ATTRIBUTIONAL COMPLEXITY - INFORMATION SEARCH AND INTEGRATION DURING CAUSAL REASONING

The information search and integration patterns of attributionally com plex and simple subjects (Fletcher, Danilovics, Fernandez, Peterson, & Reeder, 1986) were compared in a task derived from Kelley's (1967) at tribution model. Attributionally complex subjects selected a higher pr oportion of items about dissimilar but not similar comparison actors, entities, and occasions than simple subjects. In addition, discriminan t analyses showed that information selection patterns predicted the at tributional judgments of complex subjects but not of attributionally s imple subjects. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.