Effects of other-profitability and self-profitability on evaluative judgements of behaviours

✍ Scribed by Roos Vonk

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 115 KB
• Volume: 29
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0046-2772
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0992(199911)29:7<833::aid-ejsp950>3.0.co;2-z

✦ Synopsis

Behaviours are judged by their causes (i.e. the actor's intentions) as well as by their consequences. The present study focuses on the eects of the latter. Subjects judged behaviours that were either socially good, socially bad, competent, or incompetent. The consequences of the behaviours were either (a) personal consequences for the actor, (b) interpersonal consequences for others, or (c) not mentioned. Behaviours with interpersonal consequences were judged more extremely than with personal consequences. When no consequences were mentioned, the behaviours were rated similarly as in the condition with interpersonal consequences. These eects emerged regardless of behaviour valence ( positive versus negative) and dimension (social versus competencerelated). The results suggest that others' behaviours are judged primarily by their interpersonal implications, and that observers take the perspective of those whose outcomes may be aected by the actor.