If greater self-monitoring can lead to greater awareness of the characteristics of others, self-monitoring should be positively related to personality attributions and negatively related to situational attributions. To compare the relationship between self-monitoring and attributions when gaining information through social interactions and through reading only, high school journalism students were asked to complete a self-monitoring scale and were assigned to either a control or an experimental group. Control students received printed information from three sources on an incident occurring at another high school, and experimental students were instructed to interview these sources about the incident. After writing stories on the incident, students from both groups filled out questionnaires designed to determine the extent to which they saw personality attributes or situational factors as causing the incident. Results indicated that students who were higher in self-monitoring were generally better interviewers but were more likely to make attributions that were biased. (Appendixes include questions used to make up the self-monitoring scale and handouts given to the control group.) (HOD)