Intuitions About Situational Correction in Self and Others

Peopleʹs attributional phenomenology is likely to be characterized by effortful situational correction. Drawing on this phenomenology and on peopleʹs desire to view themselves more favorably than others, the authors hypothesized that people expect others to engage in less situational correction than themselves and to make more extreme dispositional attributions for constrained actorsʹ behavior. In 2 studies, people expected their peers to make more extreme dispositional inferences than they did themselves for a situationally constrained actorʹs behavior. Peopleʹs expectation that they engage in more situational correction than their peers was diminished among Japanese participants, who have less desire to view themselves as superior to their peers (Study 3), and among participants who were led to view dispositional attributions more favorably than situational attributions (Study 4).