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On Difficult Questions and Evident Answers: Dispositional Inference from Role-Constrained Behavior

University of Würzburg, gawronski{at}northwestern.edu

The present research investigated the underlying processes of how perceivers draw correspondent dispositional inferences about two interacting targets in the presence of situationally induced role constraints. Specifically, it is argued that a sufficient under-standing of role-dependent attributional biases (e.g., the fundamental attribution error) requires a separate consideration of the respective dispositional inference processes about each of the tar-gets involved, particularly with respect to deliberate attributional inferences. Employing the quiz-role paradigm results from four experiments generally support this assumption. Moreover, the present findings suggest that perceivers are much more sensitive to situationally induced role constraints than previous results may suggest. Implications for the fundamental attribution error and theories of dispositional inference are discussed.

Key Words: correspondence bias • dispositional inference • fundamental attribution error • questioner superiority effect • social roles

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 29, No. 11, 1459-1475 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167203256375


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