Attribution biases and associations between conflict strategies and competence outcomes

Abstract

This study investigates the extent to which actor‐partner points of view influence the outcomes of conflict messages on perceptions of communicator appropriateness, effectiveness, and global competence. Actors perceived themselves as more competent and appropriate than partners judged them. Correlation analyses revealed that actor‐partner perceptual associations generally were strongest for distributive behaviors (i.e., anger, criticism, sarcasm), then avoidance, and then integration. Regression analyses indicated that the partner's perceptions of the actor's competence were affected more than were actor's self‐rated competence by conflict strategies. Both actor and partner judgments of global competence, general appropriateness, and effectiveness were primarily predicted by integration, and then by distributive behaviors; while specific appropriateness judgments were primarily predicted by distributive behaviors. The findings generally support the attributional approach used to explain actor‐observer judgments of actors’ communicative competence.