The attribution of friendliness

A study was conducted to explore attributions of friendliness resulting from live interaction. Subjects had either one or two encounters with a confederate whose behavior in each encounter was either friendly or unfriendly and was either spontaneous or forced by role requirements. Single encounter subjects formed impressions of the confederate that reflected the friendliness or unfriendliness of the confederate's behavior but these impressions were not modified by their knowledge that the confederate's behavior was freely chosen or forced. The same was true for subjects who had two friendly or two unfriendly interactions with the confederate. Subjects who found the confederate to be friendly in one encounter and unfriendly in the other formed impressions that took into account the causes of the confederate's behaviors. In general, these subjects modified their impressions according to the cause of the confederate's behavior in the second encounter.