The how and what of why: Some determinants and consequences of causal attribution.

Kelley's attribution theory is investigated. Subjects filled out a questionnaire that reported 16 different responses ostensibly made by other people. These responses represented four verb categories—emotions, accomplishments, opinions, and actions—and, for experimental subjects, each was accompanied by high or low consensus information, high or low distinctiveness information, and high or low consistency information. Control subjects were not given any information regarding the response. All subjects were asked to attribute each response to characteristics of the person (i.e., the actor), the stimulus, the circumstances, or to some combination of these three factors. In addition, the subjects' expectancies for future response and stimulus generalization on the part of the actor were measured. The three information variables and verb category each had a significant effect on causal attribution and on expectancy for behavioral generalization.