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.
Recommended Citation
Tedeschi, J. T., Riordan, C. A., Gaes, G. G., & Kane, T. (1983). Verbal Accounts And Attributions Of Social Motives. Journal of Research in Personality, 17(2), pp. 218-225. Elsevier.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/0092-6566(83)90032-6
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
