Failure Attribution and Its Relation to Future Expectancy of Success within the context of Drug Addiction (Ling Ming Hook & Dr Mohammad Haji-Yusuf)

The objective of this study was to examine why drugs inmates failed to overcome their drug habit and to find the correlation between their attribution and future expectancy of success.

To this end, Weiner's(1971) attribution theory was used as the basis of study. A total of 114 inmates(62 Malay male inmates and 52 Chinese male inmates) from Penjara Dadah, Kajang were selected as subjects. A specially designed questionnaire was set to measure inmates' failure attribution, drug-free expectancy and helping-behaviour expectancy. Data were analyzed using the SPSS-X(Statistical Packages for Social Sciences-X)program, with t-test and Pearson Correlation as statistical tools.

It was generally found that inmates failure attribution was not influenced by ethnic factor. However certain attribution patterns tend to exist as to how the inmates attributed their failure. Regarding future expectancy of success, it was found that there was a negative correlation between failure attribution and drug-free expectancy. But there was no significant correlation between failure attribution and helping-behaviour expectancy. Results lent only partial support to Weiner's(1971) attribution theory.

(Abstrak Kertas Kerja yang dibentangkan di Seminar Kebangsaan Pertama Persatuan Psikologi Malaysia(PSIMA)di UKM pada 27-28hb Februari 1989)