Attitudes and the attribution of mental disorder

Among the problems of understanding mental pathology through a labeling perspective is the need to understand more about the attributional process itself. It is postulated that characteristics of observers, in particular their attitudes, influence the attribution of mental disorder to individuals manifesting deviant behavior. Questionnaire items were factor analyzed to produce several dimensions of attitudes and types of deviance. Tests of seven sub‐hypotheses provide support for the major hypothesis that the probability mental disorder will be attributed by an observer to an actor is positively related to the degree an actor's behavior (implying beliefs or attitudes) differs from the beliefs and attitudes of the observer.     

The role of social perspective in perceiving the causes of success and failure1

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that observers' causal attributions about an actor's performance at a task would be affected by their social perspective in observing the situation. Observer subjects were either assigned to serve in a role comparable to that of observer-subjects in most actor-observer experiments or were assigned a distinctive role more divergent from the social perspective of the actor. As expected, observers with a similar social perspective to that of the actor made more flattering attributions about the actor's performance than observers with a dissimilar social perspective. We concluded that actor-observer differences in attribution for an actor's performance in any one experiment cannot be taken as definitive evidence either for or against the defensive attribution idea.     

Masculine Ideology,Sexual Communication,and Sexual Self‐Efficacy Among Parenting Adolescent Couples

This study examined the relationship between traditional masculine role norms (status, toughness, anti‐femininity) and psychosocial mechanisms of sexual risk (sexual communication, sexual self‐efficacy) among young, low‐income, and minority parenting couples. Between 2007 and 2011, 296 pregnant adolescent females and their male partners were recruited from urban obstetrics clinics in Connecticut. Data regarding participants' beliefs in masculine role norms, frequency of general sex communication and sexual risk communication, and sexual self‐efficacy were collected via computer‐assisted self‐interviews. Generalized estimating equation (GEE) models were used to test for actor effects (whether a person's masculine role norms at baseline influence the person's own psychosocial variables at 6‐month follow‐up) and partner effects (whether a partner's masculine role norms at baseline influence an actor's psychosocial variables at 6‐month follow‐up). Results revealed that higher actor status norms were significantly associated with more sexual self‐efficacy, higher actor toughness norms were associated with less sexual self‐efficacy, and higher actor anti‐femininity norms were significantly associated with less general sex communication, sexual risk communication, and sexual self‐efficacy. No partner effects were found. These results indicate a need for redefining masculine role norms through family centered approaches in pregnant or parenting adolescent couples to increase sexual communication and sexual self‐efficacy. Further research is needed to understand partner effects in the context of a relationship and on subsequent sexual risk behavior.     

Inferring the size of a goal object from an actor's grasping movement in 6‐ and 9‐month‐old infants

The present study applied a preferential looking paradigm to test whether 6‐ and 9‐month old infants are able to infer the size of a goal object from an actor's grasping movement. The target object was a cup with the handle rotated either towards or away from the actor. In two experiments, infants saw the video of an actor's grasping movement towards an occluded target object. The aperture size of the actor's hand was varied as between‐subjects factor. Subsequently, two final states of the grasping movement were presented simultaneously with the occluder being removed. In Experiment 1, the expected final state showed the actor's hand holding a cup in a way that would be expected after the performed grasping movement. In the unexpected final state, the actor's hand held the cup at the side which would be unexpected after the performed grasping movement. Results show that 6‐ as well as 9‐month‐olds looked longer at the unexpected than at the expected final state. Experiment 2 excluded an alternative explanation of these findings, namely that the discrimination of the final states was due to geometrical familiarity or novelty of the final states. These findings provide evidence that infants are able to infer the size of a goal object from the aperture size of the actor's hand during the grasp.     

An Attributional Analysis of Jurors' Judgments in Civil Cases

Abstract

Jurors' assessment of disputants in civil cases can be conceptualized as an attributional task. An experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that jurors, in the process of performing their attributional analyses of disputants, would exhibit judgmental biases that favor the defendant and disfavor the plaintiff. A total of 166 college students witnessed slide-tape presentations of trials for two civil cases. Each trial represented one condition in a 2 × 2 (Roles × Order) factorial design: Jurors (a) either heard Actors X and Y assume the roles of plaintiff and defendant or heard the same actors assume the opposite roles and (b) expressed their verdicts either before or after engaging in an attributional analysis of each litigant's behavior. The results supported the hypothesis. Juror's attributional analyses in both trials reflected a bias against the plaintiff. Each actor's behavior was attributed more often to hostile intentions and negative stereotypes when he assumed the role of plaintiff than when he was the defendant. Juror's verdicts also reflected a bias against the plaintiff, with votes for each actor in both trials decreasing as he shifted from defendant to plaintiff. No significant order effect was detected in either trial.     

Observed actions affect body-specific associations between space and valence

Right-handers tend to associate “good” with the right side of space and “bad” with the left. This implicit association appears to arise from the way people perform actions, more or less fluently, with their right and left hands. Here we tested whether observing manual actions performed with greater or lesser fluency can affect observers' space–valence associations. In two experiments, we assigned one participant (the actor) to perform a bimanual fine motor task while another participant (the observer) watched. Actors were assigned to wear a ski glove on either the right or left hand, which made performing the actions on this side of space disfluent. In Experiment 1, observers stood behind the actors, sharing their spatial perspective. After motor training, both actors and observers tended to associate “good” with the side of the actors' free hand and “bad” with the side of the gloved hand. To determine whether observers' space–valence associations were computed from their own perspectives or the actors', in Experiment 2 we asked the observer to stand face-to-face with the actor, reversing their spatial perspectives. After motor training, both actors and observers associated “good” with the side of space where disfluent actions had occurred from their own egocentric spatial perspectives; if “good” was associated with the actor's right-hand side it was likely to be associated with the observer's left-hand side. Results show that vicarious experiences of motor fluency can shape valence judgments, and that observers spontaneously encode the locations of fluent and disfluent actions in egocentric spatial coordinates.     

Three‐year‐old children intervene in third‐party moral transgressions

We investigated children's moral behaviour in situations in which a third party was harmed (the test case for possession of agent‐neutral moral norms). A 3‐year‐old and two puppets each created a picture or clay sculpture, after which one puppet left the room. In the Harm condition, the remaining (actor) puppet then destroyed the absent (recipient) puppet's picture or sculpture. In a Control condition, the actor acted similarly but in a way that did not harm the recipient. Children protested during the actor's actions, and, upon the recipient's return, tattled on the actor and behaved prosocially towards the recipient more in the Harm than in the Control condition. This is the first study to show that children as young as 3 years of age actively intervene in third‐party moral transgressions.     

Perspective Effects on Causal Attributions of Success and Failure

The performance attributions of actors (participants on a task or in an interaction), active observers (co-actors who make observations of the actor) and passive observers (non-participants who observe but do not interact with the actor) were compared on a task in which actors succeeded or failed after competing or working independently. Contrary to Jones and Nisbett's (1971) divergent perspectives hypothesis, the results indicated that the subjects' person attributions were influenced interactively by the actor's outcome and the subjects' perspective while their situation attributions were influenced interactively by their perspective and the nature of the task. The implications of these findings for the divergent perspectives hypothesis were discussed.     

Infants’ developing understanding of the link between looker and object

Three studies investigated infants’ understanding that gaze involves a relation between a person and the object of his or her gaze. Infants were habituated to an event in which an actor turned and looked at one of two toys. Then, infants saw test events in which (1) the actor turned to the same side as during habituation to look at a different toy, or (2) the actor turned to the other side to look at the same toy as during habituation. The first of these involved a change in the relation between actor and object. The second involved a new physical motion on the part of the actor but no change in the relation between actor and object. Seven‐ and 9‐month‐old infants did not respond to the change in relation between actor and object, although infants at both ages followed the actor's gaze to the toys. In contrast, 12‐month‐old infants responded to the change in the actor–object relation. Control conditions verified that the paradigm was a sensitive index of the younger infants’ representations of action: 7‐ and 9‐month‐olds responded to a change in the actor–object relation when the actor's gaze was accompanied by a grasp. Taken together, these findings indicate that gaze‐following does not initially go hand in hand with understanding the relation between a person who looks and the object of his or her gaze, and that infants begin to understand this relation between 9 and 12 months.     

The effect of sufficiency and necessity on perceptions of control and responsibility

Discrepancies in perceptions of control and responsibility have been depicted as paradoxical because both types of perceptions are presumed to reflect perceptions of causality. The paradox may, in part, reflect a failure to distinguish between two dimensions of an actor's causality: sufficiency and necessity. Sufficiency of an actor is defined as the ability of the actor to bring about or prevent an outcome. Necessity of an actor is defined as the inverse of the sufficiency of other actors. In the studies described here, the sufficiency and necessity of an actor is varied, and subjects are asked to rate the actor's control and responsibility. The findings from Studies 1 and 2 support the prediction that variations in sufficiency have a greater effect on perceptions of control than on perceptions of responsibility; the findings from Study 2 support the prediction that variations in necessity have a greater effect on perceptions of responsibility than on perceptions of control. Studies 3 and 4 further demonstrate the occurrence of the paradox, and support the general conclusion that the effect of sufficiency relative to the effect of necessity is greater for perceptions of control than for perceptions of responsibility. The tendency of sufficiency to have a greater effect on males than on females, and the tendency of necessity to have a greater effect on females than on males, are linked to findings from previous research.     

Actors' and Observers' attributions,self-serving bias and positivity bias

An experiment was conducted to investigate the influence of evaluative factors upon preference for situational and dispositional attributions. Subjects listened to a tape recording of a group discussion on smoking, two actors presenting arguments in favour of smoking and two actors arguing against smoking. Subjects were then asked to explain in attributional terms the actors' behaviour and their own smoking behaviour, their evaluation of smoking being separately assessed. Results provided no support for a general self-other attributional difference; subjects did not explain their own behaviour in more situational terms while explaining the behaviour of others in more dispositional terms. Findings indicated that individuals generally attributed positively evaluated behaviour to dispositional factors and negatively evaluated behaviour to situational factors, regardless of attributor role (actor or observer). The results are interpreted as offering support for a positivity bias in attributional preference.     

The Relevance of Big Five Trait Content in Behavior to Subjective Authenticity: Do High Levels of Within‐Person Behavioral Variability Undermine or Enable Authenticity Achievement?

ABSTRACT Individuals vary their behavior from moment to moment a great deal, often acting “out of character” for their traits. This article investigates the consequences for authenticity. We compared 2 hypotheses—trait consistency, that individuals feel most authentic when acting in a way consistent with their traits; and state‐content significance, that some ways of acting feel more authentic because of their content and consequences, regardless of the actor's corresponding traits. Three studies using experience‐sampling methodology in laboratory and natural settings, with participants ages 18–51, strongly supported the state‐content significance hypothesis and did not support the trait‐consistency hypothesis. Authenticity was consistently associated with acting highly extraverted, agreeable, conscientious, emotionally stable, and intellectual, regardless of the actor's traits. Discussion focuses on possible implications for within‐person variability in behavior and for the nature of the self‐concept.     

Infants' goal anticipation during failed and successful reaching actions

The ability to interpret and predict the actions of others is crucial to social interaction and to social, cognitive, and linguistic development. The current study provided a strong test of this predictive ability by assessing (1) whether infants are capable of prospectively processing actions that fail to achieve their intended outcome, and (2) how infants respond to events in which their initial predictions are not confirmed. Using eye tracking, 8‐month‐olds, 10‐month‐olds, and adults watched an actor repeatedly reach over a barrier to either successfully or unsuccessfully retrieve a ball. Ten‐month‐olds and adults produced anticipatory looks to the ball, even when the action was unsuccessful and the actor never achieved his goal. Moreover, they revised their initial predictions in response to accumulating evidence of the actor's failure. Eight‐month‐olds showed anticipatory looking only after seeing the actor successfully grasp and retrieve the ball. Results support a flexible, prospective social information processing ability that emerges during the first year of life.     

Outcome Severity and Judgments of “Responsibility”: A Meta‐Analytic Review1

Research has provided mixed support for the hypothesis that when an incident results in a more severe outcome, more responsibility will be attributed to a potentially responsible actor. This paper uses the techniques of meta‐analysis to examine this literature. The results support the contention that people attribute greater responsibility for the outcome of a negative incident when that outcome is more severe than when the outcome is minor. The direction of this relationship is consistent across methodologies. However, the strength of the correlation varies depending on which type of judgment participants are asked to make. Because many of these variables are tied to legal concepts, the results are discussed in the context of the expectations of the legal system regarding the impact of outcome severity on each variable.     

Observation of another's action but not eye gaze triggers allocentric visual perspective

In the present paper, we investigated whether observation of bodily cues—that is, hand action and eye gaze—can modulate the onlooker's visual perspective taking. Participants were presented with scenes of an actor gazing at an object (or straight ahead) and grasping an object (or not) in a 2?×?2 factorial design and a control condition with no actor in the scene. In Experiment 1, two groups of subjects were explicitly required to judge the left/right location of the target from their own (egocentric group) or the actor's (allocentric group) point of view, whereas in Experiment 2 participants did not receive any instruction on the point of view to assume. In both experiments, allocentric coding (i.e., the actor's point of view) was triggered when the actor grasped the target, but not when he gazed towards it, or when he adopted a neutral posture. In Experiment 3, we demonstrate that the actor's gaze but not action affected participants' attention orienting. The different effects of others' grasping and eye gaze on observers' behaviour demonstrated that specific bodily cues convey distinctive information about other people's intentions.     

Children's,adolescents', and adults' reference to goals to explain interpersonal actions

This study investigated children's, adolescents', and adults' references to an actor's goals when explaining interpersonal actions. Participants were presented with eight brief stories containing a variety of social events and were asked to explain why the actor in each story performed the central action. Children, adolescents, and adults mentioned goals for most of the stories. Adults and adolescents mentioned psychological goals much more often than did children. Older children, adolescents, and adults mentioned complex psychological goals more often than did younger children. Younger children often mentioned instrumental or social goals. When making goal attributions, children, adolescents, and adults considered both the nature of the action and the social context in which it occurred. Participants mentioned psychological goals more often when explaining an antisocial action and social goals when explaining a prosocial action. Participants were also more likely to mention psychological goals when interpersonal events immediately preceding the central action were described. Thus, goals were offered as explanations for interpersonal actions by all age groups, but the type of goals mentioned varied by the age of the participant, the social context, and the valence of the action. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Four‐year‐olds' beliefs about how others regard males and females

Children's awareness of how others evaluate their gender could influence their behaviours and well‐being, yet little is known about when this awareness develops and what influences its emergence. The current study investigated culturally diverse 4‐year‐olds' (N = 240) public regard for gender groups and whether exposure to factors that convey status and highlight gender influenced it. Children were asked whether most people thought (i) girls or boys, and (ii) women or men, were better. Overall, children thought others more positively evaluated their own gender. However more TV exposure and, among girls only, more traditional parental division of housework predicted children stating that others thought boys were better, suggesting more awareness of greater male status. Children's public regard was distinct from their personal attitudes.     

Personality,situation, and positive–negative asymmetry in socially desirable responding

Based on previous research on socially desirable responding and positive—negative asymmetry, we hypothesized that (i) impression management is higher in public than in private settings, (ii) personal ideals linked to exemplification, ingratiation, and intimidation are related to an impression management tendency, (iii) negatively keyed social desirability items receive more extreme responses than positively keyed items, and (iv) self-esteem is correlated higher with negatively than with positively keyed self-deception items. Based on Jones and Pittman's (1982) model, exemplification, ingratiation, and intimidation are defined as impression management strategies that aim at presenting oneself as worthy, likable, or dangerous, respectively. Principally, the results obtained in a public setting (N=177) and a private setting (N= 165) support these hypotheses. The overall pattern of findings suggests that both context and personal ideals exert an influence on impression management scores, and that the keying direction of an item may be an important psychological determinant of a test response.