Attributes and attributions: Inferring stimulus properties, actors' dispositions, and causes.

Actors' and observers' use of sample base-rate data was explored in 3 experiments with a total of 176 undergraduates. Observers used sample base rates to infer the properties of actors' environments and, by comparing actors' behaviors with sample performance, the actors' attributes. Actors, on the other hand, ignored sample base rates when inferring the properties of stimuli to which they were responding but, surprisingly, used base rates to infer their own attributes. Observers' causal attributions were more sensitive to base-rate information than were actors'. In Exps I and II, actors attributed their behavior to environmental properties even though their behavior was always discrepant from that of the sample. Observers, on the other hand, attributed actors' nonnormative behavior to actors' dispositions. In Exp III, observers attributed actors' behavior more to stimulus attributes and less to actors' attributes when the behavior was similar to (normative) rather than discrepant from (nonnormative) that of the sample. Actors' attributions were not influenced by the consensus manipulation. Data are discussed in terms of the research and theory on the informativeness of consensus. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)