Effects of High Status and Low Status Actor's Performance on Observers' Attributions of Causality and Behavioral Intentions

Abstract

The present study investigated the effect of three variables, the difficulty level of the task, the nature of the feedback and the nature of the relationship between model and observer, on peer observers' attributions of model's performance and their subsequent intention to imitate model. It was predicted that the level of skill attributed to high sociometric status actors would be similar for both high and low task difficulty conditions whereas the magnitude of skill attributed to low sociometric status actors would be greater in the high difficult task condition than in the low difficult task condition. These expectations were confirmed. In addition, significant positive relationships between skill attributions and intention to imitate the model were found for both low and high status models, suggesting that beliefs concerning causes of outcome mediate intention to imitate. A considerable amount of research has been stimulated by Attribution Theory (Heider, 1958). The theory holds that in order to make his environment more predictable, an individual is motivated to ascertain the origin or cause of an event which is perceived to occur within his life space. As the theory has evolved, it has been primarily concerned with a person's determination of the causes of the behavior of others. This tendency on the part of a perceiver to search for the causes of an actor's behavior would appear to have particular relevance for those situations in which standards or patterns of behavior can be transmitted on the basis of observational learning through exposure to the behavior exhibited by a model. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of three variables-(1) the difficulty of the task confronting the model, (2) the nature of feedback provided the model, and (3) the nature of the relationship