Actor-observer differences in the Big-Five personality factors: An information-processing explanation

A basic difference between the perspectives of actors and observers is the amount of information each has to make attributional inferences. Jones and Nisbett (1972) suggested these informational differences lead to an inverse relationship between trait and situational attributions, such that better-known others receive more situational attributions while lesser-known others receive more trait attributions. While this difference has traditionally been accounted for as a function of individuals' perceptions of cross-situational variability in the actor's behavior, recent research has suggested that this explanation is inaccurate. Unfortunately, alternative explanations for the self-other differences in attributional tendencies have yet to be offered. It was hypothesized here that these differences might be better explained as a function of the specific traits people attribute to themselves versus those that are attributed to others. To that end, the first study in this paper examined different attributions offered for oneself versus one's acquaintance as a function of the social desirability of the Big Five personality traits (i.e., Extraversion/Introversion, Agreeable/Disagreeable, Conscientious/Not Conscientious, Emotionally Stable/Neurotic, Intelligent/Unintelligent). While it was expected that results would reflect self-enhancement tendencies on the subjects' part; i.e., subjects would make more positive trait attributions (Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Intelligence) to themselves than to their acquaintances and more negative trait attributions (Introversion, Disagreeableness, Not Conscientious, Neuroticism, Unintelligence) to their acquaintances than to themselves, findings suggested that whether subjects chose to self-enhance was based, at least in part, on the trait in question. The most counterintuitive of these findings being that subjects labeled themselves as being more Introverted than their acquaintances. While self-enhancement explanations are traditionally described as a function of a motivational drive to protect one's self-esteem, such reasoning could not be applied to findings reported in Experiment 1. Experiment 2 offered the alternative explanation that attributional differences on the part of oneself and one's observers are based on the amount of information available to themselves versus their outside observers.