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Observer Blame Attribution

OBADegree to which an observer believes a specific party is responsible for a problem they witnessed
3 items 2019 α .90 or higher Free Wan, L. C., & Wyer, R. S.

What it measures

Three items measure how much a third-party observer holds a specific individual responsible for a problem that occurred. Wan and Wyer (2019) used the scale across five experiments in service failure contexts, applying it to waitstaff, managers, customers, and salespeople. The response format is notable in using a 10-point scale. The item wording uses second-person ('you') to address the observer.

Citation

Wan, L. C., & Wyer, R. S. (2019). The influence of incidental similarity on observers' causal attributions and reactions to a service failure. Journal of Consumer Research, 45(6), 1350–1368.

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