ATTRIBUTIONS AND ADJUSTMENT
As noted earlier, we collapsed the 18 specific categories in Table 2 into
five general categories reflecting the locus of causation: the respondent’s
spouse, the respondent, the relationship, external factors, and undetermined.
Overall, 33% of responses referred to the partner as the cause of
the divorce, 5% referred to the self, 27% referred to the relationship, 9%
referred to external causes, and 26% were too ambiguous to classify.
These results are consistent with the expectation that people tend to avoid
accepting responsibility for marital failure and are more inclined to attribute
problems to their former spouses.