Date of Award

1-1-1985

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

The literature on Weiner's (1979) model of attribution, attribution tendencies of therapists and clients, and the Barnum effect was discussed and integrated. An experiment was conducted in which the Barnum effect was investigated as a function of attribution. Subjects took a battery of personality tests that was composed of measures which previous research has related to the Barnum effect or to attributional styles. Later, subjects received handwritten personality interpretations, purportedly based on their test results and supposedly derived by a clinical psychologist. The feedback contained "Barnum" statements which indicated that the subject had decision making difficulties. In the feedback, subjects had their decision making difficulties attributed to one of eight causes from a locus x stability x controllability matrix. A no attribution group received an interpretation which contained no explicit attributional statements. After receiving feedback, subjects filled out a final questionnaire which contained dependent measures related to the Barnum effect and to attribution, and also contained manipulation checks.The manipulation checks indicated that the Barnum and attribution manipulations were successful. Overall, the Barnum effect was strongly replicated on measures of perceived accuracy and acceptance of feedback, perceived skill of the psychologist, and faith in psychological tests. The Barnum effect was also extended through the use of new dependent measures such as favorability of the feedback, perceived likelihood of improvement, and perceived likelihood of participation in a training group. In addition, the Barnum effect literature was extended by demonstrating significant correlations between dependent measures and personality variables heretofore not investigated (depression, state anxiety, train anxiety). The Barnum effect did not generalize to measures of change in expectancies (future and past). Overall, providing an explicit causal conceptualization for presumed decision making difficulties appeared to enhance the Barnum effect on a variety of measures as opposed to providing no explicit causal conceptualization. The specific attributional framework contained in the personality interpretation affected subject's reactions to test feedback on each of the dependent measures. In general, support was obtained for the predicted effects of Weiner's (1979) locus and stability dimensions of attribution, while the conceptual status of the controllability dimension was elucidated.

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