THE PERCEPTION OF ACCIDENTS IN INTERPERSONAL INTERACTION

In a 4x2 (situation x gender) experiment we studied how the perception of situations of accidental incidents is affected by the immediate re action of the offender to the critical incident. Four groups of Ss (ba lanced by gender) were presented with a situation of an accidental col lision in a classroom with different endings to the episode represente d by the behavior of the offender immediately following the collision. The Ss identified themselves with the position of the victim and rate d the situation on a scale of bipolar adjectives. As was expected, the perception of the situation differed depending on the behavior of the offender, expressed by the effect of acceptance vs. refusal of respon sibility and the effect of manners of refusal of responsibility.