Situations in which a hypothetical actor was faced with a choice between alternative behaviors are described. Each situation varied along two dimensions: the actor's perceived decision freedom (high versus low) and the utilities of the behavioral alternatives (high versus low). Estimates were obtained of the perceived probability that the actor would engage in each of the behavioral alternatives. Subjects were told which alternative the actor had chosen and were then asked to attribute attitudes or personality traits to the actor on the basis of his choice. Perceived behavior probabilities were shown to be influenced by the actor's decision freedom and by the utilities of the available alternatives. Also, consistent with expectations, the strength of an attribution was a negative function of behavior probabilities. The effects of decision freedom and of behavioral utilities on attribution strength could be predicted from the influence of these variables on behavior probabilities and from the inverse relation between behavior probabilities and attribution strength. Finally, evidence is presented for the utility of a Bayesian approach to the prediction of attribution. Research on the processes underlying inference of traits as the result of observed behavior has centered around two variables: the perceived decision freedom of the actor and the desirability or utility of the act. Steiner (1970) has emphasized perceived decision freedom. In an empirical investigation (Steiner & Field, 1960), perceived decision freedom was found to be positively related to the degree of confidence in the attribution of a trait to the actor. The degree of confidence with which an accomplice of the experimenter was rated to be a segregationist was higher when the accomplice was perceived to have freely chosen a prosegregation stand than when he was assigned a prosegregationist role by the experimenter. In their theory of the attribution process, Jones and Davis (1965) stress the importance of the act's utility, that is, the favorableness of the effects produced by the act. Jones, Davis, and Gergen (1961) reported a study that bears
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