Attributions Toward Violence of Male Juvenile Delinquents: A Concurrent Mixed-Methodological Analysis

Abstract

The authors investigated male juvenile delinquents' causal attributions about others' behavior and the salient pieces of information that the male juveniles used in arriving at their attributions. Participants were 82 male juvenile offenders whom the authors drew randomly from the population of juveniles who were incarcerated at a correctional facility. A concurrent mixed-methodological analysis revealed that the juvenile offenders committed attributional errors about violence nearly 53% of the time. Race and number of prior arrests predicted the number of attributional errors about violence. A phenomenological analysis revealed the following 7 themes stemming from juveniles' reasons for causal attributions: self-control, violation of rights, provocation, irresponsibility, poor judgment, fate, and conflict resolution. Some of these themes were related to age, ethnicity, and number of prior arrests. The authors discussed implications of all findings.