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The "Acquisition Principle": How Beliefs about a Behavior's Prolonged Circumstances Influence Correspondent Inference

Columbia Uniesity

Laraine Winter

New York University

People may function like 'naive Thondikeans" whose willingness to make a correspondent inference is increased when they believe that the repeated or prolonged circumstances of a type of behavior facilitate acquiring a disposition to perform that behavior-the acquisition principle In Study 1, subjects' willingness to infer a corresponding trait from an instance of a type of behavior was greater for behaviors believed to be consistent with situational forces and to have desirable consequences. In Study 2, subjects' beliefs that the actor's immediate circumstances (a liberal or conservative audience) facilitated producing a liberal or conservative statement were negatively related to their correspondent inferences about his real attitude. Subjects' beliefs that the speaker's prolonged circumstances (a liberal or conservative upbringing) facilitated producing the statement were positively related to their correspondent inferences. Three types of dispositional judgment are identified that take circumstances into account in different ways-enduring, " 'distinctive, "and 'natural" disposition judgments.

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