ABSTRACT
Attribution theorists propose that negative actions of others perceived as intended elicit anger, and anger then functions as a motivator o f hostile behavior. We examined the understanding of these attribution-affect-action linkages among young ethnic minority adolescents. Forty-four Latino and African-American middle-school children labeled as aggressive and a matched group of nonag-gressives read causally ambiguous scenarios describing negative outcomes initiated by a hypothetical peer. They then made judgments about the peer’s intentions, their own feelings o f anger, and the likelihood that they would behave aggressively toward that peer. Concerning the relations between these variables, the data supported a mediational model of emotion as postulated by attribution theory. The implications o f these findings for attributional change were discussed.
