Accessibility of Diagnostic Categories and Causal Attributions for an Interviewee's Behaviour

Abstract

Cognitive factors, such as the accessibility of schematic categories, have been shown to bias interpretation of information about other's behaviour. In this study, the effects of diagnostic category accessibility on subjects' causal attributions for an interviewee's behaviour were investigated. In order to activate a specific diagnostic category, making it more accessible for information encoding, mental health students completed a short test. Half answered questions about victims of rape attacks; the other half answered questions about the diagnosis of histrionic personality disorder. All subjects then rated their attribution for a female interviewee's non-verbal behaviour along four dimens..