The actor as context for social judgments: effects of prior impressions and stereotypes

Three experiments identified conditions under which trait judgments made about a behavior were more likely to influence later judgments of the behavior. In Experiment 1, participants made trait judgments about numerous behaviors presented with photos of actors. Some behaviors were repeated, paired with the same or a different actor. All repeated behaviors were judged faster than new behaviors. Facilitation was greatest when repeated behaviors were paired with the same actor, suggesting greater influence of prior judgments in this condition. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this effect, and the pattern of response times (RTs) suggested a stronger association between the actor and behavior when a prior impression of the actor had been formed (Experiment 2) and when the behavior was stereotypic of the actor's group (Experiment 3). Level of prejudice moderated RT patterns in Experiment 3. Implications for context effects, the nature of trait inferences, and stereotype change are discussed.     

Judgments of causation, responsibility, and punishment in cases of harm-doing.

Examined the relationship between attribution of causation and attribution of moral responsibility. 60 college students completed questionnaires on hypothetical cases in 2 experiments that examined the necessary and sufficient conditions of causation, and the mitigating effects of voluntariness, foreseeability, and intervening cause. If an actor's behavior was presented as a necessary condition for harm, he/she was more likely to be judged as the cause of the harm, as morally responsible for the harm, and as deserving of punishment than if his/her behavior was presented as not necessary for harm. Information on whether an actor's behavior constituted a sufficient condition for harm marginally affected punishment judgments. In Exp II, where an actor's behavior was considered to be a necessary condition for harm, it was found that if the omission was less than voluntary, the actor was rated as less the cause, as less morally responsible, and as less deserving of punishment than if the omission was fully voluntary. If the harm was not foreseeable, judgments of moral responsibility, but not causation and punishment, were somewhat diminished as compared to cases of forseeable harm. Path analyses confirmed that relations between judgments of causation and punishment were more remote than relations between judgments of either causation and responsibility or responsibility and punishment. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personalism and distinctiveness.

Examined simultaneously the hypotheses of H. H. Kelley's (1967) distinctiveness dimension and the E. E. Jones and K. Davis (1965) personalism dimension. 104 undergraduates served as Ss. Target observers received a positive or negative evaluation from an actor that was high or low in distinctiveness. Uninvolved observer Ss were aware of the actor's evaluation and of the distinctiveness information. Uninvolved observers' attributions conformed to Kelley's hypothesis, whereas target observers' attributions were solely influenced by the valence of the evaluation. Both target and uninvolved observers employed distinctiveness information though, in accordance with Kelley's distinctiveness hypothesis, when asked to predict the actor's future behavior. An inferential set interpretation of these results is proposed. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender stereotypes and social inferences: A developmental study.

Investigated changes between childhood and adulthood in reliance on gender stereotypes when making inferences about another person. 36 children from each of 3 age groups (kindergarten [mean age 5 yrs 8 mo], 3rd grade [mean age 8 yrs 9 mo], and 6th grade [mean age 11 yrs 8 mo]) and 36 college students were told that a boy or a girl had chosen activities consistent or inconsistent with gender stereotypes. Ss were asked to predict the actor's future behavior, rate the actor on several traits, and estimate the actor's popularity with peers. College students predicted that the actor's future behavior would be approximately as consistent (or inconsistent) with gender stereotypes as their past behavior. College students' ratings of the actor's traits and their judgments about the popularity of boys were also influenced by the actor's past behavior. Sixth graders showed a similar pattern of social inferences, but the effects of the actor's past behavior were weaker than at college age. By contrast, 3rd graders predicted that the actor's future behavior would be stereotypical, even if his or her past behavior was not. Past behavior had some effect on 3rd graders' trait ratings but not on their popularity judgments. At kindergarten, only predictions for a girl's future behavior were affected by past-behavior information. The age differences are discussed in the context of current models of the development and functioning of gender stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The spyglass self: A model of vicarious self-perception.

Self-perception theory posits that people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing their freely chosen actions. The authors hypothesized that in addition, people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing the freely chosen actions of others with whom they feel a sense of merged identity--almost as if they had observed themselves performing the acts. Before observing an actor's behavior, participants were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor through perspective-taking instructions (Study 1) or through feedback indicating that their brainwave patterns overlapped substantially with those of the actor (Studies 2-4). As predicted, participants incorporated attributes relevant to an actor's behavior into their own self-concepts, but only when they were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor and only when the actor's behavior seemed freely chosen. These changes in relevant self-perceptions led participants to change their own behaviors accordingly. Implications of these vicarious self-perception processes for conformity, perspective-taking, and the long-term development of the self-concept are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of behavioral intentions and consequences on judgments of the actor and other: An S-V-O analysis.

Used an extension of H. F. Gollob's (1974) subject–verb–object (S–V–O) model of social inference to investigate the effects of information about behavioral intentions and consequences on judgments of both an actor and the person toward whom the behavior is directed. In Exp I, 48 undergraduates received one or more pieces of information about an attribute of the actor, the actor's intentions to help or hinder the other, the actual consequences of this action (whether the other is helped or hindered), and an attribute of the other. Judgments of actors' admirableness increased with the favorableness of the adjectives describing them, the favorableness of both their intentions and the consequences of their actions, the justness of their intentions and of the consequences of their actions, and their ability to produce the consequences they intended. Behavioral consequences appeared to affect judgments of both the actor and the other independently of the actor's intentions. Exp II, with 51 undergraduates, demonstrated that the effects of information on judgments of the actor depended on the dimension of judgment in predictable ways and suggested that judgments of admirableness may be mediated by perceptions of both virtuousness and competence. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Order effects on children's moral and achievement judgments.

24 kindergartners were presented with 24 stories varying in the actor's intent, the outcome of the actor's behavior, and the competitiveness of the situation (noncompetitive/moral vs competitive/achievement dilemmas). Ss evaluated the actor by administering rewards or punishments in each of the stories on an 11-point graphic scale. Reversing the order of the stimulus cues increased the relative importance of outcome. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The perceiver as perceived: Everyday intuitions about the correspondence bias.

This research examined people's intuitions about the correspondence bias, or the tendency to favor dispositional rather than situational explanations of behavior. In 3 studies, constrained actors overestimated the magnitude of observers' correspondent inferences. Additional studies indicated that this overestimation is due to people's oversimplified theories about the attributional processes of others. In one, Japanese participants, whose culture places greater emphasis on situational explanations of behavior, did not overestimate the correspondent inferences of observers. In other studies, participants indicated that they thought others' attributions are more influenced by an actor's behavior than by the factors constraining the behavior. Discussion focuses on whether people believe others are more prone to the correspondence bias than they are themselves and on the consequences of overestimating the correspondence bias in everyday interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A conditional approach to dispositional constructs: The local predictability of social behavior.

A conditional approach to dispositions is developed in which dispositional constructs are viewed as clusters of if-then propositions. These propositions summarize contingencies between categories of conditions and categories of behavior rather than generalized response tendencies. A fundamental unit for investigating dispositions is therefore the conditional frequency of acts that are central to a given behavior category in circumscribed situations, not the overall frequency of behaviors. In an empirical application of the model, we examine how people's dispositional judgments are linked to extensive observations of targets' behavior in a range of natural social situations. We identify categories of these social situations in which targets' behavior may be best predicted from observers' dispositional judgments, focusing on the domains of aggression and withdrawal. One such category consists of subjectively demanding or stressful situations that tax people's performance competencies. As expected, children judged to be aggressive or withdrawn were variable across situations in dispositionally relevant behaviors, but they diverged into relatively predictable aggressive and withdrawn actions in situations that required the social, self-regulatory, and cognitive competencies they lacked. Implications of the conditional approach for personality assessment and person perception research are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluating sex discrimination claims: The mediating role of attributions.

The role of attributions in judgments of sex discrimination was examined in 2 laboratory experiments. In Study 1, participants read 1 of 12 brief scenarios in which limited information about the strength of evidence against a fictitious corporation and occupational gender stereotype were manipulated. Results suggested that attributions mediated the relationships between participants' gender, strength of evidence, and discrimination judgments. In Study 2, participants were provided with 1 of 3 detailed, typewritten summaries of evidence presented in a sex discrimination trial. Results indicated that jurors' gender was again significantly related to attributions and to sex discrimination judgments even in the face of substantial objective information related to the case. The variance in observers' judgments associated with gender, however, appeared to be greatest when information about the organization's guilt or innocence was equivocal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's reactions to apologies.

In 2 experiments, 221 kindergartners and 1st, 4th, and 7th graders judged actors who committed a transgression under conditions of low or high responsibility and low or high consequences. The actor's motives were good or bad and the act was intended or accidental. The actor then either did nothing or employed 1 of 3 increasingly elaborate apologies. As hypothesized, the actor's predicament was most severe, producing the harshest judgments when (a) the actor had high responsibility for committing an inadvertent act that produced high consequences, and (b) the act was the result of a bad rather than good motive or was intended rather than accidental. More elaborate apologies produced less blame and punishment and more forgiveness, liking, positive evaluations, and attributions of greater remorse. The judgments of the 7th graders were more affected by the actor's apology than those of the younger Ss. These age differences reflect the younger Ss' poorer ability to integrate social information and appreciate the implications of social conventions. However, the younger Ss' judgments were similar to those of older Ss. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self as actor, active observer, and passive observer: Implications for causal attributions.

D. T. Miller et al (see record 1975-21040-001) distinguished between active observers (those on the receiving end of an actor's behavior) and passive observers (onlookers of an event involving an actor and an active observer). Following the concept of hedonic relevance, it was hypothesized that active observers would attribute the actor's behavior to personal dispositions of the actor more strongly than passive observers. In a series of hypothetical emotional events, 24 male undergraduates were depicted either as actors ("You like Ted"), active observers ("Ted likes you"), or passive observers ("Ted likes Paul"). They then rated the degree to which the actor, active observer, or some "other reason" had caused the given event. Although the actor–observer effect was obtained overall, an interaction between S role and positivity of verb indicated that it occurred much more strongly in negative-verb than positive-verb events. That is, Ss, either as actors or active observers, tended to deny their responsibility for negative events but did not claim praise for positive events. Implications for the effects of egotism on attribution are discussed. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Awareness of influences on one's own judgments: The roles of covariation detection and attention to the judgment process.

Forty-eight actor participants examined profiles of target persons and judged how much they would like each target. Initial-attention actors were instructed before judging any of the profiles to attend to how target factors influenced their liking judgments. Delayed-attention actors received these instructions after judging the first block of profiles and before judging the second. No-attention actors did not receive these instructions at all. After judging the target profiles, actors estimated how each of several target factors had influenced their liking judgments. Access to covariation information greatly increased the accuracy of observers' causal reports. Covariation detection appeared to make less of a contribution, however, to actors' own causal reports, which displayed a substantial level of accuracy even after we controlled statistically for the possible contributions of covariation detection and shared theories. Contrary to expectations, the attention instructions actually decreased the accuracy of actors' self-reports for the first block of judgments but had no effect on accuracy for the second block of judgments. Results show that some form of privileged self-knowledge contributed to the accuracy of actors' causal reports. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Action embellishment: An intention bias in the perception of success.

Na?ve theories of behavior hold that actions are caused by an agent's intentions, and the subsequent success of an action is measured by the satisfaction of those intentions. However, when an action is not as successful as intended, the expected causal link between intention and action may distort perception of the action itself. Four studies found evidence of an intention bias in perceptions of action. Actors perceived actions to be more successful when given a prior choice (e.g., choose between 2 words to type) and also when they felt greater motivation for the action (e.g., hitting pictures of disliked people). When the intent was to fail (e.g., singing poorly), choice led to worse estimates of performance. A final experiment suggested that intention bias works independent from self-enhancement motives. In observing another actor hit pictures of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, shots were distorted to match the actor's intentions, even when it opposed personal wishes. Together these studies indicate that judgments of action may be automatically distorted and that these inferences arise from the expected consistency between intention and action in agency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suspicion of ulterior motivation and the correspondence bias.

Three studies examined the hypothesis that when perceivers learn of the existence of multiple, plausibly rival motives for an actor's behavior, they are less likely to fall prey to the correspondence bias than when they learn of the existence of situational factors that may have constrained the actor's behavior. In the 1st 2 studies, Ss who learned that an actor was instructed to behave as he did drew inferences that corresponded to his behavior. In contrast, Ss who were led to suspect that an actor's behavior may have been motivated by a desire to ingratiate (Study 1), or by a desire to avoid an unwanted job (Study 2), resisted the correspondence bias. The 3rd study demonstrated that these differences were not due to a general unwillingness on the part of suspicious perceivers to make dispositional inferences. The implications that these results have for understanding attribution theory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpersonal engagement in social perception: The consequences of getting into the action.

Examined the effects on person perception of varying levels of observer-actor engagement using 60 undergraduates. Ss observed a male actor (confederate) responding to interview questions on a prerecorded videotape under 3 conditions of interpersonal engagement: Ss in a detachment condition knew that they were simply observing a tape; Ss in an anticipated-interaction condition knew that they were observing a tape but expected to interact subsequently with the actor; Ss in an actual-interaction condition thought that they were interacting with the actor over a video hook-up. Half of the Ss observed the actor preface his responses with a positive comment regarding the interviewer's question (positive actor); the other half observed the actor preface his responses with a negative comment (negative actor). It was predicted that anticipated-interaction Ss would demonstrate hopefulness by attributing the positive actor's behavior dispositionally and the negative actor's behavior situationally but that actual-interaction Ss would show the opposite causal attribution pattern in an attempt to protect or enhance their own self-esteem. Results confirm these predictions. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tuning in to another person's action capabilities: Perceiving maximal jumping-reach height from walking kinematics.

Three experiments investigated the ability to perceive the maximum height to which another actor could jump to reach an object. Experiment 1 determined the accuracy of estimates for another actor's maximal reach-with-jump height and compared these estimates to estimates of the actor's standing maximal reaching height and to estimates of the perceiver's own maximal reaching and reach-with-jump height. Perception of another actor's maximum reach-with-jump height was less accurate than the other estimates, but still accurate to within 8% error. The actor's reach-with-jump height was modified in Experiment 2 by attaching weights around the actor's ankles. Perceivers, who were explicitly aware of the manipulation, adjusted their maximum reach-with-jump estimates for the actor accordingly. In Experiment 3, perceivers were not explicitly aware of the weight manipulation, but provided significantly lower maximum reach-with-jump estimates after watching the actor walk while wearing the weights compared to estimates obtained after watching the actor walk while not wearing the weights. The results suggest that the actor's walking pattern was informative about the actor's capacity to produce a different action, jumping to reach an object. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's use of frequency information for trait categorization and behavioral prediction.

Two experiments examined young children's use of behavioral frequency information to make behavioral predictions and global personality attributions. In Experiment 1, participants heard about an actor who behaved positively or negatively toward 1 or several recipients. Generally, children did not differentiate their judgments of the actor on the basis of the amount of information provided. In Experiment 2, the actor behaved positively or negatively toward a single recipient once or repeatedly. Participants were more likely to make appropriate predictions and attributions after exposure to multiple target behaviors and with increasing age. Overall, children's performance was influenced by age-related positivity and negativity biases. These findings indicate that frequency information is important for personality judgments but that its use is affected by contextual complexity and information-processing biases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Variability in automatic activation as an unobstrusive measure of racial attitudes: A bona fide pipeline?

The research examines an unobtrusive measure of racial attitudes based on the evaluations that are automatically activated from memory on the presentation of Black versus White faces. Study 1, which concerned the technique's validity, obtained different attitude estimates for Black and White participants and also revealed that the variability among White participants was predictive of other race-related judgments and behavior. Study 2 concerned the lack of correspondence between the unobtrusive estimates and Modern Racism Scale (MRS) scores. The reactivity of the MRS was demonstrated in Study 3. Study 4 observed an interaction between the unobtrusive estimates and an individual difference in motivation to control prejudiced reactions when predicting MRS scores. The theoretical implications of the findings for consideration of automatic and controlled components of racial prejudice are discussed, as is the status of the MRS. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)