The Impact of Perceiver Attitudes on Outcome-Biased Dispositional Inferences

Abstract Three experiments examined the influence of perceivers' attitudes on their outcome-biased trait inferences. Participants supporting or opposing mandatory teacher testing read about the attempts of a teacher to pass a competency test. In all experiments, participants supportive of mandatory teacher testing made outcome-biased inferences about the teacher, judging her to be more intelligent and competent when she passed the test than when she failed, even though her performance on both tests was held constant. Participants opposed to mandatory testing made inferences about the teacher that were not outcome-biased. Experiment 3 showed that participants' beliefs about the diagnosticity of the competency test mediated the biasing effects of outcomes on trait inferences. The motivational bases of outcome-biased inferences are discussed.

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