Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2001

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Monson, Thomas C.

Abstract

A basic difference between the perspectives of actors and observers is the amount of information each has to make attributional inferences. Jones and Nisbett (1971) suggested these informational differences lead to an inverse relationship between trait and situational attributions, such that better-known others receive more situational attributions while lesser-known others receive more trait attributions. We hypothesized that attributors typically ignore their perceptions of situational variability when constructing their trait attributions as these perceptions are biased by the number of available observations. Subjects were given two or eight samples of behavior for a series of different targets and asked to independently make both trait and situational attributions. Subjects with access to eight observations perceived more behavioral variability and made more trait attributions than those with access to two observations. Furthermore, attributors' perceptions of situational variability were more closely related to measures of biased "sample variances" than to measures of "estimated population variances."

Extent

117 p.

Comments

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2001.|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2001.

Identifier

FADT12838

Format

pdf

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