Identification and inferential processes in dispositional attribution.

Tested, in 2 experiments, predictions of a formal model that decomposes the attribution of personal dispositions into identification and dispositional inference processes. The model assumes that identification processes initially represent the incoming stimulus information in terms of meaningful attribution-relevant categories. The results of the identification process serve as input for dispositional inference processes wherein causal schemata guide the inference of personal dispositions. The 2 illustrative experiments traced the processing of behavioral and situational information at the identification and dispositional inference stages and examined attributions as a joint product of the different stages. Findings and previous relevant research demonstrate that the proposed model can help reconcile conflicting findings in the literature, reveal new attributional phenomena, and improve understanding of the cognitive processes that produce self- and other-attribution. Dispositional attribution calculations are appended. (90 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processes of causal explanation and dispositional attribution.

Causal explanation and dispositional attribution are distinguished. Causal explanation involves giving an explanation for why a particular event occurred, whereas dispositional attribution involves learning about the characteristics of some entity. Moreover, it is proposed that production of causal explanations requires J. S. Mill's (1872/1973) method of difference, whereas production of dispositional attributions requires Mill's method of agreement. Exp 1 shows that both the method of difference and the method of agreement are used to make causal explanations. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 indicate that lay attributors consistently favor use of the method of agreement but not the method of difference to make dispositional attributions of both faciliatory and inhibitory characteristics. The distinction between causal explanation and dispositional attribution is used to organize seemingly contradictory findings and to provide an integrative framework for models of causal judgment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The dispositional inference strikes back: Situational focus and dispositional suppression in causal attribution.

The authors propose that correction of dispositional inferences involves the examination of situational constraints and the suppression of dispositional inferences. They hypothesized that suppression would result in dispositional rebound. In Study 1, participants saw a video of either a free or a forced speaker. Participants shown a forced speaker later made stronger dispositional inferences about a 2nd, free speaker than control participants did. Study 2 provided evidence for higher rebound among participants who reported trying harder to suppress dispositional inferences during the 1st video. In Study 3, participants were asked to focus on situational constraints or to avoid thinking about the speaker's characteristics. Only the latter instructions led to a dispositional rebound. These data support the view that the correction of dispositional inferences involves 2 processes that lead to distinct consequences in subsequent attribution work. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relations of emotionality and regulation to dispositional and situational empathy-related responding.

Examined the prediction of adults' situational and dispositional empathy-related responses from measures of emotionality (emotional intensity and positive and negative affect) and regulation. A multimethod approach including self-reported, facial, and heart rate (HR) responses was used to assess situational vicarious emotional responding; Ss' (and sometimes friends') reports were used to assess the dispositional characteristics. In general, dispositional sympathy, personal distress, and perspective taking exhibited different, conceptually logical patterns of association with indexes of emotionality and regulation. The relations of situational measures of vicarious emotional responding to dispositional emotionality and regulation varied somewhat by type of measure and gender. Findings for facial and HR (for men) measures were primarily for the more evocative empathy-inducing stimulus. In general, the findings provided support for the role of individual differences in emotionality and regulation in empathy-related responding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of dispositional and situational factors in cognitive interference

Two studies investigated the cross-temporal stability and cross-situational consistency of cognitive interference. In Study 1, 70 college students reported on the intrusive thoughts they experienced during 2 course examinations and a self-reflective task. In Study 2, 55 college athletes reported on intrusive thoughts following 2 course examinations and 2 regular season football games. Major findings were (a) cognitive interference showed both cross-temporal stability and cross-situational consistency, (b) it was predicted by a measure of dispositional intrusive thinking, (c) the link between cognitive interference and dispositional intrusive thinking was not accounted for by indices of depressive symptomatology and trait anxiety, and (d) the degree of cross-situational consistency of cognitive interference and the content of these intrusive thoughts were influenced by situational factors.     

Do situational expectations produce situational inferences? The role of future expectations in directing inferential goals.

Little is known about the conditions that lead observers to adopt different inferential goals in the context of their everyday lives. Four studies examined whether future expectations created situational inferential goals. In 2 quasiexperimental studies, students made more situational inferences for targets in their expected future careers. In 2 experiments, situational expectations were manipulated, and participants made more situational inferences when they expected to be in the same situation as the target. This tendency was stronger when observers devoted minimal cognitive effort to their inferences, suggesting that when observers have situational expectations, making situational inferences is less effortful than making dispositional inferences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of dispositional and situational influences on women's dominance expression in mixed-sex dyads.

Partners in 61 mixed-sex dyads, each classified as high or low in dispositional dominance and grouped in 4 dominance combinations (high–high, low–high, high–low, and low–low), first interacted to complete an audiotaped verbal task from which 5 behavioral measures of dominance were obtained and then selected a leader for a machine repair task. Prior task interactions diminished status differences between male and female partners, allowing high dominant women paired with low dominant men to become leader 71% of the time, far more often than previous studies have found for this pairing. Also, it was found that the level of dominance expression for these high dominant women was influenced by their male partner's dominance level: High dominant women paired with high dominant men assumed the leadership role only 31% of the time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The road to forgiveness: A meta-analytic synthesis of its situational and dispositional correlates.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 137(2) of Psychological Bulletin (see record 2011-03899-006). In Table 2, weighted population correlations and associated standard errors and confidence intervals are incorrectly reported. In Table 3, weighted population correlations and associated confidence intervals are incorrectly reported, as well as the Q statistic for trait forgiveness. Corrected data are presented. The authors note that substantive interpretations of the results are not affected by the corrections. The median absolute value correction for the weighted population correlations in both tables is r = .01.] Forgiveness has received widespread attention among psychologists from social, personality, clinical, developmental, and organizational perspectives alike. Despite great progress, the forgiveness literature has witnessed few attempts at empirical integration. Toward this end, we meta-analyze results from 175 studies and 26,006 participants to examine the correlates of interpersonal forgiveness (i.e., forgiveness of a single offender by a single victim). A tripartite forgiveness typology is proposed, encompassing victims' (a) cognitions, (b) affect, and (c) constraints following offense, with each consisting of situational and dispositional components. We tested hypotheses with respect to 22 distinct constructs, as correlates of forgiveness, that have been measured across different fields within psychology. We also evaluated key sample and study characteristics, including gender, age, time, and methodology as main effects and moderators. Results highlight the multifaceted nature of forgiveness. Variables with particularly notable effects include intent (r? = ?.49), state empathy (r? = .51), apology (r? = .42), and state anger (r? = ?.41). Consistent with previous theory, situational constructs are shown to account for greater variance in forgiveness than victim dispositions, although within-category differences are considerable. Sample and study characteristics yielded negligible effects on forgiveness, despite previous theorizing to the contrary: The effect of gender was nonsignificant (r? = .01), and the effect of age was negligible (r? = .06). Preliminary evidence suggests that methodology may exhibit some moderating effects. Scenario methodologies led to enhanced effects for cognitions; recall methodologies led to enhanced effects for affect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of situational stress and sex roles on the attribution of psychological disorders.

Studied the effects of situational stress and sex roles on the attribution of psychopathology using a story format with 288 male and 288 female undergraduate judges. The stories contrasted the combination of different kinds of behavioral disorders (aggression, social withdrawal, somatic complaints, and cognitive dissociation) with varying kinds of situational stress (medical school rejection, interpersonal rejection, and competency pressure). Actors in the stories were alternatively identified as male or female. Judgments of disorder, as reflected by pathology ratings and recommendations for professional help, were strongly influenced by the type of stress condition. Stress conditions had different impact for males and females, in keeping with traditionally defined male and female sex-role orientations. Global prejudice against females was not found in the attributions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of anxiety and of situational stress on communicative efficiency.

Results of the study indicate that anxiety and stress interfere with a person's effectiveness of communication. 15 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The moderating effects of dispositional empathy on alcohol-related aggression in men and women.

The author investigated the influence of dispositional empathy on alcohol-related aggression in men and women. Participants were 204 (111 men, 93 women) healthy social drinkers, 21-35 years old. Dispositional empathy was measured with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Following the consumption of either an alcoholic or a placebo beverage, participants were tested on a modified version of the Taylor Aggression Paradigm in which mild electric shocks were received from, and administered to, a fictitious opponent during a competitive task. Alcohol increased aggression for persons (particularly men) with lower, as opposed to higher, levels of empathy. Men with lower empathy levels exhibited the most aggression followed by men with higher empathy levels. Women displayed the least aggression regardless of their empathy levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The factor structure of situational and dispositional versions of the Smith Irrational Beliefs Inventory in a Spanish student population.

This study attempted to identify and replicate the factor structure of English and Spanish versions of the Smith Irrational Beliefs Inventory (SIBI). Factor analyses of irrational beliefs have yielded conflicting results. In contrast to the results of studies on clinical populations, studies on college students have mostly resulted in unifactorial solutions. Factor analyses of situational and dispositional Spanish versions of the SIBI on 960 Spanish college students resulted in 7 factors: Negativity, Distorted Egocentrism, Perfectionism, Catastrophizing-Task Exaggeration, Minimizing-Avoiding, Needless Other- Blaming, and Distorted Isolation. The results suggest that the SIBI displays a consistent factor structure across cultures and situational/dispositional formats. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of situational and instructional demand on indices of speech anxiety.

Assessed the effects of contextual (experimental location) and instructional cues on behavioral, self-report, and physiological indices of speech anxiety. 42 male and 48 female undergraduates were randomly assigned within sex to 1 of 4 conditions in the 2 * 2 design: (a) fear-anxiety clinic, (b) fear-speech laboratory, (c) simulate relaxation therapy-anxiety clinic, and (d) simulate relaxation therapy-speech laboratory. The clinic setting produced more behavioral anxiety than the laboratory setting. The fear test instructions produced both more behavioral and self-report anxiety than the simulate relaxation therapy instructions. The fear-clinic condition produced the greatest behavioral anxiety. No significant differences were obtained for the physiological measures. The demand and expectancy effects were comparable to those obtained for rat, spider, and snake phobic Ss in earlier studies. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The nature of word frequency effects on perceptual identification.

Four experiments, using a study–test paradigm, examined the effects of event presentation frequency on perceptual identification. In each cycle, subjects studied a list with different items presented from one to four or more times, then received identification tests of studied and nonstudied items. Pseudoword repetition (Experiments 1 and 4) produced a priming effect, that is, enhanced identification for presented items, and a repetition effect, that is, incremental improvements in identification for repeated items. In contrast, word repetition (Experiment 2, 3, and 4) produced priming but not repetition effects, a pattern that was not due to learning asymptotes or scaling distortions. We conclude that presentation frequency effects act on at least two distinct processing paths, selected on the basis of processing and task demands. Under conditions of simple exposure, perceptual enhancement is mediated, for codified events like words, primarily by nodal activation, and, for noncodified events like pseudowords, by information accumulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential effects of posterior septal lesions on dispositional and representational memory.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 101(1) of Behavioral Neuroscience (see record 2008-10683-001). A phrase was erroneously deleted from the text. In the seventh paragraph on p. 713, the second sentence should read as follows: Early in training individual differences were great, but by the end of adaptation training, individual differences were quite small and all rats responded at close to asymptotic speeds.] A distinction between 2 classes of memory has been made in terms of the sensory availability of cues at the time of making discriminations that are influenced by past experience. Three tasks objectively defining this distinction were learned in a T-maze by 36 male Long-Evans rats in 3 groups: (a) a delayed non-matching-to-sample (DNMTS) that depended on representational memory; (b) a simple sensory discrimination (SD) that depended on dispositional memory; and (c) a more difficult discrimination that also depended on dispositional memory, called the simultaneous conditional discrimination (SCD). The DNMTS and SD tasks were acquired quickly; the SCD task took many more trials. Posterior septal lesions impaired DNMTS performance but had no effect on retention of tasks that depended on dispositional memory. Results indicate that dispositional and representational memory systems have at least partially distinct anatomical substrates in the brain and that it is the representational and not the conditional aspects of the DNMTS task that are impaired by the septal lesions. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivated cultural cognition: The impact of implicit cultural theories on dispositional attribution varies as a function of need for closure.

The authors propose that need for closure (NFC) leads attributors to respond to an ambiguous social event by increasing reliance on implicit theories received from acculturation. Hence, the influence of NFC should be shaped by chronically accessible knowledge structures in a culture, and, likewise, the influence of culture should be moderated by epistemic motives such as NFC. The specific hypotheses drew on past findings that North American and Chinese attributors possess differing implicit social theories, North Americans conceiving of individuals as autonomous agents and Chinese conceiving of groups as autonomous. The present studies found the predicted pattern that among North American participants, NFC increased attributions to personal but not group dispositions. Among Chinese participants, NFC increased attributions to group but not personal dispositions. The findings are discussed in light of an emerging dynamic account of culture and cognition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some effects of situational threat on group behavior.

It was found that situational threat affected behavior in three main areas of functioning: interpersonal relations, utilization of actors' and other group members' resources, and effectiveness of the group. An attempt was made to analyze and interpret these results within the framework of a competing response theory of anxiety. 20 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of dispositional and situational antecedents in prosocial organizational behavior: An examination of the intended beneficiaries of prosocial behavior.

Research has not adequately separated the factors responsible for prosocial behaviors intended to benefit specific individuals from those intended to benefit an organization. Antecedents of the behavior of 100 secretaries were examined as a function of the beneficiary of the behavior. The value of concern for others and empathy explained significant variance in prosocial behaviors directed only at specific individuals (prosocial individual behavior). Perceptions of reward equity and recognition explained significant variance in behaviors directed only at the organization (prosocial organizational behavior). With these effects removed, the relationship between job satisfaction and prosocial organizational behavior was no longer significant, whereas the relationship between job satisfaction and prosocial individual behavior remained significant. Results suggest that the psychological processes that underlie prosocial behavior are different depending on the beneficiary of the behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Toward an interactionist taxonomy of personality and situations: An integrative situational—dispositional representation of personality traits.

This article has 2 goals: first, to present and test a hierarchical representation of personality that jointly incorporates both situational and personality (e.g., Big Five) factors into a trait conception, and second, to explicate the dimensions along which situations differ in their effect on responses, providing the conceptual and empirical groundwork for the development of a joint taxonomy of traits and situations. A study of the effects of situational differences on trait self-reports indicated that conscientiousness and agreeableness can be represented hierarchically, with lower levels jointly constrained by both personality content and situational breadth. This representation establishes a methodological framework allowing for the explanation of the ways that situations interact with personality to affect responses. Implications of this representation for personality theory and prediction to and from personality inventories are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)