Actor-observer asymmetries in explanations of behavior: new answers to an old question.

@article{Malle2007ActorobserverAI,
  title={Actor-observer asymmetries in explanations of behavior: new answers to an old question.},
  author={Bertram F. Malle and Joshua Knobe and Sarah E Nelson},
  journal={Journal of personality and social psychology},
  year={2007},
  volume={93 4},
  pages={
          491-514
        }
}
Traditional attribution theory conceptualizes explanations of behavior as referring to either dispositional or situational causes. An alternative approach, the folk-conceptual theory of behavior explanation, distinguishes multiple discrete modes of explanation and specific features within each mode. Because attribution theory and the folk-conceptual theory carve up behavior explanations in distinct ways, they offer very different predictions about actor-observer asymmetries. Six studies… 
View on PubMed
research.clps.brown.edu
201 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
9
Background Citations
51
Methods Citations
6
Results Citations
13

Figures and Tables from this paper

201 Citations

The actor-observer asymmetry in attribution: a (surprising) meta-analysis.
  • B. Malle
  • Psychology
    Psychological bulletin
  • 2006
TLDR
A moderator analysis showed that the actor-observer asymmetry held only when the actor was portrayed as highly idiosyncratic, when hypothetical events were explained, when actor and observer were intimates, or when free-response explanations were coded.
From Dispositional Attributions to Behavior Motives The Folk-Conceptual Theory and Implications for Communication
This chapter introduces a new theoretical account of attribution—the folk-conceptual theory of behavior explanations (Malle, 1999)—to communication and discusses its implications for understanding…
Time to Give Up the Dogmas of Attribution
Attribution theories: How people make sense of behavior.
explanations of behavior (i.e., answers to why questions); the second refers to inferences or ascriptions (e.g., inferring traits from behavior, ascribing blame to a person). What the two meanings…
155 8 Self-Other Asymmetries in Behavior Explanations Myth and Reality
A moment’s thought suggests that people explain their own behavior quite diff erently from the way they explain other people’s behavior. People know more (or diff erent things) about their own…
Mindreading: Judgments About Intentionality and Motives in Dispositional Inference
Judgments about the intentionality of other people's behavior are central to social perception. Perceivers typically explain a target person's intentional behavior in terms of the target's motives.…
How people explain their own and others’ behavior: a theory of lay causal explanations
TLDR
Supporting experimental evidence is presented that support models that incorporate knowledge-based aspects into the process of causal explanation, and the results are discussed with respect to their implications for different stages of this process.
Perspective in intentional action attribution
In two experiments, we demonstrate that intentional action intuitions vary as a function of whether one brings about or observes an event. In experiment 1a (N = 38), participants were less likely to…
Beliefs as inner causes: The (lack of) evidence
ABSTRACT Many psychologists studying lay belief attribution and behavior explanation cite Donald Davidson in support of their assumption that people construe beliefs as inner causes. But Davidson’s…
1 Attributions as Behaviour Explanations : Towards a New Theory
Attribution theory is a hallmark of social-psychological thinking. Thousands of articles have been published in over forty years of research, and textbooks and handbooks of social psychology…
...
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 166 REFERENCES
Conceptual structure and social functions of behavior explanations: beyond person--situation attributions.
TLDR
A model of the conceptual structure of folk behavior explanations (the network of concepts and assumptions on which explanations are based) is introduced and it is demonstrated that people alter distinct features of their explanations when pursuing particular impression-management goals and that listeners make inferences about explainers' goals on the basis of these features.
The actor-observer asymmetry in attribution: a (surprising) meta-analysis.
  • B. Malle
  • Psychology
    Psychological bulletin
  • 2006
TLDR
A moderator analysis showed that the actor-observer asymmetry held only when the actor was portrayed as highly idiosyncratic, when hypothetical events were explained, when actor and observer were intimates, or when free-response explanations were coded.
Self and other in the explanation of behavior: 30 years later
It has been hypothesized that actors tend to attribute behavior to the situation whereas observers tend to attribute behavior to the person (Jones & Nisbett 1972). The authors argue that this simple…
How People Explain Behavior: A New Theoretical Framework
  • B. Malle
  • Psychology
    Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc
  • 1999
TLDR
A detailed model of people's reason explanations is developed, which emphasizes the unique conceptual and linguistic features of reasons and points to limitations of traditional attribution concepts, which are examined theoretically and empirically.
A NATURALISTIC TEST OF TWO FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITIONS: CORRESPONDENCE BIAS AND THE ACTOR-OBSERVER HYPOTHESIS
This research examines factors which influence the lay-explainer in everyday life. Correspondence bias (cf. Gilbert & Jones, 1986) and Jones and Nisbett's (1971) actor-observer hypothesis are…
Turning observers into actors: Differential causal attributions as a function of “empathy”
Actors, observers, and the attribution process: Toward a reconceptualization☆
On necessity and commonsense: A discussion of central axioms in new approaches to lay explanation
Recent critical attempts to modify or replace attribution theory have focused particularly on two issues: the relationship of the reason—cause distinction to attribution theories and actor/observer…
The actor-observer effect revisited: effects of individual differences and repeated social interactions on actor and observer attributions.
This research examined several factors hypothesized to influence the actor-observer effect (AOE). Participants engaged in 3 successive dyadic interactions: after each interaction, they rated the…
Differentiating explanations of attitude-consistent behavior: the role of perspectives and mode of perspective taking.
TLDR
The results suggest that there exists a shared understanding about how both sides should explain attitude-consistent behavior, but this understanding is measurably different from the actual explanations.
...
...