This study examines which poverty attributions are present in Guyana, a developing country in South America, and tests which variables explain these attributions in a non-Western context by linking them to structural characteristics, feelings of resentment, and values. First, using survey data from the Values and Poverty Study in Guyana (N = 1,557), we find that the traditional three-tier model does not adequately capture Guyanese attributions of poverty. Instead, confirmatory factor analysis identifies some subdimensions of structural attributions that refer to both social and economic structure, a hybrid dimension linking poverty to family breakup, and explanations related to social and individual fate. Second, we examine the impact of feelings of resentment on poverty attributions. In particular, experiences of powerlessness foster structural, fatalistic, and family attributions of poverty, illustrating the role of a lack of external locus of control. Finally, our study shows that ideological values and egalitarianism have the strongest predictive power.

The present work presents three studies that investigate the relationship between causal attributions of poverty in Africa, attitudes towards African immigrants and perspective-taking. The objective of preliminary study (N = 54) was to collect information to adapt the Perceived Causes of Third World Poverty Scale (Hine & Montiel, 1999), in the Spanish adaptation by Betancor et al. (2002) to Spanish adolescents. The Study 1 (N = 102) explores the factorial structure of the teenager questionnaire adaptation and to test the relationship with Modern Racism Scale (McConahay, 1986). Correlational analysis reflects the existence of a central element in the new forms of racism: Victim blaming through Personal Attributions of Poverty. The objective of Study 2 (N = 62) was to determine whether empathic induction through empathic perspective-taking (Batson et al., 1997) can ameliorate the individual’s attributions of poverty concerning African immigrants among majority group members. However, the opposite effect was found, empathy induction increased Personal Attributions of poverty (η2 = .10). This effect was moderated by Modern Racism, simple slope test indicates t(52) = 2.49, p < .01, higher prejudiced participants increased Personal Attribution of poverty after empathic induction, blaming the victims for their situation.