Further Determinants of Attitude Attributions: The Perceived Effects of Assigned Behavior on Post-Behavior Attitudes
Many studies have shown that observers tend to make behavior-consistent attitude attributions about a target person (T), even vhenATTs behavior is-under heavy situational constraints. However, there is some controversy over the reasons for this "as' signed behavior effect." The present studies were designed to determine if the effect were contingent on subjects' actual exposure to T's behavior. Subjects were merely told about Ts who had been assigned to record opposing speeches, and were then asked to assign true attitudes to them. Ts' speech direction had a significant effect on the attitudes attributed to them, suggesting that the engulfing hypothesis proposed by Snyder and Jones and the attitude projection theory of Yandell and Insko may not completely account for previous findings. The present results lend support to an "inferred self-persuasion process," whereby the attitudes attributed to Ts may be also due to the perceived effects of the role-playing situation on Ts' post-behavior attitudes.