Social Workers' and Service Users' Causal Attributions for Poverty

• Published in: Social work (New York) Vol. 54; no. 2; pp. 125 - 133
• Main Authors: Weiss-Gal, Idit, Benyamini, Yael, Ginzburg, Karni, Savaya, Riki, Peled, Einat
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Oxford University Press 01.04.2009; NASW PRESS
• Subjects: Ability; Adolescent; Adult; Aetiology; Aged; Aged, 80 and over; Analysis of Variance; Attitude of Health Personnel; Attribution (Psychology); Attribution (Social psychology); Attribution Theory; Attributions; attributions for poverty; Beliefs, opinions and attitudes; Career Readiness; Causal attributions; Causality; Correlations; Economic Status; Emotional Problems; Employee motivation; Etiology; Evaluation; Female; Humans; Internal-External Control; Israel; Male; Market economies; Middle Aged; Motivation; Perception; Political power; Poverty; Poverty - psychology; Psychology; Public assistance programs; Public Opinion; Public opinion surveys; service users; Social aspects; Social perception; Social Problems; Social psychology; Social Services; Social Welfare; Social Work; Social Workers; Socialization; Surveys and Questionnaires; United States; Welfare Recipients; Young Adult; Israel; United States; social workers; poverty; attributions for poverty; service users
• ISSN: 0037-8046; 1545-6846
• DOI: 10.1093/sw/54.2.125

Poverty and its etiology have been major subjects of concern for the social work profession throughout its history. This study focused on four causal attributions for poverty: social- structural, motivational, psychological, and fatalistic. More specifically, it examined the differences between social workers' and service users' perceptions of the causes of poverty. Participants were 401 service users and 410 social workers located in a variety of human services agencies in central Israel. Findings showed that although social workers and service users expressed similar levels of agreement with regard to motivational and psychological attributions, service users attributed more importance to social- structural causes and to fatalistic causes compared with social workers. Attributions of poverty were associated with economic status among the service users but not among the social workers. The implications of these findings are discussed.