Gifford Weary

Current issues in attribution theory and research.

INTRODUCTION 427 Focus of Rev ie w . . ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. ... . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. ... .. . . . . ... . . . . ... . . 428 MEASUREMENT OF ATTRIBUTION . . . . . . . . . . . ... . , 429 NATURE OF ATTRIBUTION . . . . ... . . . ..... . . . . . . . . ... . .. . . ...... . . . . . . .. . ... . . ........ . . .. . . . . .. 431 Fundamental Attribution Error.... . ... . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .. .. ...... . . . . . . . ... . . ... . . . . 431 Causes and Reasons , Endogenous and Exogenous Beh avior . ..... .... ....... 432 A wareness of Attributiona l Acti vity . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432 BASIC PROCESSES 432 Instigators . . . ... .. .. .. ......... . . . . . . . . .. . . . . ....... . . . .. . ........ . . .. . . . .... . . . .. . . . . . . . . . ... . . . .. . 432 Perceptua l Processes ..... . . . . . . . . .. . .. .. . . . . . ... . . . ......... . . . . . . . . . . . .. .. .. ... . . . . . . ..... . . . .. . 434 Cognitive Processes . . . . . ... . . . . ....... . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . , 435 Motiv ation al Process es . . . . . . . . . . . ..... . . . . . . . . ... . . . . . . ...... . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .... . . . . . . . 439 CONSEQUENCES 445 Soci al Interaction . . . . ... . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .... . . . . . . . . . . , 445 Affective Consequences of Achievement -Related Attributions . . . . . .. .. . . . . . . . . . . 447 Arousal E ffects .. . . . . . . . .... . . . . . . . . . ..... . . . .. .. ..... . . . . . ....... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... . .. . ... . . . . 448 Symp toms of Depress ion and Lone liness ........ .. . ... . . . . .. . .. ... . ... . ....... 450 C lose Re lationshi ps . .. . . . . . . .. ... . . . . . . . .. ....... .. . . . . . . ..... . . . . . . . .. . .. .. . . . . . ....... . . ... . . . . . 452 CONCLUSIONS .. . . . .... . ... .. . . . . . . . . . ... .. . . . . . . . . ..... , 453

Control motivation and social cognition

This volume highlights control motivation and its effects on social-cognitive processes. By bringing together a broad collection of scholars from both the forefront of the psychology of control and research that bridges work on control motivation and social cognition, the editors set out to present the most up-to-date and comprehensive work on this topic. Included in the text are discussions of the major theoretical perspectives on control, the importance of perceived control for social functioning, the effects of control and uncertainty reduction motives on person perception, attitude change, and self-evaluation processes, and finally, the manner in which individual differences in control needs mirror the way people seek out, attend to, process and behave in response to control-relevant information in a variety of domains.

Causal Uncertainty Beliefs and Diagnostic Information Seeking

This study examined the extent to which chronic causal uncertainty beliefs influence diagnostic information seeking. Situational factors intended to increase the excitation level of causal uncertainty beliefs and the intensity of goal-directed behavior also were investigated. Participants expected to interview either a gender in-group or a gender out-group member, and half of them expected to be held accountable for their understanding of the interviewee. For out-group conditions, those accountable participants who possessed chronically accessible causal uncertainty beliefs revealed the greatest preference for diagnostic information. For in-group conditions, no differential pattern of information seeking as a function of chronic causal uncertainty beliefs or goal importance were found. Results are discussed in terms of a recent model of motivated social cognition proposed by G. Weary and J. A. Edwards (1996).

Antecedents of causal uncertainty and perceived control: a prospective study

Perceptions of lack of control have been thought to be closely related to causal uncertainty, or uncertainty about the causes of events (Weary and Edwards, 1994). A 6‐week prospective study tested the notion that perceived lack of control results in higher levels of later causal uncertainty. This prediction was confirmed. It also was found that time 1 causal uncertainty was associated with higher levels of time 2 perceptions of lack of control. Feelings of lack of control, causal uncertainty, and levels of depressive symptomatology were concurrently related at both time periods.

Depression Research Methodologies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: A Reply

H. Tennen, J. A. Hall, and G. Affleck (1995) argued in their critique of depression research pub lished in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP) that investigators have failed to comply with several methodological recommendations often cited in the depression literature. They recommended resetting minimum criteria for publication of depression research in JPSP. In this article, it is asserted that Tennen and his colleagues did not consider a number of critical issues surrounding this set of methodological criteria. It is also contended that insufficient data are available to require strict adherence to several of the criteria. In light of the complexities surrounding Tennen et al.s methodological criteria, it is concluded that JPSs editors, reviewers, and readers would do better to evaluate studies on a case-by-case basis

The attributional norm of internality and depressive sensitivity to social information.

Two studies examined the existence, within an achievement-related context, of a social norm favoring internal explanations for task performances. In the first study, we investigated the reactions of observers to an actors high, moderate, or low self-attribution of causal responsibility for his negative performance outcome on an ostensibly standardized aptitude test. The results indicated that the actor was evaluated more positively to the degree that he accepted more personal responsibility for his performance. In the second study, we examined the reactions of depressed and nondepressed observers to an actors high or low self-attributions of causal responsibility for his poor performance on a test of analytical ability. On the basis of the notion that the chronic lack of control and resultant uncertainty, presumably characteristic of depressed persons, motivates attributional information processing, we expected depressed observers to be more sensitive to the actors violation of the norm of internality and to respond with more social disapproval than nondepressed observers. Results generally were consistent with this reasoning. Experimental findings are discussed in terms of the interpersonal implications of expressed attributions.

Causal uncertainty and correction of judgments

Abstract We examined whether raising uncertainty about the causes of one’s judgments motivates correction. Specifically, we examined whether activating chronically accessible causal uncertainty (CU) beliefs with a conditional warning about possible bias enhances correction of weather judgments for tropical weather primes and of word frequency judgments for the availability bias. In two studies we showed that activating chronic beliefs led to careful correction of target judgments. Moreover, Study 2 revealed that chronically high-CU individuals who received a conditional warning felt more uncertain than did other participants, but that this uncertainty was suppressed somewhat by adjusting for the bias. Results are discussed in light of recent models of judgment correction (e.g., Wegener & Petty, 1997 ), and the causal uncertainty model ( Weary & Edwards, 1996 ).

The Effects of Depression on Impression Formation: The Role of Trait and Category Diagnosticity

Two studies examined the impact of trait and category diagnosticity on the social information processing of depressed and non-depressed participants. As suggested by the Weary, Marsh, Gleicher, and Edwards model of the effects of depression on social information processing, it was predicted that depressed participants would be especially sensitive to the diagnosticity of the available information when forming an impression of another person. In Study 1, depressed participants were more sensitive than nondepressed participants to trait diagnosticity when forming an impression. In Study 2, depressed participants were more sensitive than nondepressed participants to both trait and category diagnosticity when forming an impression.

Depression: A Self-Presentation Formulation

The manifestations of depression—dejected mood, passivity, feelings of guilt—are easily recognizable.

Attributional Effects of Conflicting Chronic and Temporary Outcome Expectancies: A Case of Automatic Comparison and Contrast

Two studies examined the notion that perceivers’ chronically accessible, negative future-event expectancies might serve as an important cognitive context for the interpretation of temporarily primed expectancies. Such a cognitive context should activate more extreme event-outcome categories that subsequently should be used as comparison standards in the dispositional inference process. A final study examined the direct effect of chronically accessible, negative expectancies on judgments of the priming stimuli. The results of all three studies support the notion that the contextually produced extremity of momentary event expectancies resulted in an unaware and highly efficient comparison and contrast process. When participants were aware of the activation of extreme event-outcome categories and had the requisite resources, correction of target judgments occurred.