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A Dutch Attributional Style Questionnaire: Psychometric properties and findings of some Dutch-American differences

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Abstract

The Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ), a measure of individual differences in the use of the attributional dimensions internality (vs. externality), stability (vs. instability), and globality (vs. specificity) (Peterson et al., 1982), was translated into Dutch for research use in the Netherlands. The Dutch-language version (DASQ) was administered to a sample of 201 subjects, mostly students. Its psychometric properties were compared to those of the ASQ. Many similarities between ASQ and DASQ results were found, suggesting that a number of the ASQ's psychometric characteristics are generalizable to the Dutch context. In addition, findings show that the DASQ appears to be related to depression in ways that the ASQ has been shown to be. We also found attributional style differences between the American and Dutch subjects suggesting that Dutch subjects may be more “evenhanded” (Raps, Peterson, Reinhard, Abramson, & Seligman, 1982) and less “self-serving” (Abramson & Martin, 1982), and that they may tend to view affiliation less in achievement terms.

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The original paper on which this report is based contains more detailed psychometric information and is available from the authors upon request. The authors are grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their comments.

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Cohen, L., van den Bout, J., Kramer, W. et al. A Dutch Attributional Style Questionnaire: Psychometric properties and findings of some Dutch-American differences. Cogn Ther Res 10, 665–669 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01173753

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