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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 24, No. 3, 289-300 (1998)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167298243006

Do Smiles Elicit More Inferences than Do Frowns? The Effect of Emotional Valence on the Production of Spontaneous Inferences

Douglas S. Krull

University of Missouri, Columbia, krull{at}nku.edu

Jody C. Dil

University of Missouri, Columbia

Previous work by Liu, Karasawa, and Weiner suggests that perceivers may draw more causal attributions for positive emotions than for negative emotions. If so, then perceivers may draw more inferences spontaneously for positive emotions than for negative emotions. Participants observed a short video of a target who displayed either happiness or sadness. In the first experiment, half of the participants who viewed each of these behaviors were instructed to diagnose the target's disposition and half were instructed to diagnose the target's situation. Results revealed that although participants who viewed sadness drew only the inference consistent with their instructions, participants who viewed happiness drew both dispositional and situational inferences regardless of their instructions. In a second experiment, participants were instructed to diagnose the behavior of a target who displayed either happiness or sadness. Results revealed that perceivers of happy behavior drew inferences spontaneously. Implications are discussed.


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D. S. Krull, M. H.-M. Loy, J. Lin, C.-F. Wang, S. Chen, and X. Zhao
The Fundamental Fundamental Attribution Error: Correspondence Bias in Individualist and Collectivist Cultures
Pers Soc Psychol Bull, October 1, 1999; 25(10): 1208 - 1219.
[Abstract] [PDF]