SELF AND GROUP PROTECTION CONCERNS INFLUENCE ATTRIBUTIONS BUT THEY ARE NOT DETERMINANTS OF COUNTERFACTUAL MUTATION FOCUS

The relative impact of differential motivation and knowledge for both counterfactual mutation focus and attributional processes were examine d. Functional views of counter-factual thinking predict that what feat ure of an event is focused on during mutation is influenced by the per ceiver's motivation, and that what is mutated is then perceived as cau sal of the outcome. Other research, however, has indicated that mutati on and attribution are based on distinct processes and that the two ar e not necessarily correlated. In three experiments me investigated the relationship between target mutation and blame assignment following a negative outcome. As expected, both when a group that one is highly i dentified with and when the self is involved in a negative event, attr ibutions were biased in favour of the self or the in-group. Mutation d id nor, however, show either a self-or group-serving bias. These findi ngs support the view that mutation focus stems from a relatively autom atic orientation towards features that may be differentially available to perceivers with varying degrees of knowledge about a domain, where as the attribution of blame results from conscious processes that perm it motivational influences to operate.