In Progress – DO NOT CITE Attributional inference across cultures ...

Culture, Attribution, & Automaticity
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provoking the situations depicted in the video clips would be for the average person.
Rather than receiving the list of discussion topics, participants were given personality
information indicating that the target scored high on a measure of trait anxiety. This
personality information should have promoted discounting of the situational hypothesis
when considered (“She is an anxious person in general, so maybe this situation would not
be so anxiety-provoking for the average person”). Before watching the video clips,
participants were provided with the three questions on which they would later rate the
target’s situation. Two questions required participants to rate the nature of the discussion
topics on 13 point scales anchored by the phrases: (a) not at all (extremely) anxiety
provoking, and (b) not at all (very) pleasant. A third question asked subjects to rate how
anxious the discussion topics would make the average person on a 13 point scale
anchored with the phrases: not at all (extremely) anxious. In all other respects, study 2
was identical to study 1.
Results and Discussion
A composite variable was created with the two variables that had scale anchors of
the words anxious or anxiety (R SB =.72). 2
Both groups made strong situational inferences
under cognitive load relative to the scale midpoint: t US (21)=5.75, p