Communication context, explanation, and social judgment

✍ Scribed by Alexander Todorov; Mansur Lalljee; William Hirst

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 124 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0046-2772
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0992(200003/04)30:2<199::aid-ejsp984>3.0.co;2-l

✦ Synopsis

The eects of the communication context on explanations and judgments were investigated in two experiments where participants explained a boy's violent behavior either to a disciplinarian or to a permissive addressee. The results of Study 1 showed that the participants' explanations varied as a function of communication context, but their judgments of responsibility were not in¯uenced. In Study 2, the communication demand was either subtle or blatant. The participants' explanations varied as a function of communication context independently from the communication demand. However, participants' responsibility judgments were in¯uenced only when this demand was subtle. The implications of this for explanations in everyday social settings are considered.