Illness causal attributions: an exploratory study of their structure and associations with other illness cognitions and perceptions of control.

Two studies were conducted to investigate the cognitive organization and psychological meaning of illness causes. Using a direct similarity judgment method (Study 1), illness causes were found cognitively organized in a hierarchical configuration that could meaningfully be represented as a tree with three main branches--environmental, behavioral, and hidden causes--that further divided into subcategories. This classification of illness causes was associated with other components of the illness schema, namely, the consequences and control/cure dimensions, but not with timeline perceptions (Study 2). Perceptions of control were significantly associated with the cognitive organization of illness causal attributions. Personal relevancy was found as a moderator of illness causal attributions, influencing the relationships between attributions and other illness cognitions.