Communication context, explanation, and social judgment

The effects of the communication context on explanations and judgments were investigated in two experiments where participants explained a boy's viole nt behavior either to a disciplinarian or to a permissive addressee. The re sults of Study 1 showed that the participants' explanatioms varied as a fun ction of communication context, but their judgments of responsibility were Mot influenced. In Study 2, the communication demand was either subtle or b latant. The participants' explanations varied as a function of communicatio n context independently from the communication demand. However, participant s' responsibility judgments were influenced only when this demand was subtl e. The implications of this for explanations in everyday social settings ar e considered. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.