Consensus and Modality in the Attribution Process: the Role of Similarity and Information

After groups of subjects judged the relative success of two students, an exchange of evaluations was arranged. Half of the subjects were led to believe that they would get an evaluation from a group member who had the same information about the students, half, that the group member had different information. Subjects were also led to believe either that the group member was similar or dissimilar in terms of his interpersonal orientation and style of judging other people. Then subjects received agreeing or disagreeing evaluations. A Similarity X Information within Agree interaction supported the attribution theory predictions that when the other had the same information, his agreement would increase confidence more if he were dissimilar than if he were similar, but when the other had different information, his agreement would increase confidence more if he were similar. A statistical trend suggested that similar disagreers reduced confidence more than dissimilar disagreers.