"Verbal Accounts And Attributions Of Social Motives" by James T. Tedeschi, Catherine A. Riordan et al.
 

Verbal Accounts And Attributions Of Social Motives

Abstract

The effects of verbal accounts offered by a threatener on targets' subsequent attributions of the threatener's social motives was studied. Following a standardized interaction in a Prisoner's Dilemma game the subjects' opponent offered one of three accounts for using threats: cooperative intent, establishment of transrelational equity, or ignorance. In a fourth condition the confederate offered no account for his actions. Attributions were assessed by having subjects rate each of four responses representative of the social motives of cooperation, competition, apathy, and deceit in five different situations. It was found that the type of account had specific attributional effects. A cooperative account led to a correspondent inference of a cooperative disposition, a transrelational equity account was apparently perceived as illegitimate and led to an attribution of a deceitful motive, and an excuse of ignorance was linked with apathy. © 1983.

Department(s)

Psychological Science

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1095-7251; 0092-6566

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2023 Elsevier, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 1983

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