Abstract
FERGUSON, TAMARA J.; OLTHOF, TJEERT; LUITEN, ANNEMIEKE; and RULE, BRENDAN GAIL. Children's Use of Observed Behavioral Frequency versus Behavioral Covariation in Ascribing Dispositions to Others. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1984, 55, 2094-2105. The information that children use to make dispositional attributions was assessed. 5-13-year-olds received covariation (consistency, distinctiveness) and frequency information about a boy's interpersonally harmful behavior in 3 conditions. Results for children's trait adjective ratings and predictions of the boy's causal responsibility for subsequent property damage revealed that frequency information use decreased while covariation information use increased with age, although use of covariation information appeared at a younger age for adjective ratings than for prediction judgments. Analysis of children's descriptions of the boy revealed that some of the kindergartners and first graders referred to the stability of the boy's behavior across time, people, and situations. Since stability acknowledgment was condition-dependent, it was concluded that even young children form impressions of a person's stable characteristics when the information to which they are normally sensitive is available.
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