A new measure of causal locus: the internal, personal and situational attributions questionnaire

Attributional style is commonly assessed using Peterson, Semmel, Von Baeyer, Abramson, Metalsky and Seligmanʹs (Cognitive Therapy and Research, 1982) Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ). The ASQ has been criticized for its low internal reliability, particularly with regard to the internality subscales. However, recent research has indicated that judgements of causal locus may be implicated in severe psychiatric disorders, particularly paranoia, and has pointed to the potential utility of taxonomies of causal locus not included in the ASQ. This report describes the development of a new method of assessing causal locus, the Internal, Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire (IPSAQ). For positive and negative events two measures of internality are derived from responses on the questionnaire, a measure of self-blame and a measure of the extent to which external attributions implicate other persons as opposed to situations. In a group of normal subjects the IPSAQ subscales were found to be adequately reliable. Self-blame was significantly associated with ASQ internality scores and with depressed mood. Scores representing the proportion of personal as opposed to situational external attributions were significantly associated with an analogue measure of paranoia.