title: Stressing the person: legal and everyday person attributions under stress.
abstract: When determining the cause of a person's behavior, perceivers often overweigh dispositional explanations and underweigh situational explanations, an error known as the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE). The FAE occurs in part because dispositional explanations are relatively automatic, whereas considering the situation requires additional cognitive effort. Stress is known to impair the prefrontal cortex and executive functions important for the attribution process. We investigated if stress increases dispositional attributions in common place and legal situations. Experiencing a physiological stressor increased participants' cortisol, dispositional attributions of common everyday behaviors, and negative evaluations. When determining whether a crime was due to the defendant's disposition or the mitigating situation, self-reported stress correlated with increased dispositional judgments of defendant's behavior. These findings indicate that stress may make people more likely to commit the FAE and less favorable in their evaluations of others both in daily life and when making socially consequential judicial decisions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. Electronic address: jtkubota@uchicago.edu.
authors.forename: Jennifer T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Kubota
authors.affiliation: School of Medicine, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mojdehbakhsh
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
authors.forename: Candace
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Raio
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Geneva, 40, Boulevard du Pont d'Arve, CH-1205 Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Brosch
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA.
authors.forename: James S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Uleman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA; Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA; Nathan Kline Institute, New York University, New York, NY 10003, USA. Electronic address: liz.phelps@nyu.edu.
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Phelps
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003080:Cold Temperature; D003415:Crime / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000032:analysis*; D007600:Judgment; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality; D012463:Saliva / Q000737:chemistry; D012938:Social Perception; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000502:physiology*; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D006854:Hydrocortisone
keywords: Cortisol; Fundamental attribution error; Legal decisions; Person attributions; Stress