Retrospective revaluation effects during interpersonal attributions
No Thumbnail Available
Authors
Meeting name
Sponsors
Date
Journal Title
Format
Thesis
Subject
Abstract
Four experiments examined competition of causes in a retrospective revaluation paradigm during judgments of causal attribution in social situations in which individuals or environmental causes were responsible for an outcome. In Phase 1, two causes were described as possible causes of a bad outcome. In Phase 2, one cause received a manipulation that either increased or decreased its status as a possible cause. Participants rated the extent that the non-manipulated (target) cause was the cause of the outcome before and after Phase 2. The difference in these scores was examined to determine whether the Phase 2 information influenced attributions regarding the target cause, and retrospective revaluation effects were found, specifically in deflation conditions (Experiment 1). The importance of the strength of the association between two causes was evaluated in inflation manipulations in Experiments 2 and 3, revealing that this factor was important for observing retrospective revaluation, particularly when the strength of the association was either weak or strong. A fourth experiment examined whether the moral valence of the Phase 2 manipulation influenced retrospective revaluation effects in inflation manipulations and found that morally questionable scenarios showed greater retrospective revaluation effects than accidental scenarios in which a Phase 2 event occurred that was no one's responsibility. Overall, retrospective revaluation effects were found in a variety of situations with both inflation and deflation manipulations.
Table of Contents
DOI
PubMed ID
Degree
Ph. D.