Nisbett, R. E., Caputo, C., Legant, P., & Marecek, J. (1973). Behavior as seen by the actor and as seen by the observer. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27(2), 154-164.

Studied divergent perspectives of actors and Os in 3 situations. In Study 1 with 33 female undergraduate actor-O pairs, actors’ cooperation with E’s request was either elicited or prevented with different monetary incentives while Os watched. Os were found to assume that actors would behave in the future in ways similar to those they had witnessed (actors did not share this assumption). Study 2 found that 30 male undergraduates described their best friend’s choice of girlfriend and college major in terms of the friend’s dispositional qualities and described their own choices in terms of the characteristics of the major and girlfriend. A personality questionnaire indicating which of 3 deions best fit themselves and 4 other stimulus persons was administered to 24 male undergraduates in Study 3. It was found that Ss ascribe more personality traits to other people than to themselves.

 

 

Nisbett, R. E., Caputo, C., Legant, P., & Marecek, J. (1973). Behavior as seen by the actor and as seen by the observer. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27(2), 154-164.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0034779