Use of consensus information in causal attributions as a function of temporal presentation and availability of direct information

Investigated the influence of 2 factors on the extent to which an observer would use consensus information in making causal attributions for an actor's choice behaviors. 60 paid undergraduates were shown videotaped vignettes of a person choosing a favored item from an array of items and of 4 other persons either agreeing (high consensus) or disagreeing (low consensus) with the choice. The factors of interest were (a) availability of direct information (Ss either saw the array of items from which the actor chose or they did not) and (b) temporal presentation (consensus information was either presented simultaneously or successively). Results show that the impact of consensus information was greater when the information was presented successively than when it was presented simultaneously and for Ss who did not have direct information than for those who did. Findings are discussed in terms of role-taking and information-processing variables and in terms of generality of H. H. Kelley's attribution model (1967, 1973). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).