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Social Perception and
Attribution
Brian Parkinson
KEY CONCEPTS
actor–observer difference analysis of non-common effects attributional bias augmenting principle causal power causal schema central trait cognitive algebra configural model consensus information consistency information correspondence bias correspondent inference theory covariation theory depressive realism discounting principle distinctiveness information false consensus bias implicit personality theory learned helplessness theory naïve scientist model peripheral trait primacy effect salience self-fulfilling prophecy self-serving biases
CHAPTER OUTLINE
How can we tell what other people are like? How do we explain their actions and experiences (and
our own)? This chapter introduces research intended to answer these questions. Studies of social
perception show that impressions of others depend on what information is presented, how it is pre-
sented, and on prior assumptions about how it fits together. Research into attribution demonstrates
that perceivers consistently favour certain kinds of explanation over others. Our impressions and ex-
planations are also shaped by our specific reasons for constructing them. In particular, we present
social events in different ways to different people under different circumstances. Both social percep-
tion and attribution therefore involve communication in combination with private interpretation.
Introduction
Can you remember when you first met your closest friend? How quickly did you get a sense of what he or she was like, and of how well you would get on together? Did your impression turn out to be correct, and if not, where and why did you go wrong? Now imagine that instead of meeting another person face to face, you are told about them by someone else. When we describe other people, we often refer to their traits (relatively consistent personality characteristics or abilities) or dispositions. Peculiar as it might seem, let’s suppose that the only information you are given is the following list of traits:
intelligent – skilful – industrious – warm – determined – practical – cautious
How easily did you form an impression this time? Did you reach your conclusions in the same way as when you first met your friend? Are you as certain that your judgement is correct? It is unusual to meet someone without knowing anything about them. Even if you haven’t been told what to expect, the specific location for your meeting (a bar, concert or supermarket) can be revealing. You can already tell that they must be the sort of person who goes to a place like this, and this category information may provide sufficient evidence for your purposes (see Chapter 4, this volume, and Fiske & Neuberg, 1990). However, we sometimes start with very few clues and need to construct impressions from scratch. And we often make up our minds about whom we like and dislike before any conversation begins. But people we dislike at first can later turn out to be excellent company, and people we think we will like may ultimately prove less congenial. In any extended relationship, we get to see how the other person acts in different situations and use these observations to draw conclusions about their feelings and personality. It is rare indeed that all this subsequent information perfectly matches first impressions.
SOCIAL PERCEPTION 45
but rather actively construct meaning based on their ideas about how different personality characteristics tend to go together. As later theorists concluded, people have their own implicit person- ality theories that help to make sense of other people (e.g., Bruner & Tagiuri, 1954). More gen- erally, people seem to integ- rate social information by trying to infer its holistic pat- tern ( configural model ). The alternative cognitive algebra model suggests that separate pieces of information are simply added together or averaged (e.g., Anderson, 1981). For example, if a per- son is described as ‘warm’ but ‘boring’, the overall impres- sion would be less positive than if she were described as ‘warm’ but ‘interesting’, but more positive than if she were described as ‘cold’ and ‘boring’. Accord- ing to this view, the disproportionate effect of ‘central’ adjectives depends on them conveying comparatively more evaluative in- formation than the other words that are presented. Further, the impact of a word may depend on its relevance to the judgement being made. For example, we care more about whether someone is ‘warm’ when selecting a potential friend than a plumber, and
therefore attach more weight to its connotations. Asch’s con- figural model, by contrast, implies that central adjectives change the meaning of other words rather than simply attracting greater emphasis. But do social perceivers always make sense of personality information in either of these ways? In Asch’s (1946) experiments, participants heard a list of separate personality adjectives and were explicitly told to construct an impression based on these words (as in the task at the start of this chapter). As Asch acknowledged, this is unlike what normally happens when we meet someone face to face (e.g., getting to know your best friend for the first time). How then might this particular way of pre- senting information have affected the process of impression formation? Some people get acquainted by email before ever physically meeting (see Chapter 10, this volume). It may take months or even years before they so much as exchange photographs (not neces- sarily genuine ones: see Ben-Ze’ev, 2004), assuming that they ever do (see Joinson, 2003). What happens when these people finally confront one another in the flesh? Are they surprised by what they see? Examples such as this suggest that transmitting information in words rather than raw sensory data (sights, sounds and smells) can make a difference to the content of our impressions. Indeed, sensory information can carry direct implications about person- ality. For example, people with large, round eyes, short noses, high
Percentage of participants ticking adjective
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90
80
70
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0 Emotional Optimistic^ Informal^ Cheerful^ Short^ Modest^ Imaginative^ Thin^ Pale
Warm Cold
Figure 3.1 Impressions of ‘warm’ and ‘cold’ targets (Asch, 1946).
implicit personality theory an integrated set of ideas held by social perceivers about how different traits tend to be organized within a person
configural model a holistic approach to impression formation, implying that social perceivers actively construct deeper meanings out of the bits of information that they receive about other people
cognitive algebra a proposed process for averaging or summing trait information when forming impressions of other people
46 CHAPTER 3 SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND ATTRIBUTION
foreheads and/or small chins ( baby-faced individuals) are typically perceived as less dominant, more naïve and warmer than people with mature-seeming features (e.g., Berry & McArthur, 1986), and people with louder or higher-pitched voices are often perceived as more extraverted (e.g., Scherer & Scherer, 1981). The way that patterns of sensory information change over time can also carry important information. For example, we are quite accurate at judg- ing which of two people is older by observing the way that they both walk, even when all other evidence is removed. Adults with a younger-seeming gait are also perceived as more energetic (Montepare & Zebrowitz-McArthur, 1988). Asch’s procedure also differs from most everyday interactions because it provides no opportunity for the other person to respond to participants’ judgements of them (or for participants to respond to these responses). Interactivity of this kind may make a big dif- ference to the process of impression formation. For example, when you meet someone, you don’t simply draw a conclusion about
them and keep it to yourself. Instead, you adjust how you behave to what you think they are like, and they correspondingly adjust their conduct to their impression of you (which is partly based on how you are responding to them, and so on). For example, if you think someone is friendly, you may be more friendly back, leading them in turn to reciprocate your friendly response (and so on). Thus, our impressions of others can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies (e.g., Snyder, 1984). However, people are also able to adjust their impressions when expectations are disconfirmed. Indeed, if you know that someone has the wrong idea about you, you may deliber- ately act in ways that show them that they are mistaken (a self-verification effect , Swann, 1984).
SUMMARY
The study of social perception focuses on how we as social perceivers form impressions of other people, and how we combine information about them into a coherent over- all picture. Pioneering studies showed how important the nature and order of presented information are, and how perceivers actively construct meaning, rather than simply sum information. But how specific pieces of information are weighted, integrated and used depends on a variety of factors including the situation we find ourselves in, and how much we care about making the right judgement.
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
What are the main theories of causal attribution, and how do they envisage that lay perceivers process causal information?
In one of Pixar™^ animation studio’s earliest short films, the move- ments of two anglepoise desk lamps – one large, one small – are accompanied by voice-like sounds. Although items of office furni- ture do not usually have social relationships, viewers quickly con- clude that the larger lamp is the smaller lamp’s parent, and that the smaller lamp is a rather boisterous child. The lamps’ contrac- tions and extensions soon appear to be actions, and the noises start sounding like communications or expressions of emotion. A little drama of conflicting desires and thwarted impulses seems to un- fold on the screen, even though we know that every movement has been computer-generated. How is this impression of human personality and intention achieved? Part of the answer is that our tendency to see motives and dispositions behind human actions may be so automatic that we sometimes find it hard to override it even in situations where motives and dispositions don’t really
Plate 3.1 People with large, round eyes, short noses, high foreheads and/or small chins are typically perceived as less dominant, more naïve and warmer than people with mature- seeming features.
self-fulfilling prophecy when an originally false social belief leads to its own fulfilment. Social belief refers to people’s expectations regarding another group of people. When a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs, the perceiver’s initially false beliefs cause targets to act in ways that objectively confirm those beliefs
48 CHAPTER 3 SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND ATTRIBUTION
process the analysis of non- common effects (see Table 3.1). In reality, our analysis may be more complex than implied by this example. For instance, we might focus on why you chose to go to university at all rather than why you selected this particular one. How then do observers know what alternatives to compare when trying to explain a course of action? Research suggests that people are more interested in explaining unusual than predictable events, and that they explain them by comparing what actually happened with what they think would normally have happened (Hilton & Slugoski, 1986, and p. 51 below). For example, if a close friend walks past us in the street without saying hello, we think about what is different this time from the usual times when she stops to chat. Perhaps she forgot to put on her glasses this morning, or perhaps you have had such a radical change of hairstyle that you are now almost unrecognizable. Although correspondent inference theory was only intended to apply when actors are free to choose their behaviour, an experi- ment conducted by Jones and Harris (1967) casts doubt on this assumption. Students at an American university were asked to assess another student’s opinion about Fidel Castro’s communist regime in Cuba after reading a pro-Castro essay that the other student had supposedly written (see Figure 3.2). One group of participants was told that the writer had freely chosen what position to adopt in the essay, whereas another group was told that the essay title had explicitly requested pro-Castro arguments. According to correspon- dent inference theory, participants in the latter condition should have ignored the essay’s content when estimating the writer’s atti- tudes. However, participants tended to conclude that the essay- writer had pro-Castro attitudes even when the situational constraint was evident. Given that most American students were strongly anti-Castro when the study was conducted, this conclusion seemed an unlikely one. The investigators concluded that people tend to overestimate personal causes of behaviour but underesti- mate situational ones, an im- portant phenomenon later termed the correspondence bias (see p. 55 below).
Covariation theory
How do perceivers weigh up different possible causes of behaviour and decide on an explanation?
Imagine that you know a very conscientious student (Hermione) who always goes through everything on reading lists well in advance of classes. Before you had a chance to look at this chapter, she already told you what it was about and expressed the opinion that attribution theory was a really boring topic. Clearly, you want to know why she said this. Is it because attribution theory actually is tedious? Is it because Hermione is rarely excited by anything? Or is it because her showy lack of enthusiasm was designed to impress your jaundiced room-mate (Ron) who happened to be listening in on this particular conversation? Jones and Davis’s
analysis of non-common effects observers infer intentions behind actions by comparing the consequences of the behavioural options that were open to the actor and identifying distinctive outcomes
Table 3.1 Analysis of non-common effects after observed selection of University X
Features of University X Features of University Y Are features common or Implication about intention (chosen) (not chosen) non-common?
Comfortable accommodation Comfortable accommodation Common None
Sports facilities Sports facilities Common None
Good reputation Good reputation Common None
Friends applying Friends applying Common None
Urban location Rural location Non-common University X chosen because candidate wanted to live in an urban location
Essay-writer’s perceived positive attitude towards Castro
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60
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0 Choice No choice
Pro-Castro Anti-Castro
Figure 3.2 Correspondent inferences of essay-writers’ attitudes (Jones & Harris, 1967).
correspondence bias the proposed tendency to infer a personal disposition corresponding to observed behaviour even when the behaviour was determined by the situation
ATTRIBUTION THEORY 49
model would say that you need to compare the consequences of saying that the material was boring with the consequences of saying or doing something else. However, even if we knew about all the relevant alternatives, this would only allow us to narrow down Hermione’s possible intentions, not to say which aspects of the event exerted causal influence. Further, even though analysis of non-common effects might have some use in this particular example, it cannot easily be applied to attributions about non- deliberate behaviours or feelings. Kelley’s (1967) covariation theory provides a more gen- eral account of how people weigh up different possible causes of an observed action or experience. Its assump- tion is that an actor (e.g., Hermione) has responded in some way to an object (e.g., attribution theory) in a particular situation (e.g., while Ron was listening). The observer then wants to know whether what happened was caused by something about the actor, something about the object, or something about the situation (or some combination of these three factors). According to Kelley, observers work this out by systematically collecting and processing additional data. The aim is to discover what factors need to be in place for the effect to happen. As its name suggests, Kelley’s covariation theory argues that observers make their judgements on the basis of covariations or correlations between effects and their possible causes. In other words, ‘the effect is attributed to that condition which is present when the effect is present and which is absent when the effect is absent’ (Kelley, 1967, p. 194). Inferences of causality thus depend on finding out that the effect’s occurrence relates to the presence of one or more of the possible causal factors, but not to the pres- ence of other factors.
Why then did Hermione say that attribution theory was boring? Kelley argues that you need to consider three kinds of evidence, each corresponding to one of the possible causes (the object, situation or person). First, you need to know whether Hermione expresses boredom only about attribution theory (high distinctiveness) or whether she says that a lot of things are boring (low distinctiveness). In other words, you collect distinctive- ness information by sampling across objects. Second, you need to know whether your friend only says attribution theory is boring in front of Ron (low consistency) or makes similar comments across a range of situations regardless of who might be listening (high consistency). In other words, you collect consistency information by sampling across situations. Third, you need to know whether it is only Hermione who finds attribution theory boring (low consensus) or if other students on your course say the same thing (high con- sensus). In other words, you collect consensus information by sampling across actors. Having collected all the relevant data, you are now in a position to make your attribution. For example, if Hermione says lots of things are boring (low distinctiveness), says that attribution theory is boring regardless of circumstances (high consistency) and none of your other friends says it is boring (low consensus), you may conclude that it is something about Hermione that makes her bored (a ‘person attribution’). You infer this from the close correlation between the presence of Hermione and statements that something is boring (whenever she is included in a sampled episode, something is described as boring, but when- ever she is absent, nothing is described as boring). The causal im- plications of some other possible combinations of consensus, consistency and distinctiveness (CCD) information are presented in Table 3.2. One limitation of the covariation model is that the pattern of information supposed to indicate various attributions is incom- plete (see Försterling, 2001; Hilton, 1988). For example, knowing that Hermione only says attribution theory is boring in front of Ron does not definitively establish the causal role of this situation because you have not collected data about how different people react to Ron’s presence. In fact, there is good evidence that people can infer many of the predicted implications of other patterns of CCD information when evidence is provided in this particular form (e.g., McArthur, 1972; see Hewstone, 1989, and Kassin, 1979, for reviews). Although Kelley’s theory provides a logical basis for attribu- tion, it is difficult to imagine that people collect evidence so sys- tematically and engage in such detached processes of analysis every time they make sense of an event’s causes. That certainly would get boring. Many subsequent developments in attribution theory have therefore involved correcting this limitation of the covariation approach.
covariation theory proposes that observers work out the causes of behaviour by collecting data about comparison cases. Causality is attributed to the person, entity or situation depending on which of these factors covaries with the observed effect
PIONEER
Along with Bernard Weiner, Harold Kelley (1921–2003) was one of two pioneering attribution theorists working at the University of California at Los Angeles. His covariation theory of attribution stands as the most influential general approach to lay causation, although from the start he acknowledged that it did not apply across all possible situ- ations. His second, causal schema theory was specifically intended to explain how people arrive at causal explanations when they are unable to carry out the systematic collection of data implied by covariation theory. In addition to these two influential theories, Kelley also worked on person perception, attitude change and relationships.
distinctiveness information evidence relating to how an actor responds to different entities under similar circumstances consistency information evidence relating to how an actor’s behaviour towards an entity varies across different situations consensus information evidence relating to how different actors behave towards the same entity
ATTRIBUTION THEORY 51
events had occurred (e.g., ‘Did John try especially hard on this occasion?’). On reflection, this is not particularly surprising. A problem with CCD information is that it only tells us whether the actor, object or situation (or some combination of these) caused the event, but not what it is about the actor, object or situation that caused it. As Lalljee and Abelson (1983) point out, knowing that John lied to Mary because of something about Mary begs the question of what this something might be that makes people want to lie to her. To work this out, we would need to refer to our prior knowledge about why people might deceive one another. But then why not just start by consulting this useful knowledge instead of first con- ducting a time-consuming covariation analysis? If we need to rely on ready-made explanations anyway, and these can tell us what we really want to know, then there is little point in going through the preliminary step of collecting and sifting through all possible combinations of CCD information. It is now generally accepted that people don’t usually engage in a thorough data-driven process every time they make an attribu- tion. Because we already have expectations that events will unfold in a certain way, these can be used as a reference point for our attributions. Indeed, Hilton and Slugoski (1986) argue that people rarely need to ask themselves the causal question implied by co- variation theory: ‘why did this happen instead of not happening?’ (a question that would lead them to weigh up all possible factors that might have led to the event). Instead, they usually want to know ‘why did this happen instead of what usually happens (under these circumstances)?’ Thus, people look for causes among the dif- ferences between actual and anticipated event sequences ( abnor- mal condition focus ) rather than exhaustively sifting through all available evidence. Observers know where to look for relevant causes not only because they understand general principles of causality (as implied by Kelley’s causal schema model), but also because they have access to cognitive scripts telling them how par- ticular kinds of event (e.g., conversations, parties, restaurant visits) ordinarily unfold in the social world (e.g., Cheng & Novick, 1990; Read, 1987).
Covariation and causal power
How do we use more specific causal knowledge to guide our causal explanations?
A final limitation of covariation theory is captured by a slogan familiar from statistics classes: ‘correlation is not causation’. Establishing that factor X covaries with effect Y can never prove that X caused Y, because a correlated third variable may have exerted the real influence (or indeed Y might have caused X). For example, a covariation between revision and fine weather does not mean that studying hard can make the sun shine. Again, prior knowledge can help us untangle causal relations of this kind. Because we are already aware of what kinds of factor are possible causes of particular effects, we can reject certain factors as irrelevant and focus down our causal search. We know, for instance, that energy is required to induce movement, pressure to produce deformation of objects, that people sometimes say
things in order to impress others, and that people’s actions don’t immediately change the weather. However, because much of this specific knowledge needs to be learned from observation, knowledge-based theories of attribution still need to explain how people acquire their knowledge about what typically causes what in the first place. According to Cheng (1997), covariation information alone cannot answer this question because it is insufficient to imply causation. Perceivers typically supplement covariation analysis with their own innate implicit theory that certain events carry unobservable causal powers (see also White, 1989). For example, the fact that a mag- net consistently attracts or is attracted to metal objects leads us to conclude it has an invisible quality (‘magnetism’) that brings about these effects. Because our predisposition is to uncover causal powers rather than to record observable regular- ities for their own sake, our sampling of covariation data can be more principled and focused. In particular, covariations between competing potential causes and the observed effect are compared ( probabilistic contrast ) in order to determine the nature of the underlying causal process. For example, a child might find out that audible distress brings about parental attention by repeatedly crying in similar situations (so that all other plausible causes remain constant) and registering any consistent effects on Mum or Dad. The child might also compare this strategy with throw- ing toys around. Thus, even small infants may conduct informal experiments based on an innate theory that effects are caused by events with intrinsic causal powers. Cheng argues that the more specific causal knowledge guiding our subsequent attribu- tions is originally acquired by making probabilistic contrasts of this kind.
Attributions for success and failure
What are the implications of attributing success and failure in different ways?
Some of the events that we are most motivated to explain are suc- cesses and failures. For example, if you get a better than usual grade in an exam, you may wonder whether this was due to your particular affinity for the topics covered, your thorough exam revision or the fact that exactly the right questions happened to come up. Your conclusion will help you work out how likely it is that you will be able to maintain this level of performance and how you might go about achieving this. The most influential theory of achievement-related attribution was developed by Weiner (1979, 1985), who argued that our con- clusions about the causes of success and failure directly affect future expectations, motivations and emotions. One of Weiner’s main contributions was his classification of the perceived causes of success and failure (see Table 3.3). According to this classifica- tion, perceived causal factors may be: (1) internal or external
causal power an intrinsic property of an object or event that enables it to exert influence on some other object or event
52 CHAPTER 3 SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND ATTRIBUTION
the outcome, whereas attributing performance to an external fac- tor means that something to do with the situation was responsible. Both internal and external factors can be either variable or stable. For example, attributing your performance to intelligence means that you think something internal and relatively unchanging about you led you to do well. Weiner also argued that causal factors are perceived as either controllable or uncontrollable, and that this distinction too makes a difference to your reaction to achievement outcomes. For ex- ample, if you believe that your exam success was due to an inter- nal, stable and uncontrollable factor (your innate aptitude for this kind of material), then you may feel that there is no need to try hard in order to repeat your success. On the other hand, if you think that your good grade was due to an internal, variable and controllable factor (e.g., effort), you will probably conclude that you need to stay motivated in order to succeed in future. Thus, attributions about success and failure are not simply intellectual conclusions about performance, they also make a real difference to our expectations and motivation.
Attributional reformulation of learned helplessness theory
Are certain patterns of attribution symptoms, or causes, of depression?
Weiner’s conclusions about the motivational consequences of attributions for success and failure have broader implications for understanding clinical disorders. One influential application has been the attributional reformulation of learned helplessness theory of depression. Learned help- lessness theory (Seligman,
- originally argued that depression results from learn- ing that nothing you do makes any difference to outcomes. The idea was that if rewards and punishments have no relation to your actions, you soon learn to give up trying to attain the former and avoid the latter. However, there are many uncontrollable situations in everyday life that don’t make people depressed. For example, many people enjoy betting on games of chance, where the outcomes are
Plate 3.2 Do our conclusions about the causes of success and failure, e.g. in an exam, directly affect future expectations, motivations and emotions?
PIONEER
Bernard Weiner (b. 1935) is currently Professor of Psycho- logy at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he has worked since 1965. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Chicago and his doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1963. In 1965, following two years at the University of Minnesota, he went to UCLA. He is most famous for his influential research into attributions for success and failure, iden- tifying the main types of attribution, their underlying dimensions and their effects on motivation and emotion. His classification of perceived causes of behaviour has had an even greater impact.
Internal
Stable
Mastery (e.g., knowledge, skill)
Aptitude (e.g., intelligence, coordination)
Unstable
Effort
Energy
External
Stable
Enduring situational and social resources (e.g., contacts, wealth)
Task ease or difficulty
Unstable
Temporarily available situational and social resources (e.g., advice, assistance)
Luck/chance
Table 3.3 Possible causes of success and failure (after Weiner, 1979, 1985)
Controllable
Uncontrollable
( locus ); (2) stable or variable ( stability ); and (3) controllable or un- controllable ( controllability ). Attributing your exam success to an internal factor means that you believe that something relating to you as a person determined
learned helplessness theory the proposal that depression results from learning that outcomes are not contingent on one’s behaviour
54 CHAPTER 3 SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND ATTRIBUTION
group discussion were closer to those of observers than were non- depressed participants’ ratings. Although observers rated the per- formance of non-depressed participants more positively than that of depressed participants, they did not rate it as positively as the non-depressed participants themselves did. However, Campbell and Fehr (1990) found that participants with low self-esteem (a typical feature of depression) were more accurate only when their judgements were compared against those of an observer who did not participate in the interaction. Indeed, evidence suggests that outside observers may be unduly harsh judges because they think that their task is to be critical. When par- ticipants’ own ratings were compared with those of the person they were having the conversation with, participants with high rather than low self-esteem came out as more accurate. It seems then that depressives’ judgements are probably only more accur- ate when circumstances match their negative outlook. How- ever, it is also worth bearing in mind that depressives’ negative judgements can easily turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. If some- one doesn’t even try because they are sure they will fail regardless of effort, this makes it more likely that they will in fact fail. Whether the attributional pattern associated with depression is a symptom or cause of depression, and whether it is realistic or unrealistic, reformulated learned helplessness theory suggests that therapy should focus on changing it in order to alleviate the symp- toms of depression. In practice, current cognitive and psycho- dynamic therapies for depression attempt to modify a wide range of negative interpretations, but correcting maladaptive attributions for failure may explain part of their apparent effectiveness (e.g., Barber et al., 2005).
Misattribution of arousal
How do we ascertain what we are feeling and why?
The attributional reformulation of learned helplessness theory suggests that we feel more depressed about unpleasant events if we conclude that their causes are internal, stable and global. But how do we recognize our reaction to this attributional pattern as depression rather than something else? This may sound a silly question because it usually seems that the nature of our current emotional state is self-evident. By contrast, misattribution theor- ies imply that we sometimes need to work out what it is we are feeling and that this inference process is susceptible to social influence. One of the earliest psychological theories of emotion was devised by William James (1884). He argued that each emotion has its own distinctive profile of bodily changes and that we can directly sense our emotion by registering these changes. However, Cannon (1927) pointed out that the patterns of internal physio- logical activity associated with very different emotions are actu- ally rather similar. For example, both fear and anger involve increases in heart rate, blood pressure and other kinds of metabolic activity (physiological arousal in the autonomic nervous system, ANS) designed to release energy to the muscles in preparation for vigorous activity. This means that we cannot tell these emotions apart simply by checking what is happening inside our bodies.
Schachter (1964) therefore argued that emotions depend upon the attributions we make for our internal feelings, rather than directly reflecting these feelings themselves. Thus, perceptions of arousal (the physiological factor) tell us that we may be experi- encing an emotion, but not what emotion it is. We therefore try to work out why our bodies are aroused (the cognitive factor) in order to answer this second question (see Figure 3.4). If we con- clude that our arousal is caused by the attractive person we are having coffee with, we may interpret it as a symptom of love (or at least lust: see Chapter 10, this volume). However, if we think our arousal is due to the fact that someone else keeps butting into our private conversation, we may conclude that it reflects anger. Finally, if we attribute our symptoms to the caffeine in the strong cup of coffee we are drinking, we may conclude that our arousal is non-emotional. In a famous experiment, Schachter and Singer (1962) tried to determine whether an identical physiological state could be perceived as anger, euphoria or non-emotionally depending on participants’ interpretations of its causes. Autonomic arousal was manipulated by administering an adrenaline injection to one group of participants and a placebo injection to others under the guise
PIONEER
Stanley Schachter (1922–1997) is best known for his two- factor theory which inspired the cognitive approach to emo- tion, and for his clever experiment with Jerome Singer which remains a classic despite the apparent inconclusiveness of its results. His earlier work on affiliation also provided a forerunner of contemporary interpersonal approaches to emotion, showing that people seek out other people in order to make sense of their own feelings. Throughout his career, Schachter pursued the important idea that external cues (including social cues) can shape the inter- pretation of supposedly internal states such as emotions and feelings of pain and hunger. Such an approach provides a valuable coun- terargument to the more usual assumption that emotion, sensation and motivation are primarily biological and individual processes.
Emotional state
Intensity
Quality Cognitions about the situation
Physiological (ANS) arousal
Figure 3.4 Schachter’s two-factor theory of emotion.
ATTRIBUTION THEORY 55
that the syringe contained a new vitamin compound ( Suproxin ) that the experimenters were testing. Adrenaline-injected participants in one group were told that Suproxin might lead them to experience side effects such as a pounding heart and shaking hands (genuine arousal symptoms). These participants were therefore able to interpret their bodily symptoms correctly as non-emotional responses to the injection. However, participants in another group were given incorrect information about the adrenaline injection’s effects (i.e., that there would be no side effects or arousal-irrelevant side effects). Participants in this condition should therefore experience arousal symptoms without knowing their cause, and consequently seek an emotional explanation. Schachter and Singer stage-managed the situation to encour- age specific attributions for any unexplained arousal. Each participant was left in a waiting room with an accomplice of the experimenter posing as another participant who behaved in one of two ways. In one condition, the accomplice improvised a basketball game using scrap paper and a wastebasket, and encouraged the other participant to join in. In the other condition, the accomplice became progres- sively more irate while working through an increasingly insulting questionnaire that the participant also had to complete. Its final item read: ‘With how many men (other than your father) has your mother had extra-marital relationships?’ The only response altern- atives provided were: ‘10 and over’, ‘5–9’ and ‘4 and under’. According to Schachter’s theory, emotion should only occur when autonomic arousal is attributed to an emotional cause. In other words, emotion should not have been experienced by either placebo-injected participants (because they were not aroused) or participants who had been correctly informed about the adrena- line injection’s effects (because they did not attribute their arousal to the emotional situation). However, adrenaline-injected par- ticipants who were unaware that their symptoms were caused by this injection should have explained their arousal in terms of the plausibly euphoric situation when with the playful confederate, but in terms of the plausibly irritating situation when completing the insulting questionnaire. These two groups, therefore, should have experienced widely divergent emotional reactions of euphoria and anger, respectively. In fact, results were less clear-cut (see Reisenzein, 1983). For example, placebo-injected participants did not report significantly less emotion than participants who were injected with adrenaline but not informed about the injection’s genuine side effects. Further, emotion reports of misinformed adrenaline-injected participants did not differ substantially between euphoria and anger conditions (participants reported themselves to be mildly happy in both con- ditions; see Zimbardo, Ebbesen & Maslach, 1977). One significant result obtained by Schachter and Singer clearly did accord with predictions, however. Participants injected with adrenaline and correctly warned of the effects consistently reported less positive emotion in the euphoria condition, and less negative emotion in the anger condition than participants misled about side effects. Schachter’s explanation was that the informed group cor- rectly attributed their arousal to the injection and labelled it in non- emotional terms. Subsequent experiments have suggested that genuinely emo- tional arousal may also be misattributed to non-emotional sources,
allowing clinicians to minimize otherwise maladaptive reactions (e.g., Ross, Rodin & Zimbardo, 1969). For example, Storms and Nisbett (1970) reported that students with mild insomnia fell asleep more quickly after being told that they had taken an arousal- inducing pill ( reverse placebo effect ). The investigators argued that misattribution of arousal symptoms to the pill neutralized the mild-insomniac participants’ usual interpretation in terms of anxiety. However, Calvert-Boyanowsky and Leventhal (1975) demonstrated that such effects may be explained by the correct anticipations set up by symptom warnings rather than misattribu- tion per se. For example, knowing what is about to happen to your body means that symptoms are less surprising and less emotionally upsetting when they arrive. However, it is less clear whether this explanation can explain the reduced happiness of participants in Schachter and Singer’s informed euphoria condition. In sum, Schachter and Singer’s clever experiment does not offer conclusive support for all aspects of two-factor theory. This may be partly because it is difficult to manipulate arousal and emo- tional cognitions independently when the two usually go hand in hand. Subsequent studies have been similarly inconclusive (e.g., Erdmann & Janke, 1978; Marshall & Zimbardo, 1979; Maslach, 1979), and many theorists now believe that Schachter overstated how easy it was to influence emotional interpretations. Because our attributions about, and appraisals of, emotional situations usu- ally determine our autonomic as well as emotional reactions in the first place (e.g., Lazarus, 1991), we often know in advance what we are going to feel.
Attributional bias
What are the main types of attributional bias, and how can they be explained?
Covariation theory and the correspondent inference model both tended to view attribution as a data-driven process wherein all potentially relevant information is systematically processed. How- ever, as we have seen, subsequent research suggests that causal inferences are shaped by prior knowledge and expectations (e.g., Hilton & Slugoski, 1986; Read, 1987), or by learned attributional styles (e.g., Abramson et al., 1978), and that they may be extrane- ously influenced by contextual variables (e.g., Schachter & Singer, 1962). Thus, people seem to attach more weight to some causes at the expense of others when drawing causal conclusions. Precisely what kinds of causes are typi- cally favoured under different circumstances has been the focus of research into various attributional biases.
The correspondence bias In their professional lives, psycho- logists of different persuasions sometimes disagree about whether internal or external explanations of human behaviour deserve more emphasis. For example, most experimental social psycho- logists focus on situational influences and often ignore people’s characteristic dispositions. By contrast, personality psychologists attach more weight to personal traits, usually without giving much
attributional bias systematic distortions in the sampling or processing of information about the causes of behaviour
ATTRIBUTION THEORY 57
attention to the impact of the environment (see Chapter 1, this volume). The correspondence bias suggests that the naïve psy- chology practised by laypeople is closer to personality psychology than to experimental social psychology. Behaviour is often seen as a reflection of an actor’s corresponding internal disposition (e.g., aggressive behaviour reflects aggressive personality) even when it was actually caused by situational factors (e.g., severe provoca- tion). Research close-up 3.1 presents a famous example of this ef- fect (see also Jones & Harris, 1967, described earlier). Why do people underestimate situational influences? Accord- ing to Gilbert and Malone (1995), a number of different processes may be involved. First, some situational forces are subtle and difficult to detect. If observers are not aware of these influences in the first place, they can hardly be expected to factor them into their explanations. Second, our expectations about how other people will behave may distort our interpretations. For example, we may mistakenly assume that the prospect of public speaking terrifies others just as much as it terrifies us (an example of the false consensus bias ). Therefore, when someone appears calm before their turn to speak, we may conclude that their confident personality must be over- riding an otherwise anxiety- provoking situation. Finally, Gilbert and Malone suggest that people sometimes fail to correct their initial inferences about the causes of behaviour, especially when processing demands are high. The idea here is that people’s automatic reaction to observed behaviour is to conclude that it reflects an actor’s disposition. Any relevant situational influences are then factored in using a more deliberate reasoning process. Because the initial dispositional inference is effortless,
it happens regardless of current circumstances. However, other demands on cognitive resources may interfere with the situational correction process, leading us to underestimate the power of ex- ternal factors. (The different stages at which these sources of bias may intrude are shown in Figure 3.6.) An experiment conducted by Gilbert, Pelham and Krull (1988) provides support for this last explanation. Participants observed a silent videotape of a woman talking nervously to a stranger and then rated how anxious she was as a person. Subtitles indicating current conversation topics informed some participants that the woman was discussing her sexual fantasies (offering a situational explanation for her nervousness) but told others that she was talking about gardening. Further, some participants were told to memorize the subtitles, imposing an additional cognitive demand that should interfere with any situational correction process. As predicted, participants under higher cognitive demand tended to believe that the woman had an anxious personality regardless of conversation topic, whereas low-demand participants rated her as less dispositionally anxious when they believed she was discussing sex rather than gardening. Presumably the low-demand particip- ants had sufficient cognitive resources remaining to correct for their initial automatic dispositional inference. Gilbert and colleagues’ theory suggests that attribution always involves automatic processes but only sometimes involves con- trolled processes as well (e.g., Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977). It is therefore another example of the dual-process models that are currently popular in research on social perception and cognition (see Chapter 4, this volume). The argument that we spontan- eously and automatically make inferences about people’s traits is supported by research conducted by Smith and Miller (1983). In two studies, these investigators demonstrated that participants
privately to themselves too). This seems to provide a clear example of the correspondence bias. Because participants’ roles were allocated randomly in this study, it is statistically unlikely that one group (the questioners) should happen to be genuinely higher in general knowledge. Indeed, Ross and colleagues administered brief tests of general knowledge to all participants after the quiz and found no differences in performance. The study also carries implications about the limits of the correspondence bias. Questioners in the experimental con- dition did not conclude that contestants’ inability to answer
their questions meant that they must be inferior in general knowledge, presumably because their own role-conferred advantage was extremely salient to them. Thus questioners apparently recognized their own relatively advantaged position, and were able to correct any attributional bias. Subsequent studies have shown that observers are aware of limitations to the apparent superiority of the questioners (Johnson, Jemmott & Pettigrew, 1984; Sumpton & Gregson, 1981), and that bias in this setting depends partly on what questions are asked (e.g., Schwarz, 1994).
false consensus bias the assumption that other people generally share one’s own personal attitudes and opinions
Sources of bias
Not noticing subtle influences
Expectations about behaviour
Processing demands
Stages: Perception ofbehaviour Dispositionalinference Situationalcorrection
Initial perception of situation
Figure 3.6 Processes leading to correspondence biases (adapted from Gilbert & Malone, 1985).
58 CHAPTER 3 SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND ATTRIBUTION
presented with sentences describing an actor’s behaviour (e.g., ‘Ted breaks a friend’s expensive camera that he borrowed’) made judgements about the actor’s traits more quickly than they made inferences about the specific causes of the action. Indeed, it may be that we only go to the effort of engaging in a deliberate causal ana- lysis and check the validity of our automatic trait attributions when we are specifically motivated to think about why a particular beha- viour occurred (e.g., when the behaviour affects us negatively, or when it is unexpected), and when we have sufficient cognitive resources to engage in the necessary controlled processing.
Variability in correspondence biases The correspondence bias was once believed to be so pervasive and inescapable that it was dubbed ‘the fundamental attribution error’ (Ross, 1977). However, subsequent research suggests that it is more context- dependent than such a description implies (see Gawronski, 2005, for a review). For example, a study by Krull (1993) showed that asking people to diagnose the situation rather than the person led them to make automatic situational rather than dispositional inferences. Participants were again exposed to a silent videotape showing a woman talking, and were told that she was discussing sensitive topics with her therapist. Those whose task was to assess how anxiety-provoking the conversation was rated the woman as less dis- positionally anxious, but the situation as more anxiety-provoking, when cognitive load was high than when it was low. By contrast, those whose task was to assess how dispositionally anxious the woman was rated the woman as more dispositionally anxious, but the situation as less anxiety-provoking, when cognitive load was high. It therefore seems that automatic dispositional inferences only occur if the inferential goal is to understand the person rather than the situation that person is in. Many attribution studies have implicitly encouraged such inferential goals by orienting participants to actors rather than circumstances. For example, like all other sentences presented in Smith and Miller’s (1983) study, ‘Ted breaks a friend’s expensive camera that he borrowed’ begins with, and uses as subject of the sentence, the name of the actor performing the behaviour. Perhaps such sentences convey trait information more directly than they convey situational information (see also Brown & Fish, 1983, dis- cussed below). Operation of the correspondence bias also varies across cul- tures. For example, Miller (1984) compared explanations offered for deviant and prosocial behaviours by children (aged 8, 11 and 15) and adults from the USA and Southern India. She found that US adults attributed events to dispositional causes significantly more than Indian adults or children from either country, suggest- ing that North Americans but not Indian Hindus learn over the course of development to favour dispositional explanations (see Figure 3.7). Why should members of some societies develop a stronger preference for dispositional explanations? Many western societies such as the USA and many European countries are said to be char- acterized by a culture of individualism in which personal effort and ability combine to produce deserved outcomes. People socialized into such cultures may learn to adopt the inferential goal of understanding actors rather than their circumstances in most contexts. However, in some other societies (e.g., India, Japan),
children are socialized to see themselves more as part of groups that must work together to attain valued goals ( collectivistic cul- ture ). This cultural emphasis is likely to lead to more frequent applicability of inferential goals directed at situations (especially social situations) rather than individual actors. Despite their relatively higher preference for situational expla- nations, even collectivists frequently assume that actors have dis- positions corresponding to their behaviour. For example, Korean participants (like US participants) assumed that a controversial essay reflected the writer’s opinions even when they believed that the writer had been told what point of view to defend (Choi & Nisbett, 1998). However, when the situational constraint was made more salient , Korean participants were better able to take its influence into account. Choi and colleagues (1999) argue that members of
0
8 11 15 Adult Age group
Proportion of references to general
internal dispositions
US participants Hindu participants from India
Figure 3.7 Dispositional attributions in two cultural settings across four age groups (Miller, 1984).
Plate 3.3 Members of collectivistic cultures are more sensitive than members of individualistic cultures to the power of situations.
salience a property of stimuli in relation to perceivers that causes them to attract attention
60 CHAPTER 3 SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND ATTRIBUTION
saw his own face, and the observer saw the face of the actor that he had not originally observed; see Figure 3.8, Stage 2). In the no-video condition, participants were told that none of the video equipment had worked and that the planned video replay would therefore not take place.
Measures After Stage 2, actors rated their own friendliness, nervousness, talkativeness and dominance during the conversation, then rated the extent to which each of these behaviours had been caused
by personal characteristics and by characteristics of the situation. Observers rated their respective actors from Stage 1.
Results Storms calculated difference scores by subtracting summed rat- ings of situational attribution for the four key behaviours from summed ratings of dispositional attribution. These difference scores were then analysed. In the no-video and same-perspective conditions, actors’ attributions were less dispositional (more situational) than observers’ (see Figure 3.9). But in the reversed- perspective condition, observers’ attributions were less dis- positional (more situational) than actors’.
Discussion This study demonstrates that actor–observer differences can be reversed by showing actors their own behaviour and showing observers the situation that actors are responding to (in this case, the other actor). A more general conclusion may also be possible: that actors and observers tend to attribute greater causality wherever they pay attention. Indeed, later studies (e.g., Taylor & Fiske, 1978) have shown that salient (attention- grabbing) factors tend to be seen as exerting more causal influ- ence than non-salient factors. One criticism of this study is that the usual actor–observer difference was not demonstrated (e.g., Gilbert & Malone, 1995). For example, analysis of direct ratings rather than difference scores shows that actors were rated in equally dispositional terms by themselves and their observers across all conditions. However, the reported effect on situational attribution is theoretically interesting even if dispositional attribution is unaffected. The general implication is that we can correct for inattention to situational factors by manipulating attention.
TV monitor showing Actor A
Observer of B
Camera on B Camera on A
Observer of A
Actor A Actor B
Stage 1 Bird’s-eye view of get acquainted session (arrows indicate direction of attention)
Stage 2 Bird’s-eye view of video replay
Actor B
Same perspective Changed perspective
Observer of B
Actor A
Observer of A
Dispositional – situational causation
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
No video Same perspective
Reversed perspective
Actors Observers
Figure 3.8 The two stages of Storms’s (1973) procedure.
Figure 3.9 Reversing the actor–observer difference following video replay (adapted from Storms, 1973).
ATTRIBUTION THEORY 61
Of course, direction of attention can only explain preferences for dispositional explanations of other people’s behaviour when the other person is physically present. However, observers also tend to say that the actor was the cause of behaviour when it is described to them in words. For example, when told that ‘John went to the cinema’, most people will tend to think that this reflects something about John rather than something about the cinema. According to Brown and Fish (1983), the reason is that the English language implies that subjects of action verbs are responsible for the action described. By contrast, the objects of experience verbs are usually seen as causal (e.g., we tend to interpret the sentence John liked Angela as John’s liking for Angela being caused by something about Angela).
Self-serving attributional biases What pushes or pulls our attributions in particular directions? The examples presented so far suggest either that we are drawn towards salient factors or that we are following generally valid rules of explanation (e.g., persons cause effects) in circumstances where they happen to be less appropriate (see Nisbett & Ross, 1980). The basic idea is that people’s attributions are occasionally imperfect approximations of the causal structure of reality, but at least aim to represent that reality accurately. However, some kinds of bias are harder to explain in these terms. Self-serving attributional biases are those that seem to represent a motivated distor- tion of what has happened in order to serve personal inter- ests. Instead of being neutral observers of social events, we may sometimes interpret them in ways that suit us (or ways that suit our ingroup more generally; Islam & Hewstone, 1993, and see Chapter 14, this volume), allowing us to feel better about what has happened. Let’s assume that you have just done well in an exam. Your tendency may be to conclude that this reflects your innate ability ( self-enhancing bias ). However, if you do badly, perhaps you will decide that the questions were unfair or unusually difficult, or that the person sitting next to you in the examination hall was dis- tracting you by sharpening his pencils so noisily ( self-protective bias ). More generally, you may be inclined to arrive at conclusions that maintain your positive self-image. One of the earliest demonstrations of self-serving bias was an experiment by Johnson, Feigenbaum and Weiby (1964). Participants were educational psychology students and their task was to teach two children how to multiply numbers via a one-way intercom system, which meant that they never actually saw or heard the children. The first phase involved explaining how to multiply by 10 and the second phase involved explaining how to multiply by 20. After each phase, the pupils’ worksheets were re- turned to participants, allowing them to assess how successfully the concepts had been conveyed. In fact, the worksheets were con- cocted by the experimenters to manipulate whether or not the answers were correct. In both conditions, pupil A answered the questions on both worksheets correctly. However, pupil B either did badly on both tasks or did badly on the first but improved on the second. In other words, the students either failed or succeeded in teaching pupil B how to multiply. In the condition where pupil
B’s performance improved, the students explained this improve- ment in terms of their own abilities as a teacher. But when pupil B failed to improve, they attributed this to his lack of ability rather than their ineffective teaching methods. Zuckerman (1979) reviewed a number of apparent demon- strations of self-serving bias, and concluded that the effect depends on a desire to maintain self-esteem. The extent to which the cur- rent context makes self-esteem concerns salient should therefore determine the strength of the reported effect. However, compet- ing motivations such as self-presentation can also reduce self- serving attributions. For example, we may be less inclined to take credit for positive outcomes in public settings, either because we don’t want to be seen to show off, or in order to avoid any em- barrassment at failing to live up to the unduly favourable image that this would imply (e.g., Weary et al., 1982). Abramson and colleagues’ (1978) attributional reformulation of learned helplessness theory (see above) implies that depressed people adopt an attributional style that is the precise opposite of the self-serving pattern (they take rather than disown responsibil- ity for failure). Indeed, research suggests that simply being in a bad mood can reverse self-serving biases (e.g., Forgas, Bower & Moylan, 1990), perhaps by removing the illusory glow that ordin- arily preserves our sense of well-being in happier states (Taylor & Brown, 1988, and see above).
Motivational or cognitive effect? In the 1970s, a debate arose about whether self-serving biases were genuinely self- serving. Miller and Ross (1975) proposed that some personally advantageous attributions were entirely rational, while others simply reflected the application of principles of explanation that would normally be valid. According to this view, people do not dis- tort their thinking to protect self-esteem ( motivational explanation) but rather use rules of thumb that happen to lead to faulty conclu- sions on some occasions ( cognitive explanation). Take the educa- tional psychology students in Johnson and colleagues’ research. It would be illogical for them to attribute pupil B’s improvement on
Plate 3.5 Teacher’s explanations of pupils’ success and failure can show self-serving bias.
self-serving biases motivated distortions of attributional conclusions that function to preserve or increase self-esteem
