The Influence of Consensus Information and Prior Expectations on Dispositional and Situational Attributions

Abstract

Summary The impact of consensus information (i.e., information about how most people behave) on causal inferences was investigated. In a questionnaire format, 165 men and women university undergraduates recorded their expectations about the likelihood of target behaviors, received consensus feedback, and made judgments about the dispositional and situational causes of the behaviors. Three kinds of dependent measures (separate rating scales, mutually exclusive choices, and weighted choices) were included in order to explore the influence of different response alternatives on attributional judgments. Dispositional attributions (from the rating scales) produced a significant linear trend—they were largest in the low consensus condition and smallest in the high consensus condition, with the control condition falling between the two extremes. In contrast, situational attributions were unaffected by the consensus manipulation. As predicted, prior expectations mediated the relationship among target behavior, con...