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22 Part V ● Social psychology NON-COMMON EFFECTS PRINCIPLE: WHICH CAR WILL YOU BUY? Car A Lead-free petrol Power steering Air bag Expensive to service Car B 4-star petrol Power steering Air bag Cheap to service Car C Diesel Power steering Air bag Cheap to service If you buy Car A, we can infer that lead-free petrol is important to you. You will not have made your decision because of the power steering or air bags, as they are common to the other two cars. We might then infer that you also care about the environment. we deal with Kelley’s (1967, 1973) attribution theory. Later on, more recent attribution theories are considered. Correspondent inference theory We think of Tom Hanks as an all-round nice guy because that is what he is often like in his films. We are making inferences about his true disposition on the basis of observable behaviours. This is an example of “correspondent inference”. According to correspondent inference theory (Jones & Davis, 1965), we use information about another person’s behaviour and its effects to draw a correspondent inference, in which the behaviour is attributed to a disposition or personality characteristic. How is this done? First, there is the issue of whether the effects of someone’s behaviour were intended. We are more likely to draw a correspondent inference if the behaviour appears intentional than when it is unintentional. Second, we are more likely to decide there is a correspondence when the effects of the behaviour are socially undesirable. For example, if someone is very rude in a social situation, we conclude that he/she is an unpleasant person. On the other hand, if someone is conventionally polite, we feel we have learned little about that person. In deciding whether someone’s behaviour corresponds to an underlying disposition, we also make use of the non-common effects principle. If the other person’s actions have rare or non-common effects not shared by other actions, then we infer an underlying disposition. Correspondent inference theory has various limitations. First, it is assumed that observers decide on the commonality of effects by comparing the actor’s actual behaviour with several non-chosen actions. In fact, observers rarely consider non-chosen actions (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). Second, correspondent inferences are often drawn even when we judge someone’s actions to be unintentional. As Hogg and Vaughan (2002) pointed out, careless behaviour is unintentional, but often leads us to conclude that the individual concerned is a careless person. Third, as we will see shortly, the processes involved in drawing inferences about others’ behaviour are more complex than is suggested within correspondent inference theory. Kelley’s attribution theory KEY TERMS Correspondent inference: attribution of an actor’s behaviour to some disposition or personality characteristic. Kelley (1967, 1973) extended attribution theory. He argued that the ways in which people make causal attributions depend on the information available to them. When you have much relevant information from several sources, you can detect the covariation of observed behaviour and its possible causes. For example, if a man is generally unpleasant to you, it may be because he is an unpleasant person or because you are not very likeable. If you have information about how he treats other people, and you know how other people treat you, you can work out what is happening. In everyday life, we often only have information from a single observation to guide us in making a causal attribution. For example, you see a car knock down and kill a dog. In such cases, you use information about the configuration or arrangement of factors. If there was ice on the road or it was a foggy day, this increases the chances that you will make a situational attribution of the driver’s behaviour. In contrast, if it was a clear, sunny day and there was no other traffic on the road, then you will probably make a dispositional attribution of the driver’s behaviour (e.g., he is a poor or inconsiderate driver).