Situation specificity of causal attributions in the prediction of sales success

This study tests the contribution of situational specificity to predictive, concurrent, and postdictive validity of attributional style in external criteria relating to sales success. General attributional style as measured by the Attributional Style Questionnaire has been demonstrated to show concurrent and predictive evidence of validity for insurance sales and early career turn-over in insurance sales people. The Attributional Style Questionnaire (A.S.Q.) measures an individuals general or cross situational style of making causal attributions. While the general stylistic measure of attributional style has been demonstrated to correlate with various external criteria, the current research attempts to improve validity thorough use of a situation specific measure of attributional style.;This research is based on the reformulated model of learned helplessness in humans. The sample for this research consisted of current life insurance agents and thus attributions were measured by both a general attributional style questionnaire and a situation specific measure (questionnaire) using situations common to a life insurance agents daily work.;Predictive measures are the general stylistic measure (A.S.Q.) and a situation specific measure. In order to test the situational specificity hypothesis, a measure of attributions for the target situation (sales in this case) was developed. Pretesting of the situation specific measure with a sample of 30 current life insurance agents indicated that the measure possesses acceptable psychometric properties.;The criteria for this study was past, present and future sales production, as well as a measure of intention to leave present employment. Agents voluntarily completed the questionnaires at agency meetings for salespeople or on their own time.;Correlation analysis and multiple regression indicated that the situation specific measure explained 17% of the variance in predicted sales commissions.;Specifically, agents who made optimistic attributions to positive sales specific events were found to sell more insurance than less optimistic agents.;The results are interpreted as providing some support for the situational specificity hypothesis. Implications in terms of the reformulated model of learned helplessness in humans, sales selection, sales training and further research are discussed.