ATTRIBUTION COMPLEXITY AND ACTOR-OBSERVER BIAS

Differences in attribution complexity affect the degree to which indiv iduals vary their causal processing in response to a variety of experi mental manipulations (Fletcher, Danilovics, Fernandez, Peterson, & Ree der, 1986) We predicted that manipulating people's psychological persp ectives tie., actor versus observer) would produce divergent casual ju dgments as in past research. Individual attribution complexity was exp ected to interact with perspective to magnify actor-observer divergenc e. Psychological perspective was altered by having participants recall naturalistic interactions about unfulfilled obligations that they wer e involved in as either the message source (observer) or the target(ac tor). Differences in attribution complexity did moderate people's susc eptibility to actor-observer bias. Attributionally complex, but not si mple, participants varied the degree to which they attributed unfulfil led obligations primarily to the message target (actor), and discounte d external circumstances, depending on the perspectives from which the y recalled tile obligation situations. Explanations and implications o f this finding are considered.