Evidence for Content-Specificity of Causal Attributions across the Adult Life Span

Abstract

Attributions for events with information varying on level of causality and context (relationship, achievement) were examined in young, middle-aged, and older adults. Participants rated the degree to which the causes of an event were a function of three dispositional dimensions of the primary character, two dimensions of situational factors, and a combination of these. They also wrote essays justifying their ratings. Older and younger adults made more dispositional attributions than middle-aged adults did in relationship situations. Younger and middle-aged adults were more relativistic in their causal attributions than older adults. Relative proportions of dispositional justifications correlated with quantitative dispositional ratings, but only for relationship situations (suggesting strong domain-specific influences on attributional judgments). Clusters of individuals differing in patterns of attributional justifications were identified. Cluster groups showed salient differences in dispositional ratings and dialectical reasoning. Findings are discussed in terms of how beliefs and values individuals hold about situations influence attributional judgments.

Aging and the impact of irrelevant information on social judgments.

“…Age differences in social judgments may also be observed when available social knowledge varies across groups. This may occur when different-aged individuals actually have different social schemas or beliefs that they apply in constructing judgments (e.g., Blanchard-Fields et al, 1998; Stanley & Blanchard-Fields, 2011), or when expert declarative or procedural social knowledge structures develop over the course of adulthood (e.g., Hess et al, 2005). Given these parameters, the present results suggest that social knowledge regarding job-related attributes used in the present research was relatively simple (i.e., not requiring extensive social experience), readily available, and appropriate (i.e., did not need to be inhibited) for constructing judgments, resulting in minimal age effects.…”

How Type of Excuse Defense, Mock Juror Age, and Defendant Age Affect Mock Jurors' Decisions

“…Previous researchers (e.g., Blanchard-Fields, 1994; for a review of the pertinent literature, see Blanchard-Fields, 1999) have also seen this tendency for older adults (relative to younger adults) to make stronger dispositional attributions in situations with negative outcomes. One possible reason for older adults' higher dispositional ratings is the role of social schemas in attributional processing (e.g., Blanchard-Fields, 1996;Blanchard-Fields, Chen, Schocke, & Hertzog, 1998). The violation of a perceiver's social schema by an individual who is being observed may increase the likelihood of a dispositional attribution (Blanchard-Fields et al).…”

Adaptive Aspects of Social Cognitive Functioning in Adulthood: Age–Related Goal and Knowledge Influences

“…Importantly, age differences in social inferences have been shown to be unrelated to basic cognitive skills in some studies (e.g., Maylor et al, 2002;Sullivan & Ruffman, 2004), indicating that apparent declines may reflect other types of developmental processes. In support of this suggestion, there is some evidence that the tendency toward making the fundamental attribution error in later life may be based in older adults' adaptive use of idiosyncratic schematic structures associated with unique life experiences (e.g., Blanchard-Fields, Chen, Schocke, & Hertzog, 1998) rather than in declining ability. These findings suggest that the operation of basic social cognitive mechanisms may be influenced by the interactions between individuals' experiences, the contexts in which they function, and other age-related attributes.…”