Rater Information Acquisition Strategies.

Two experiments were conducted testing the utility of attribution theory for understanding how raters acquire performance information. Experiment 1 found raters sought distinctiveness type information (performance across tasks) as predicted. Experiment 2, with limited choices, found raters changed workers and tasks across observations. This was not predicted, and this strategy is not even considered in attribution research. Implications of acquisition strategies for research and halo in ratings, are discussed.