Attributions and the stigma of illiteracy: Understanding help seeking in low literate adults.

Examined the extent to which members of a stigmatized group would make internal versus external attributions for their difficulties and how these attributions would influence their willingness to seek help. Hypothesis 1 was that help-seeking by stigmatized individuals would be influenced by reflected attributions (their expectations of the attributions others would make regarding their difficulties). Hypothesis 2 was that stigmatized individuals would possess a less optimistic style of attribution than others. Ss included 26 low-literate adult learners (aged 18–62 yrs), 26 literacy tutors (aged 27–80 yrs), and a comparison group. Information was collected concerning attributional style and personal and reflected attributions for the difficulties experienced by low literate adults. Contrary to predictions, low literate Ss were found to have the most optimistic style of attribution. The belief that others would make internal attributions for literacy difficulties was strongly correlated with a fear of negative evaluation as a result of being helped. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)