Stephanie H. Smith

The Positivity Bias in Attributions Two Cross-Cultural Investigations

Two experiments examined whether the attributions people made about others from their own or another culture were subject to a positivity bias, and whether these attributions were affected by a positive in-group bias. In Experiment 1, a Japanese sample made attributions to a person from Japan, the United States, or the Third World who was either promoted or demoted. In Experiment 2, a sample from the United States and the Third World made attributions to a person from the United States or the Third World who was either promoted or demoted. The attributions were not subject to a positive in-group bias. However, the attributions made by the Japanese, Americans, and people from the Third World evidenced a positivity bias, although with cultural variation on the measures on which it was obtained.

Attributions for Promotion and Demotion in the United States and India

Abstract Weiner et al. have proposed a model of attributions for task performance that categorizes achievement attributions in terms of an internal/external dimension and a stable/unstable dimension. The present study proposes a modification of the model to include external power factors relevant to an individual or an environment. It was hypothesized that promotions would elicit attributions of external power relevant to an individual (e.g., social class) and demotions would elicit attributions of external power relevant to the environment (e.g., corruption). It was also hypothesized that Americans would make attributions to internal factors (ability and effort) more than would Indians and that Indians would make attributions to external power factors more than would Americans. To this end, 87 American and 131 Indian college students read about a worker who was promoted or demoted in a job and attributed the promotion or demotion to internal, external, and external power factors. The results supported th...

The Use of Hand Gestures and Smiles in the Inaugural Addresses of Presidents of the United States

HALL (1966) delineated four distance zones that people keep between themselves and others: intimate, personal, social, and public. Hall suggested that, as the distance changes, there are corresponding changes in verbal and nonverbal communication. The adjustments in interpersonal communication in public distance include loss of details of facial expression and an increase in hand gestures. On the basis of that analysis, we proposed that, in public distance, speakers use hand gestures more than smiles as the primary form of nonverbal communication. To test that proposition, we analyzed the televised inaugural addresses of several presidents of the United States. Researchers have observed that nonverbal behavior (a) served a number of functions in social interactions (Ekman & Friesan, 1969) and (b) was affected by self-presentational motivation (Riess & Rosenfeld, 1980). Therefore, we expected some smiling behavior from the presidents because presidents engage in ingratiation in their inaugural addresses (Whitehead & Smith, 1999). People smile more when they are ingratiating (e.g., Godfrey, Jones, & Lord, 1986; Lefebvre, 1975) and seeking approval (e.g., Rosenfeld, 1966a, 1966b). However, we predicted that the presidents would use more hand gestures than

The Use of Consensus-Raising Excuses as a Function of the Manipulation of Publicness The Role of Expectations of Future Interaction

The present investigation tested the proposition that people use consensus-raising excuses less when they expect to discuss their responses with an informed audience than when they expect to reveal their responses to such an audience without discussion or keep their responses private. Subjects received favorable or unfavorable feedback on an ego-involving social perceptiveness test and made attributions to ability, effort, luck, and task difficulty while expecting to keep their responses private or expecting to reveal them publicly either with or without interaction with an informed audience. Attributions to task difficulty are considered consensus-raising excuses. The results supported the hypothesis.

The effect of subject's gender on judgments of similarity and choice of a comparison other

This study examined the implications for social comparison theory of the proposition that women have lower self-confidence than men when there is a socially defined standard of performance. To this end, it was hypothesized that women would judge themselves to be similar to a lower ranked person, whereas men would judge themselves to be similar to a higher ranked person. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that women would choose to see a score lower than their own, whereas men would choose to see a score higher than their own. The results on the measure of similarity indicated that men did judge themselves to be similar to a higher ranked person, whereas women showed no consistent preferences in their judgments of similarity. The results on the choice of a comparison other were not as clear-cut.

Perception of female and male success in the united states and third world nations

This study tested the proposition that the success of an intelligent female in the third world is attributed more to ability and less to nonability factors than the success of her male counterpart. To this end, subjects from developing nations attributed the success of an American or third world male or female of average or high intelligence to ability, effort, luck, and task ease. Results indicated that subjects attributed the success of the intelligent third world female more to ability and less to luck than the success of the comparable male. In addition, gender differences were found which indicated that under some circumstances the success of the female more than that of the male is attributed to task ease.

Distancing from a target person with cancer: the role of empathy-inducing instructions and family history of cancer.

The authors tested the proposition that people distance themselves more from a target person with cancer when they have no family history of cancer and receive no empathy-inducing instructions. The authors also tested the proposition that men distance themselves more from a person with cancer than do women. The results confirm the prediction regarding family history and empathy, but they did not confirm the prediction about gender.

Motive profiles of modern and traditional U.S. presidents.

Under this heading are brief reports of studies that increase our understanding of compelling social problems, bring us somewhat closer to a solution, and show promise of transcending their own origin in the Zeitgeist. These Notes consist of a summary of the study’s procedure and as many details about the results as space allows. Additional details concerning the results can be obtained by communicating directly with the author.