| Abstract: | Using a longitudinal design, this study tested Carroll and Payne's (1977) attributional model on a cohort of 387 police recruits at recruitment% at the completion of academy training. and after I year of police experience. Contrary to expectations, the relationship between causal attributions and other judgments about offenders predicted by the model did not weaken with increasing police experience. However, there was an increase in the extent to which causal attributions also affected judgments about offenders which were not predicted by the model, and this was interpreted as indicating an increase in halo error. It was argued that halo error is indicative of rudimentary schemata which may precede the development of more complex offender typologies. |
