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We wish to thank Daniel Gilbert, David Hamilton, and James Uleman as well as several anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

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Two experiments examined the generality of the negativity bias, the tendency of perceivers to regard immoral behaviors as more informative or diagnostic about an individual's personal traits than moral behaviors. Both experiments yielded results indicating that perceivers are prone to the bias when information about others is inconsistent in its moral implications but not when information is consistent. Two category-based explanations forthe results were considered, one postulating a two-stage process and the other proposing a simpler process that emphasizes the activation of perceivers' character schemas. The results of both experiments suggest that the negativity bias, although prevalent, is not as pervasive as sometimes thought to be and that character appraisals, once made, are not immutable.

Although racial stereotyping and prejudice research have received considerable attention, the important element of social class has been largely excluded from social psychological research. Using the Statement Recognition Procedure, two experiments investigated social categorization along race and social class dimensions, the influence of racial and social class prejudice on these categorizations, and differences between White and Black perceivers. Analyses conducted at the subtype of race and social class memberships demonstrated differing patterns of categorization based on subtype membership. For example, lowerclass Black targets were primarily categorized by race, whereas middle-class Black targets were primarily categorized by social class. The results demonstrate the importance of considering social class membership independent of and in conjunction with race. Theoretical and methodological implications regarding the study for race and social class categorizations are discussed.

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Investigations into religious attributions have focused on attributer's immediate, proximal causes of events, paying little attention to underlying, distal explanations. In an effort to explain the relatively low incidence of religious attributions and further a new model of proximal-distal attributions, we present two experiments investigating the proximal and distal use of religious and nonreligious supernatural attributions. Participants in both studies were presented a series of sixteen vignettes that varied on several attribution-relevant dimensions. After reading each vignette, subjects gave an initial explanation for the event, and were then probed for any underlying explanations. Experiment 1 used an interview format that allowed participants maximum latitude when explaining the event's outcome. Consistent with our predictions, participants perceived God as having a greater distal than proximal influence, though this difference was not evident for attributions to Satan or nonreligious supernatural agents. Experiment 2 was performed via a microcomputer, with a participant's initial attributional response branching to a set of appropriate distal explanations. Overall, the results suggest that attributer's perceive God working through indirect influences rather than direct intervention, with this effect being moderated by the attributer's level of religiosity. This pattern was evident in the use of God as a distal explanation as well as in the distal explanations to proximal attributions to God.As informal observation reveals, everyday explanations for events often include such phrases as "God's will," "the work of Satan," or even "the hand of God" (see Nelson 1997 for excellent examples). To account for these religious attributions, Spilka, Shaver, and Kirkpatrick (1985) suggested that those individuals who adhere to the tenets of conservative Christianity 1 have at their disposal two separate explanatory systems: 1) a set of naturalistic or secular schemas (e.g., protagonist's disposition, the situation) and 2) a set of religious schemas (e.g., God, Satan). Drawing upon the social cognition literature, Spilka and his colleagues suggested an "availability hypothesis" to determine which schemas would be used in explaining an event (Fiske and Taylor 1991). That is, the relative availability of the schemas would determine which set was initially used to explain an event, with the contention being that the naturalistic schema is usually the more salient, and thus, more available. To the extent the initial schema is inadequate in its explanation, however, the other is applied. Furthermore, this hypothesis posits that as one of the explanatory schemas becomes more available, this decreases the likelihood that the other will be activated. However, research has begun to show that secular and religious attributions are not always used in this disjunctive, mutually exclusive manner (e.g., Lupfer, Brock, and DePaola 1992; Lupfer, DePaula, Brock, and Clement 1994;Lupfer and Layman 1996;Shortz and Worthington 1994). Th...