Do attributions change over time when the actor's behavior is hedonically relevant to the perceiver?
The tendency for observers to overattribute others' behavior to dispositional variables and, correspondingly, to underestimate the importance of situational variables has been well documented. Yet, the strength of this so-called fundamental attribution error has been challenged by J. M. Burger (1991), who showed that this bias disappeared over time. But does time cause an attribution shift when the other's behavior is negative and hedonically relevant to the observer (e.g., the former is attacked by the latter)? In an exploratory study, the authors showed that even in this case, attributions to dispositional variables tended to diminish overtime.
Département de Psychologie, Université de Reims, France. didier.truchot@wanadoo.fr
Didier
D
Truchot
Gwladys
G
Maure
Sonia
S
Patte
D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008875:Middle Aged; D011582:Psychological Theory; D012938:Social Perception; D013997:Time Factors