Selective attribution and the judgment of causality

Four experiments used a video game procedure to investigate the mechanism by which people are sensitive to the degree of contingency between two events. Subjects were presented with sets of trials on each of which they could perform a particular action and observe whether the action produced a particular outcome in a situation in which there was an alternative potential cause of the outcome. The experiments attempted to show that the process of selective attribution operates during exposure to a particular contingency and mediates the contingency judgment. In Experiment 1 the impact of outcomes occurring in the absence of the action was reduced by changing the location at which outcomes occurred following the action. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and showed that it was not due to simple changes in temporal contiguity, but rather was due to affecting the process of selective attribution. In Experiment 3 judgments were shown to increase when outcomes occurring in the absence of the action, outcomes which otherwise would reduce judgments of action-outcome contingency, were signaled. Finally, in Experiment 4 this effect was replicated, and in addition it was shown that the signaling effect is not simply due to the presence of the signal. For the effect to be shown, the signal must occur when the outcome occurs in the absence of the action.     

Effects of objective self-awareness on attribution of causality

Two experiments were conducted to test the proposition that attribution of causality will be determined by the focus of attention. In Expt I Ss responded to 10 hypothetical situations, each presenting the possibility that either the S or someone else might be the cause of a negative consequence. After each situation was presented, the S was asked to estimate in percentages the extent to which he was causal in bringing about the negative consequence. In order to reduce experimentally the degree of attention focused toward the self, approximately half of the Ss were required to engage in a motor activity while replying to the questions. The procedure of Expt II differed from the first in two respects: (1) There were five hypothetical situations with positive consequences as well as five with negative consequences, and (2) for approximately half of the Ss a stimulus was introduced that would direct their attention to themselves, rather than to the environment. The results of both experiments indicated that attribution of causality to the self was greater when attention was focused on the self, and in the second experiment it was found that this effect operates independently of whether the consequences are good or bad.     

Cognitive tuning,encoding, and the attribution of causality

Subjects were given a transmission or reception set before or after viewing a videotape of an event which involved an extreme outcome. The results indicated that transmitters made relatively extreme attributions to plausible causal agents when the set was given prior but not subsequent to viewing the event. The results also showed that subjects who had been given a transmission set before viewing the videotape exhibited relatively high recognition of aspects of the event they observed. It is suggested that the data provide support for an encoding interpretation of transmission-reception differences in the attribution of causality.     

Culture, education, and the attribution of physical causality

Two studies investigated the impact of culturally instilled folk theories on the perception of physical events. In Study 1, Americans and Chinese with no formal physics education were found to emphasize different causes in their explanations for eight physical events, with Americans attributing them more to dispositional factors (e.g., weight) and less to contextual factors (e.g., a medium) than did Chinese. In Study 2, Chinese Americans' identity as Asians or as Americans was primed before having them explain the events used in Study 1. Asian-primed participants endorsed dispositional explanations to a lesser degree and contextual explanations to a greater degree than did American-primed participants, although priming effects were observed only for students with little physics education. Together, these studies suggest that culturally instilled folk theories of physics produce cultural differences in the perception of physical causality.     

Psychological causality in the attribution of responsibility for rape

According to a legal model of the attribution of responsibility for rape, judgments of physical and psychological causality of an alleged rapist are combined into overall evaluations of attacker responsibility. It was hypothesized that observers evaluate psychological causality by reconstructing the thought patterns of the accused rapist and by classifying this mental activity along dimensions of responsibility. Subjects read crime briefs, rated dimensions of responsibility, and assigned sentences. Factor analysis and analyses of variance indicate that observers organize psychological causality of the rapist around dimensions of intended violence, and the extent to which the attacker's thoughts are attributable to the victim. Multivariate analysis of variance confirmed the expected effects of the attacker's thoughts on judgments of culpability.This research was supported by a St. Louis University Beaumont Grant. The authors wish to express their gratitude to Kevin Wayne for assisting in data collection and analysis. A special thank you is extended to Audrey Feldman, who reviewed an earlier draft of this paper.     

Focus of attention,self-esteem,and the attribution of causality

An experiment was conducted to investigate how actors' attributions of causality are affected by their expectancy about the outcome of an action and their observation of the actual outcome while in a state of high or low objective self-awareness. In the presence or absence of a camera, subjects delivered therapeutic instructions which were expected to have a positive or a negative effect and which resulted in a positive or a negative effect on a supposedly phobic patient. Principal findings were that (1) attributions to self were greater under high objective self-awareness for positive relative to negative outcomes, (2) attributions to the patient were relatively great under high objective self-awareness when a positive outcome was expected but a negative outcome actually occurred. The results are discussed in terms of the joint role of focus of attention and self-esteem processes in the attribution of causality and in terms of their relationship to Duval and Wicklund's (1973) “focus of attention” attributional analysis.     

Competence,guilt, and victimization: Sex differences in attribution of causality in television dramas

Sex differences in attribution of causality are investigated in three types of television programs: prime-time family, violent, and daytime serial shows. Both frequency and type of causal statements were studied, using DeCharm's conceptualization of personal causation as origin-like (internal to the self) or pawn-like (external to the self). There were striking sex differences in violent programs, with males modeling more origin behavior and females modeling more pawn behavior. In soap operas there were no sex differences, but both origin and pawn ideas were expressed in terms of personal responsibility, with fewer references to more competent origin behaviors such as goal setting, planned decision making, or self-confidence. These findings have implications for differential socialization of competent coping skills for males and females.The authors would like to express appreciation to Katie Henry and Jennifer Mardoyan, who assisted with this research.     

Success breeds success,especially when self-efficacy is related with an internal attribution of causality

Resumen

Se exponen algunas observaciones críticas sobre la concepción de la imitación que se suele asumir actualmente en la psicología comparada, ya sea desde perspectivas neopiagetianas, ya sea desde perspectivas más cercanas a la psicología evolucionista. Se sintetizan las premisas desde las cuales ambas estudian la imitación y se recurre a la tradición constructivista en busca de elementos a partir de los cuales valorar las ideas contemporáneas y bosquejar las condiciones de posibilidad de una teoría psicológica de la imitación, entendiendo por tal la que no concibe los procesos imitativos en términos de copias “mentales” de lo que la cultura pone a disposición de los sujetos. Contra la tendencia de numerosos autores que reservan la “verdadera imitación” a la especie humana, tal teoría exige reconocer auténticas capacidades imitativas en otros animales     

Mentality and causality

I am grateful to John Bickle, Jaegwon Kim, Brian McLaughlin, and, most especially, to my colleague, Alfred Mele, for much helpful discussion on the topic of intentional causation.     

Self-deception and belief attribution

One of the most common views about self-deception ascribes contradictory beliefs to the self-deceiver. In this paper it is argued that this view (the contradiction strategy) is inconsistent with plausible common-sense principles of belief attribution. Other dubious assumptions made by contradiction strategists are also examined. It is concluded that the contradiction strategy is an inadequate account of self-deception. Two other well-known views — those of Robert Audi and Alfred Mele — are investigated and found wanting. A new theory of self-deception relying on an extension of Mark Johnston's subintentional mental tropisms is proposed and defended.     

Egotism and attribution.

Egotism is defined as the tendency to make attributions that put oneself in the best possible light, for example, the attribution of good outcomes to one's skill rather than to luck. An experiment was designed to demonstrate egotism. To rule out alternative explanations, the experiment compared the attributions of actors and observers for both good and bad outcomes. Theoretical considerations suggested that egotism might be especially likely at the conclusion of competition. Hence, subjects competed, won, or lost and then made attributions for their own and their opponents' outcomes. Evidence for egotism was clear. In addition, subjects made predictions of their opponents' attributions, which often turned out to be fairly accurate.     

Process causality and asymmetry

Process theories of causality seek to explicate causality as a property of individual causal processes. This paper examines the capacity of such theories to account for the asymmetry of causation. Three types of theories of asymmetry are discussed; the subjective, the temporal, and the physical, the third of these being the preferred approach. Asymmetric features of the world, namely the entropic and Kaon arrows, are considered as possible sources of causal asymmetry and a physical theory of asymmetry is subsequently developed with special reference to the questions of objectivity and backwards causation.An earlier draft of this paper was read at the A.A.P. conference at the University of Sydney, June, 1990. The author would like to thank Peter Menzies and Huw Price for their helpful comments.     

Internality attribution and intergroup relations

In two studies, subjects filled out a questionnaire requiring them to choose between internal and external explanations of desirable or undesirable events. They were also asked to fill out the same questionnaire from another person's point of view, either a member of the ingroup or a member of the outgroup. The first study used students as subjects and the events were about student life. The second study used employees for subjects and the events were about the working world. As predicted on the basis of internality norm theory, internal explanations were generally found to be chosen more often when the respondent or imagined respondent was said to be a worthy person. The internality scores were the highest for oneself and for the ingroup member, regardless of the desirability of the events; they were the lowest for the outgroup member. These internality attribution effects do not seem to stem from the well-known ingroup-favouring attributions (ultimate attribution error). Hence, the internality norm construct, irrespective of event desirability, provides a new pathway for exploring the evaluative effects of intergroup relations. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.