Book Description

High self-esteem people tend to make more benign attributions for their partner's bad behavior than low self-esteem people. The current research examines why this is the case. According to the proposed model of the attribution process, both low and high self-esteem people should make an automatic negative interpersonal dispositional inference, or inference about their partner's disposition toward them, after negative partner behavior. High, but not low, self-esteem people should then use consensus information to correct for their automatic inference. This controlled correction process should lead them to make a dispositional inference, allowing them to protect their belief about their partner's feelings toward them. Because low self-esteem people do not correct for their automatic inference, they should make a relatively more negative inference about their partner's feelings toward them. Experiment 1 examined the automatic inferences made for negative partner behavior. Unexpectedly, high self-esteem people automatically inhibited dispositional information about their partner after negative partner behavior, whereas low self-esteem people automatically activated dispositional information about their partner. The interpersonal dispositional inference, or inference about their partner's disposition toward them, was not affected. Experiment 2 examined the controlled correction process. Although hypotheses were partially supported for high self-esteem people, the results for low self-esteem people were unclear. Experiment 3 examined the effect of consensus information on inferences for negative partner behavior. Unexpectedly, high self-esteem people reacted to consensus information after negative partner behavior by disagreeing with the dispositional inference for negative partner behavior. Low self-esteem people reacted to consensus information after negative partner behavior by endorsing the dispositional inference and making an even more negative inference about their partner's feelings for them. Together, the results of the current research suggest that high self-esteem people make more benign attributions because they respond to negative partner behavior by inhibiting dispositional information about their partner, thereby minimizing the implications of the behavior. Low self-esteem people make more negative attributions because they respond to negative partner behavior by activating dispositional information and making a more negative inference about their partner's feelings for them, thereby generalizing from one bad behavior to the level of the relationship.