaviour is perceived to be under their control) and stability (the extent to which the cause of a persons behaviour is perceived to be enduring or temporary). Weiner (1986) made two specic predictions, in relation to attributions of controllability and stability. Controllability is predicted to inuence emotional responses, particularly anger and sympathy, and stability is predicted to inuence optimism, and both of these mediating variables are predicted to inuence the propensity to offer help. Specically, helping is considered to be more likely if stability is perceived as low, generating optimism for change, and if controllability is perceived as low, engendering high levels of sympathy and low levels of anger:
10.1111/j.1468-3148.2007.00390.x

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Path 1 : # Stability Path 2A : # Control Path 2B : # Control

! " Optimism ! ! " Positive affect Sympathy ! ! # Negative affect Anger !

" Helping " Helping " Helping

Studies in the general population provide support for each of these relationships when applied to helping behaviour in non-clinical situations (Weiner 1985, 1986; Schmidt & Weiner 1988). The role of causal attributions has also been examined in relation to the maintenance of alcoholism (McHugh et al. 1979), depression, (Abramson et al. 1978) and smoking (Eiser et al. 1985), and in relation to perceptions of stigma (Weiner et al. 1988; Corrigan et al. 2000; Towler & Schneider 2005). The purpose of the present paper is to review the extent to which the empirical literature supports the predictions of attribution theory in relation to one specic issue that has been extensively researched: the propensity of care staff to offer help to people with intellectual disabilities who display challenging behaviour.

Literature review
Table 1 lists the studies that have applied attribution theory to understand carers propensity to offer help in relation to challenging behaviour. None of these studies provide unequivocal support for Weiners model. Some provide partial support (Sharrock et al. 1990; Dagnan et al. 1998; Stanley & Standen 2000; McGuinness & Dagnan 2001; Hill & Dagnan 2002; Dagnan & Cairns 2005), though they are somewhat inconsistent in respect of the predictions that are supported. Other studies are essentially negative (Wanless & Jahoda 2002; Jones & Hastings 2003; Rose & Rose 2005; Bailey et al. 2006). Full support for Path 1 (low stability optimism helping) was reported only by Sharrock et al. (1990), in carers of patients with mental health difculties in a secure unit. Dagnan et al. (1998) reported that optimism predicts helping, but with no effect of stability. Stability was unrelated to helping in several further studies (Dagnan et al. 1998; McGuinness & Dagnan 2001; Wanless & Jahoda 2002; Jones & Hastings 2003), while two studies reported effects in the wrong direction (Stanley & Standen 2000; Dagnan & Cairns 2005). Four further studies have reported that optimism was unrelated to helping (Stanley & Standen 2000; McGuinness & Dagnan 2001; Wanless & Jahoda 2002; Bailey et al. 2006). Three studies (Dagnan et al. 1998; Stanley & Standen 2000; McGuinness & Dagnan 2001) have provided sup-

port for path 2A (low control positive affect helping). A fourth study found support for the relationship between control and helping, but not for a mediating role for sympathy (Hill & Dagnan 2002). On the other hand, Wanless & Jahoda (2002) reported that low control was associated with sympathy, but that this led to less helping, not more. Dagnan et al. (1998) found support for path 2B (low control low anger helping), and two studies provided partial support: Stanley & Standen (2000) found an association between high levels of control and high levels of anger, while Jones & Hastings (2003) reported that high levels of anger were associated with a decrease in helping, but in both cases, the third element of the chain was missing. Again, there are also inconsistent data: Wanless & Jahoda (2002) found that high levels of control and anger were associated with an increase in helping, while Bailey et al. (2006) reported an inverse relationship between control and anger. And as with path 1, some studies have reported that controllability was unrelated to helping (Jones & Hastings 2003; Dagnan & Cairns 2005). There are some further relationships that would be consistent with the spirit if not the letter of attribution theory, and Table 1 includes examples: an inverse relationship between control and optimism (Sharrock et al. 1990; Dagnan et al. 1998), and a positive relationship between stability and anger (Rose & Rose 2005; Bailey et al. 2006). But there are also further examples of relationships that are inconsistent with the theory: a positive relationship between control and optimism (Rose & Rose 2005), and a positive relationship between stability and sympathy (Dagnan & Cairns 2005).

Discussion
Taken as a whole, the studies summarized in Table 1 are highly inconsistent, and provide at best partial support for the theory. Hence, the literature on attribution theory as applied to challenging behaviour appears to differ from the application of attribution theory in other contexts, such as education, where the predictions of the theory are broadly supported (Weiner 1985, 1986; Schmidt & Weiner 1988). We now consider three potential reasons for this state of affairs.

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Table 1 Summary of studies testing attribution theory in relation to challenging behaviour1

Studies were identied for inclusion by a PubMed and PsychLit search using the keywords challenging behaviour and attribution(s), supplemented by examination of the reference lists of papers so identied. 2 Sharrock et al. 1990 studied carers responses to challenging behaviour by mental health patients; McGuinness & Dagnan studied carers responses to challenging behaviour by children with intellectual disabilities. All other studies concerned adults with intellectual disabilities. 3 This column summarizes the type of behaviour that was the focus of the study (CB: challenging behaviour; SIB: self-injurious behaviour), and the presentation format. 4 Jones & Hastings (2003) dened helping behaviour as behaviour less likely to reinforce challenging behaviour. In all other studies, helping behaviour was dened as increased willingness to expend effort. 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 21, 150155

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One criticism that has been levelled at this body of work is the use of vignettes in most of the studies. Attributions of causality in relation to vignettes are to some extent arbitrary. Unlike the situation of a real incident of challenging behaviour, where judgements of controllability and stability are based on knowledge of the individual involved and the environment, the basis on which these judgements are made in relation to a vignette is wholly obscure, and it is likely that different participants use different strategies to reach a decision. The error of measurement is unknown, and may vary between studies (as a function, for example, of the specic behaviour addressed), or between individuals (as a function, for example, of whether or not the participant can relate the vignette to an identied service user), as well as between measures. This said, the studies of challenging behaviour that tested attribution theory as applied to helping behaviour using real incidents or videos, rather than vignettes, are among the most negative (Wanless & Jahoda 2002; Jones & Hastings 2003; Bailey et al. 2006). However, two of these studies had very few participants, which may decrease their reliability (Wanless & Jahoda: n = 38; Bailey et al., n = 27). The only study that has directly compared staff responses to real incidents versus vignettes reported that emotional responses to real incidents were more intense, and the relationships between attributional dimensions and helping responses were somewhat stronger with real incidents, but otherwise, the two situations were qualitatively similar (Wanless & Jahoda 2002). This suggests that vignettes, while perhaps inferior to real incidents, may indeed be a suitable method to study this problem. A second methodological issue is that helping behaviour is not well-dened. Most of the studies cited in this review dene helping behaviour as how likely a person would be to expend extra time and effort in response to an incident. However, what this would actually involve is left open: staff are typically not asked what they would do to help. One study dened helping behaviour as intervening in ways that were less likely to reinforce challenging behaviour (Jones & Hastings 2003), which addresses an issue overlooked in all other studies, that helping behaviour may in practice be unhelpful, if the effect is to reinforce the challenging behaviour that elicited the helping response (Rose & Rose 2005). A related issue is that studies typically ask staff to rate how willing they would be to make extra effort on behalf of the client, but their ability to expend extra effort might be compromised by the fact that, as committed carers, levels of helping are already high (as reported by Rose & Rose 2005).

Only one study has examined the relationship between expressions of willingness to help and actual helping behaviour. There was little evidence in that study that these two variables were associated; however, there was some suggestion that anger was associated with unhelpful responses (Bailey et al. 2006). An associated problem is that, in most of the studies reviewed, helping behaviour and all of the putative mediating variables are typically measured by a singleitem scale, of which the psychometric properties are unknown. The situation is scarcely better for the attributional dimensions, which are assessed using two-item scales (Peterson et al. 1982). Together, these two issues raise questions as to the reliability of expressions of willingness to help. The third possibility is that the degree of success of attribution theory may depend upon the specic behaviour studied. In the context of helping behaviour, attribution theory was intended to apply to low-frequency behaviours (Weiner 1986), and may be less applicable to regular, frequent behaviours because care staff habituate to them (Sharrock et al. 1990; Bailey et al. 2006). Alternative starting points may be more productive as a means of understanding the propensity to help people who display challenging behaviour, such as the levels of stress and burnout that carers experience or the ways in which they characteristically cope with stress (Hatton et al. 1995; Mitchell & Hastings 2001; Hill & Dagnan 2002; Rose & Rose 2005; Weigel et al. 2006). Indeed, there is evidence that the emotional responses of care staff to challenging behaviour may inuence how they attribute the causes: specically, staff who were rated as high in expressed emotion were more likely to see challenging behaviour as internal to and controllable by the client (Weigel et al. 2006). As the extent to which staff are able to manage their emotional responses are likely to be inuenced by their experience and training (Hastings & Remington, 1994; Berryman et al. 1994; Hastings et al. 1995; Kushlik et al. 1997, 1998; Rose et al. 1998b; Grey et al. 2002) and their general job satisfaction (Rose et al. 1998a, 2004; Mitchell & Hastings 2001), these represent further variables that may be interesting to study in relation to helping behaviour. Other variables that have been found to inuence the attributions that staff make about their clients challenging behaviour include the topography of the behaviour (Hastings 1995) and its perceived functions (Morgan & Hastings 1998; Hastings et al. 2003; Noone et al. 2006), and the severity of the clients intellectual disability (Tynan & Allen 2002). There are also alternative theoretical approaches that might be more successful than attribution theory for

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understanding staff responses to frequently-occurring challenging behaviour. These include the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen 1991), and a model proposed by Hastings (2002) that focuses on the cumulative impact of challenging behaviour on staff well-being and burn-out.

Conclusions
In conclusion, our review of the literature has identied a number of studies that have applied attribution theory to the question of the propensity of care staff to help clients who display challenging behaviour. We have argued that the inconsistent results could be inuenced by the limited reliability of the largely vignette-based methodology, the fact that most studies fail to dene helping explicitly or to measure it adequately, and the possibility that attribution theory might apply only to low-frequency behaviours. Future research should address these potential shortcomings. It can also be argued that the focus of research should be on the actual responses of staff to real incidents and situations in their day to day work, albeit that the available evidence does not support an attributional account of helping behaviour even for real incidents of challenging behaviour (Wanless & Jahoda 2002; Jones & Hastings 2003; Bailey et al. 2006). Given this state of affairs, it seems advisable to broaden the focus to include alternative starting points for understanding helping behaviour, such as staff coping styles, staff training, job satisfaction and burn-out, and alternative theoretical approaches. As it is widely recognized that responses to challenging behaviour can often be inconsistent, and that plans are often not followed (McBrien & Candy 1998), this would seem to be a particularly important area for further psychological research.

Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Professor Paul Willner, Department of Psychology, University of Wales Swansea, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK (e-mail: p.willner@swansea.ac.uk).

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