Monson, Thomas C.

The two principal areas of research addressed by this study were: a) further validation of
Nowak and Vallacher's mouse paradigm, and b) comparison of literatures all
theoretically derived from principles of hedonics. Validation of the mouse paradigm
included examination of the instructional set and detection of individual differences in
various hedonically derived measures of personality. The mouse instructions were framed
in terms of approach ('less good ' versus ' more good') or in terms of avoidance (' more
bad' versus ' less bad ' ). Inclusion of inventories based on the principles of approach and
avoidance allowed for examination of convergent and discriminant validity.
The mouse procedure was able to differentiate self-esteem, self-stability,
introversion/extraversion, neuroticism/emotional stability, and Strelau's Pavlovian
mobility. Depending on the prime used, some differentiation was also seen with measures
of attachment. Differentiation was not found with the mouse procedure for Strelau's
Pavlovian measures of strength of excitation and strength of inhibition. Two factor analyses of the questionnaires used gave rise to conceptually positive and
negative components. The positive component was related to self-esteem, self-stability,
extraversion, strength of excitation, strength of inhibition, mobility, and inversely related
to anxiety and neuroticism. The negative component positively loaded on neuroticism,
avoidance, dismissing attachment, and fearful attachment, and negatively loaded on selfesteem,
self-stability, and secure attachment.
These components were compared with Vallacher and Nowak's hedonically based mouse
paradigm measures. They were consistently found to correlate with distance under the
approach prime and variability in distance under the avoidance prime. This suggests that
individuals who score highly on conceptually positive constructs (approach
temperaments) have more stable absolute attitudes whereas individuals who score higher
on conceptually negative constructs (avoidance temperaments) have greater variability in
attitude.
The approach instructions initially gave rise to lower evaluation, more variability, and
less time at rest than the avoidance instructions. This trend was reflected in the increase
in correlations over time under the positive hedonic condition and a decrease in
correlations with time under the negative hedonic condition. These results suggest a
suppression effect with negative framing.

Academic integrity essentially centers on an individual’s ethical attitudes and behaviors as well as injunctive norms, or norms that dictate what is socially accepted and lauded. One key influence may be pluralistic ignorance; here arguments for cheating posit that students cheat because they perceive that others are “doing it” to a greater extent than is actually true and thus what they are doing is minimized in relation to others. Research indicates that students perceive cheating as more widespread than it actually is (Hard, Conway, & Moran, 2006). A considerable gap in the research is noted when looking at definitions of what constitutes academic fraud, research has indicated that when students are asked if they have cheated and then given a definition of cheating, their self-reports of cheating increase (Burrus et al., 2007). This indicates that students’ definition of cheating and a universities’ definition of cheating may be incongruent. Participants were 507 members of the Florida Atlantic University community during the 2012-2013 academic year who completed a survey that consisted of items, which centered on self-reported cheating, perceptions of what cheating constitutes, and estimates of cheating prevalence. Results indicate that students reported peer cheating to be higher then self reported cheating, that participants distinguished between five different forms of cheating, and that faculty and students hold differing definitions of cheating. The findings suggest a disconnect between faculty perceptions and definitions of academic integrity and students. This would suggest that greater efforts should to be taken to bring a more uniform operational definition of what constitutes academic dishonesty that universities, faculty, and students can rely on. Second, as a pluralist model of cheating was supported, universities could develop campaigns like those aimed at reducing drinking, hooking up, and increasing women in STEM fields (Lambert, Kahn & Apple, 2003; Mattern & Neighbors, 2004; Muldoon, 2002; Schroder & Prentice, 1998). Research has suggested social norm campaigns targeting pluralistic ignorance can be effective on college campuses. In educating students about what actually happens and the discrepancy between reality and perception, cases of academic dishonesty could be reduced.

The better than average effect refers to the tendency of individuals to perceive themselves as above average on various dimensions of social desirability (Messick, Boldizar, & Samuelson, 1985). Most research suggests that the effect results from motivations to inflate levels of self-esteem (Alicke, 1985). The present study challenged that an information-processing mechanism driven by selective exposure of persons to the behaviors of others may instead promote an overall negative dispositional asymmetry within a population. When subjects were asked to make assessments regarding a target's level of trait across situations permitting various levels of selective exposure, the data indicated an increased tendency to rate others more negatively when selective exposure was maximized. It was hypothesized that subjects had committed more "false negative attribution errors" and had corrected more "false positive attribution errors" upon drawing their conclusions.

The fundamental attribution error (FAE) refers to the social perceiver's tendency to emphasize dispositional rather than situational information when determining the causes for an actor's behavior (Ross, 1977). The present study challenges previous FAE research by suggesting that highly constrained experimental circumstances, not representative of real-world occurrences in which self-selection variables play a major role, are perhaps responsible for these findings. Subjects were given behavioral information and asked to make attributions based on a target's level of agreeableness and predict their intentions concerning future interactions. The data indicates that limited information can still lead to accurate identification of true scores. Attributions for behaviors that were exhibited under both low and high situational constraint were useful in detecting a target's underlying trait. They also form a foundation for guiding future interactions. Together, these findings support the notion that the FAE serves as an adaptive and appropriate strategy.

Two experiments were conducted to assess subject accuracy in the attribution of trait constructs. It was hypothesized that subjects attributed trait constructs by averaging behavior across time, not by assessing covariation of behavior. In Experiment 1 subjects were given raw sets of baseball batting statistics and asked to attribute ability to the hitters. Major findings included that subjects were accurate in their attributions. In Experiment 2, subjects were given behavioral scores to use to place people on a trait scale. Varying numbers of scores were presented. The hypothesis that subjects would become increasingly accurate in their attributions as more information was gained was supported in the data. Other findings included that as more information was given, subjects viewed the behavior as more dependent on the situation. The findings are discussed in defense of the use of trait constructs in trait attribution.

An experiment was designed to test the differences in trait ascriptions of actors and observers. Hypotheses were derived from Monson and Snyder's (1977) causal attribution model such that actor's attributions about themselves would be more strongly affected by their behavioral history (i.e., traits), and that the trait attributions offered by observers would be more strongly influenced by the actor's momentary behavior. It was found that extraverted actors attributed more extraverted traits to themselves than did observers. It was also found that observers attributed traits to actors that were consistent with the behavior that actors exhibited. However, it was also found that introverted actors also attributed more extraverted traits to themselves than did observers. It was hypothesized that a strong social desirability component was operating to moderate the expected effects. Implications for the Jones and Nisbett (1972) hypothesis and for future research were discussed.

Many studies have been devoted to investigating the process by which individuals make dispositional attributions about the people that they encounter. A surprisingly small number of studies have been directed at examining the process by which individuals may detect change in their impressions of people once they have been formed. In fact, traditional social psychology literature suggests that individuals will engage in a number of processes to maintain or improve, rather than change, their initial attributions. With such alarming divorce rates, it is quite obvious that romantic couples are detecting change in their perceptions of one another. However, romance and attribution research has not been able to fully explain how detection of perception change occurs in romantic relationships. More specifically, traditional linear theories of attribution are not able to clarify how dramatic dispositional change can occur in romantic relationships. Results from an experiment lead us to believe that the detection of dispositional change in romantic relationships is actually quite dynamic, counter to current beliefs in the field. In addition, the Discounting Principle may be used in non-traditional ways.

Professional psychologists have frequently examined cross-situational correlations in behavior. Based upon low correlations in the range of 0.15 to 0.30, many professional psychologists have questioned the utility of using personality traits to describe and predict behavior. In contrast, the "naive psychologist" appears to have an inordinately high expectation that the behaviors that individuals exhibit are strongly related to the traits that they possess. This discrepancy in the views of professional psychologists and naive psychologists has been termed the "consistency paradox". Based upon the many errors and biases that have been documented in the attribution process, most psychologists have assumed that the viewpoint held by the professional psychologist is correct and that held by the naive psychologist is wrong. The results of several studies are presented suggesting that naive psychologists are capable of accurately detecting traits through a behavior averaging process even when cross-situational correlations reach zero.

A basic difference between the perspectives of actors and observers is the amount of information each has to make attributional inferences. Jones and Nisbett (1971) 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. We hypothesized that attributors typically ignore their perceptions of situational variability when constructing their trait attributions as these perceptions are biased by the number of available observations. Subjects were given two or eight samples of behavior for a series of different targets and asked to independently make both trait and situational attributions. Subjects with access to eight observations perceived more behavioral variability and made more trait attributions than those with access to two observations. Furthermore, attributors' perceptions of situational variability were more closely related to measures of biased "sample variances" than to measures of "estimated population variances."