The Actor-Observer Relationship: The Effect Of Actors' and Observers' Responsibility and Emotion Attributions

Summary American male undergraduate students served as Ss (N = 80) in an experiment which tested the effect of the actor-observer relationship (natural friendship versus stranger) on actors' and observers' emotional reactions and responsibility attributions following the actors' success or failure in a prisoner's dilemma game. Results indicated that observers felt better about a friend's success, and worse about a friend's failure, than they felt about a stranger's success or failure. Also, observers assigned more personal responsibility for a friend's success, and less personal responsibility for a friend's failure, than they assigned for a stranger's success or failure, the actor-observer relationship did not influence the actors' responsibility attributions or emotional responses to their outcomes.