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Related Experiment Videos

Empathy and attribution: turning observers into actors.

D T Regan, J Totten

    Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
    |November 1, 1975
    PubMed
    Summary

    Understanding actor-observer attributional differences is key. Empathizing with individuals shifts causal attributions toward situational factors, supporting the information-processing explanation of these biases.

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    Area of Science:

    • Social Psychology
    • Cognitive Psychology

    Background:

    • Individuals often attribute their behavior to situational factors, while observers attribute it to dispositional factors (actor-observer bias).
    • Jones and Nisbett proposed an information-processing explanation: situational aspects are more salient to actors, while actor characteristics are more salient to observers.

    Purpose of the Study:

    • To experimentally test Jones and Nisbett's information-processing explanation for actor-observer attributional differences.
    • To investigate if altering observers' phenomenological perspective influences their causal attributions.

    Main Methods:

    • A laboratory experiment was conducted where subjects watched a videotaped conversation.
    • Subjects were randomly assigned to either observe a target conversant or empathize with her.
    • Causal attributions for the target's behavior were compared between the two groups.

    Main Results:

    • Participants instructed to empathize with the target made significantly more situational attributions and fewer dispositional attributions.
    • These results align with the predictions derived from the information-processing model.
    • Altering the observer's perspective, specifically through empathy, impacted attributional patterns.

    Conclusions:

    • The findings support Jones and Nisbett's information-processing explanation for actor-observer attributional differences.
    • Empathy can effectively shift an observer's perspective, leading to more situationally-focused attributions.
    • This study provides insight into the psychological processes underlying empathy and attribution.

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