Premium
Person perception in the heat of conflict: Negative trait attributions affect procedural preferences and account for situational and cultural differences
Author(s) -
Morris Michael W.,
Leung Kwok,
Iyengar Sheena S.
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
asian journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.5
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-839X
pISSN - 1367-2223
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-839x.2004.00145.x
Subject(s) - psychology , attribution , social psychology , situational ethics , trait , personality , agreeableness , perception , impression formation , affect (linguistics) , interpersonal perception , salience (neuroscience) , big five personality traits , construct (python library) , social perception , cognitive psychology , extraversion and introversion , communication , neuroscience , computer science , programming language
Disputes by their nature involve contentious behavior. If one attributes such behavior to underlying personality traits, these attributions can be quite damning. The current research investigated negative trait attributions and their impact on dispute resolution decisions. We hypothesized that judging one's opponent to be low in agreeableness and high in emotionality (e.g. stubborn and volatile) shifts one’s preference towards more formal procedures – formal in the sense that a third party judge controls the process and outcome. Drawing on the attribution literature, we hypothesized that two antecedents of these judgments (and consequent preferences) are the perceiver's level of prior information and the perceiver's cultural proclivity to explaining behavior in terms of personal dispositions. Results of an experiment measuring reactions to a hypothetical dispute found that prior information and culture (USA vs Hong Kong) increased trait attributions and preferences for formal procedures. Additionally, expectancy measures showed interaction effects suggesting that disputants dynamically construct expectancies in light of their personality impressions.