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ERIC Number: ED177459
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1979
Pages: 14
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Social Influence and the Attribution of Attitudes.
Croxton, Jack S.; Miller, Arthur G.
When do we accept another's opinion regarding the characteristics or beliefs of a target person, and when do we reject that opinion? Different sorts of information may need to be assimilated by the perceiver. When does one type of information take priority over the other? A central focus of attribution research has been on the informational value of a target's behavior. A proposition which has been repeatedly verified is that behavior, which is perceived to be freely chosen by the target, has greater informational value for the perceiver regarding the target's attitude than does behavior performed under constraint. To examine these hypotheses, the 72 subjects were presented with an attributional dilemma in the form of a 10-item response set, and a written essay. Perceivers were asked to integrate the two contradictory pieces of information when making an attribution, each piece varying in it's implicational relationship to the attitude to be inferred. Two of the independent variables were the directionality and ambiguity of the target person's response set. The third variable was the constraint level pertaining to the target person's essay. Results suggest that attributions are, to a degree, correspondent with behavior even when that behavior occurs under constraint. (Author/BMW)
Publication Type: Speeches/Meeting Papers; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association (51st, Chicago, Illinois, May 3-5, 1979)