An attributional analysis of reactions to stigmas

In two experiments, we examined the perceived controllability and stability of the causes of 10 stigmas. Guided by attribution theory, we also ascertained the affective reactions of pity and anger, helping judgments, and the efficacy of five intervention techniques. In the first study we found that physically based stigmas were perceived as onset-uncontrollable, and elicited pity, no anger, and judgments to help. On the other hand, mental-behavioral stigmas were perceived as onset-controllable, and elicited little pity, much anger, and judgments to neglect. In addition, physically based stigmas were perceived as stable, or irreversible, whereas mental-behavioral stigmas were generally considered unstable, or reversible. The perceived efficacy of disparate interventions was guided in part by beliefs about stigma stability. In the second study we manipulated perceptions of causal controllability. Attributional shifts resulted in changes in affective responses and behavioral judgments. However, attributional alteration was not equally possible for all the stigmas.     

Testing some attribution-emotion relations in the People's Republic of China

We conducted a questionnaire study to test the generality of attribution-emotion relations to individuals in the People's Republic of China. Replications of prior findings of studies conducted with American subjects were reported: (a) High effort and success enhanced interpersonal evaluations when ability, effort, and outcome information were provided; (b) affective communications of pity, anger, and guilt were respectively used to infer low ability, lack of effort, and teacher as causes of failure; (c) effort and ability levels were inferred from the presence or absence of anger reactions; and (d) controllable causes of a broken social contract were expected to result in anger from others. Chinese and American respondents also indicated what situations would arouse the affects of anger, guilt, pity, pride, and shame. We found no evidence for the characterization of Chinese as (a) emphasizing effort over ability as a cause of achievement outcomes or (b) de-emphasizing the importance of personal achievement and stressing group goals and accomplishments.     

A note on the use of mood's likelihood ratio test for item analyses involving 2 × 2 tables with small samples

Mood's likelihood ratio test is generally considered an unreliablex ² approximation in 2 × 2 contingency tables containing expected cell frequencies less than five. Probability values were computed for 60 such tables as part of an item analysis for two 30-item alternate forms of a measure. The rank orders of the items, from best to worst differentiators, as determined separately by Mood's test and by Fisher's exact test correlated .97 for one form and .96 for the other.     

An attributional analysis of excuse giving: studies of a naive theory of emotion

We conducted four studies that pertained to excuses given for a broken social contract. In an initial field investigation, participants recalled occasions in which they had given true and false reasons for not fulfilling a social obligation. Communicated reasons tended to be external to the person, uncontrollable, and unintentional (e.g., "My car broke down"), whereas withheld reasons tended to be internal, controllable, and either intentional (e.g., "I did not want to go") or unintentional (e.g., "I forgot"). The external uncontrollable excuses were anticipated to lessen the anger of the wronged party. In a subsequent simulation study, excuses based on the categories detected in Experiment 1 were manipulated and related to anger ratings. The same pattern of results was displayed, with intent and negligence provoking the highest anger ratings. The final two studies involved laboratory manipulation of a communicated reason for coming late to an experiment. In Experiment 3, a confederate conveyed either an internal controllable, an external uncontrollable, or no reason for making a subject wait, whereas in Experiment 4, subjects were detained and created their own good, bad, any, or no excuse for being tardy, which was communicated to a second, waiting subject. A consistent pattern of good excuse/external uncontrollable reason and bad excuse/internal controllable reason was displayed; offering no excuse resulted in the same judgments as giving a poor excuse. Relative to the external uncontrollable reasons, internal controllable excuses for being late augmented aversive emotional reactions, increased negative personality ratings, and resulted in a desire for no further social contact.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

Making Rorschach interpretation as good as it can be

This article delineates six guidelines for enhancing the quality and utility of interpretations derived from the Rorschach inkblot method. These include (a) using all of the available structural, thematic, and behavioral data in arriving at interpretations; (b) focusing interpretive statements primarily on personality processes and drawing clinical conclusions and recommendations secondarily on the basis of identified personality processes; (c) addressing interpretations to both personality strengths and personality weaknesses to attend equally to adaptive capacities and maladaptive tendencies; (d) formulating and conveying interpretations at appropriate levels of certainty to distinguish clearly between probable fact and possible conjecture; (e) pursuing and expressing both nomothetic and idiographic implications of interpretations to the fullest possible extent, recognizing that personality is best described by considering both how people resemble and how they differ from each other; and (f) grounding the implications of interpretations in each respondent's cultural context to take adequate account of the mediation of cultural relativism between personality characteristics and their adaptive consequences.