Social roles and social perception: individual differences in attribution and error.

In a replication of the social roles experiment by Ross, Amabile, and Steinmetz (1977), 103 male and female 14-year-olds viewed a brief videotape that showed a randomly assigned "questioner" asking general knowledge questions of a "contestant," who answered most of them incorrectly. Subjects subsequently manifested the role-based attribution error of attributing significantly more knowledge and ability to the arbitrarily designated questioner than to the arbitrarily designated contestant, and this effect was stronger among girls than boys. Personality data were available on the subjects for when they were in nursery school and again at age 14 in the form of independent Q-sort ratings. Personality correlates of the role effect were stronger among boys but manifested a basically similar pattern among girls and suggested that those most prone to make this attribution error, far from being disadvantaged in social judgment, tended to be more socially engaged and competent as well as emotionally well adjusted. The role effect was also positively associated with self-esteem. Personality correlates of attributional generosity and the tendency to attribute high ability to stimulus persons were associated with generally positive interpersonal qualities and attitudes. Results were interpreted in terms of usually appropriate heuristic social competencies that, in special circumstances, may sometimes underlie attribution errors. The general usefulness of examining individual differences in research on social cognition was noted.

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