Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1990

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Vallacher, Robin R.

Abstract

The primary goal of this research was to determine if the emergence process of action identification could be applied to the way a person perceives another's actions and therefore predict contrasting judgments of right and wrong. Specifically, subjects read transcripts depicting a crime of either grand theft or murder under an induced high or low level of action identification, followed by one of two closing arguments which summarized the position of either the defense or the prosecution. Judgments of blame were obtained from all subjects. Results suggest that the emergence process is more general than originally conceived and can be applied to person perception. As predicted, compared to high level subjects, low level subjects who read about the crime of grand theft, were more influenced by whatever closing argument they read. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Extent

67 p.

Comments

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1990.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1990.

Identifier

FADT14584

Format

pdf

Download

Share

COinS