This research compared the processing and retrieval of attribution-relevant information when the attributional inference is easy or difficult to make. Subjects attributed behavioral events to the person or to the situation, based on several items of context information. Each context sentence implied either the person or the entity as causal agent. When the attributional inference was difficult to make (an equal number of context sentences implied actor and entity as the causal agent), subjects recalled more of the behavioral events, recalled more context sentences, and were less confident in their attributions than when the attributional inference was easy to make (most context sentences implied the same causal agent). Subjects also recalled context information that was implicationally incongruent with the majority of the other context sentences with a higher probability than when that same information was implicationally congruent.
A seat belt promotion program was based on the previous finding (Weinstein, 1984) that many people fail to take their seat belt use into account when thinking about their risk of being injured in an automobile accident. The goal of the program was to increase belt use by making the link between belt use and personal risk more salient. The program was instituted at the headquarters of a large corporation. Five weeks of baseline observations were followed by a 1-week active intervention program composed of stickers for car dashboards, permanent signs in the parking deck, and temporary signs in the cafeteria. Six weeks of posttreatment observations found that the number of people using seat belts increased 31% at one entrance and 7% at the other, with both increases statistically significant. Belt use at a control site was stable during this period. Six months following the intervention, the number of people using seat belts had climbed 61% above baseline at one entrance and 33% above baseline at the other. Interviews before and after the program did not reveal the anticipated increase in spontaneous references to seat belt use as a risk factor for auto injury. The article examines possible reasons for the success of the intervention and for the differential impact at two parking deck entrances.
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