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This study investigated the influence of two factors on the extent to which an observer would use consensus information in making causal attributions for an actor's choice behaviors. Undergraduate subjects were shown videotaped vignettes of a person choosing a favored item from an array of items and of four other persons either agreeing (high consensus) or disagreeing (low consensus) with the choice. The two factors of interest were (a) availability of direct information (subjects either saw the array of items from which the actor chose or they did not) and (b) temporal presentation (consensus information was either presented simultaneously or successively). The results showed that the impact of consensus information was greater when the information was presented successively than when it was presented simultaneously and for subjects who did not have direct information than for those who did. The results are discussed in terms of role-taking and information-processing variables and in terms of generality of the Kelley attribution model.

Two studies were conducted to examine whether attributions made about events may be influenced by individual assumptions regarding causation that are age related. In Study 1, 96 subjects at three age levels (four and five years, eight and nine years, and college students) observed a target actor on videotape select an item from an unseen array, and four other actors either agree (high consensus) or disagree (low consensus) with the choice. Subjects were asked to decide why the actor liked the chosen object best-^because of something about the actor (person attribution) or because of something about the item (entity attribution). The results showed that perceived locus of causality shifted from entity to person attributions with age. In addition, subjects at all ages were able to utilize the consensus information when they had no opportunity to form their own impressions about the items in the array. In Study 2, 126 subjects at four age levels (five and six years, seven and eight years, nine and ten years, and high school students) chose an item from among an array for themselves and responded to a person (self)/entity attribution question regarding the locus of their own choice. The entity to person shift with age was again found and was supported by additional measures. The results are discussed in terms of children's causal reasoning capacities and social environmental factors affecting developmental change in social judgments.

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