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Age Differences in the Correspondence Bias: When a Plausible Explanation Matters

School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.

Address correspondence concerning this article to Fredda Blanchard-Fields, School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0170. E-mail: fb12{at}prism.gatech.edu

We examined the degree to which the dispositional biases observed in older adults reflect their use of the situational information available to them. Using the paradigm of Jones and Harris, we had young, middle-aged, and older adults read essays that were written under constrained or unconstrained conditions and estimate the writer's attitude. Middle-aged and older adults demonstrated a larger correspondence bias, that is, inferring the target's true attitude to be consistent with the essay content in the no-choice condition. Studies 2 and 3 increased the salience of the situational constraint placed on the target and found that perceptually increasing salience did not have an impact on age differences in attribution ratings. However, when the situational constraints reflected plausible motives for the target's essay writing behavior, the age differences between young and older adults were eliminated.