Effects of affect, stereotype consistency, and valence of behavior on causal attributions

The authors examined 3 hypotheses about the effects of 2 positive and 2 neg ative affects on causal attributions. On the basis of cognitive appraisal t heories of emotion, they predicted that the grateful and angry participants would attribute causality for like-valenced behaviors to the target more s trongly than would the happy and sad participants, respectively. Following an affect-induction procedure, 229 Anglo-American participants read a descr iption of an African American target whose behavior was stereotype consiste nt or stereotype inconsistent and positive or negative in valence. As predi cted, when the behavior was negative, the angry participants attributed it more strongly to the target than did the sad participants. When the behavio r was positive, the grateful participants attributed it more strongly to th e target than did the happy participants. The importance of distinguishing among affects and considering their multidimensional nature in predicting e ffects on social judgments is emphasized.