In recent years, several lines of research in social psychology have been brought together under the common label of Attribution Theory, i.e., how an individual ascribes a cause to an effect. The understanding of people to life events. In terms of attribution theory, the individual with chronic illness who experiences success or failure in attempts to cope with that illness must ascribe these events to some cause. A person's illness and his perceived success (or failure) in coping with his illness is conceptualized as the effect to be explained and the cause formulated by the individual to explain his illness or its outcomes is conceptualized as the attribution. Diabetes, hypertension and arthritis present problems typical of those encountered in chronic illness. Many academic achievement oriented studies suggest that future expectations about success or failure, and affective reactions, are attributionally based. If these results generalize to the situation of chronic illness, the causal attributions will mediate responses to the illness. The objectives of this inquiry is to examine the causal attributions of diabetics, hypertensives and arthritics in relation to their success or failure in coping with the illness, their affect, their expectancies for future success or failure, and the success or failure coping as perceived by the provider. The sample of 100 diabetics, 100 arthritics, and 100 hypertensives, drawn from clinic and private patients will complete an affect scale and an attributions interview. Subjects and their physician or nurse will also estimate success or failure in coping with their illness. Analyses will include appropriate analyses of variance and discriminant analyses. Possible benefts of the study include: greater understanding of the cognitive and affective responses to the situation of chronic illness; greater understanding of the relationship between such responses and patients' expectations about coping with their illness; greater capability of nurses and other health care professionals to predict reactions of patients to their chronic illness situation; specific data from which intervention programs to alter coping behaviors might be developed.