Causal Attribution Habits and Cultural Orientation as Contributing Factors to Students’ Self-Efficacy: A Comparison Between Female Students in the United States and Saudi Arabia

In the present research, we examined the extent to which explanations of desirable or undesirable outcomes (grades) can account for the self-efficacy of female college students from two societies with dissimilar cultural traditions: The United States of America, which is characterized by a dominant individualistic culture, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has a dominant collectivist culture. A matched-pairs design (N=560; 280 matched pairs) was used to ensure that students’ self-efficacy levels were equated between cultural groups. We found cultural differences in the choice of explanations and in the extent to which explanations contribute to self-efficacy values. These findings are relevant to the development of curricula and instructional methods that are intended to prepare students from different cultures for academic success.