OST-CONST-04

This study examines the consequences social exclusion has on the perception of one’s in- and outgroup. According to the actor-observer difference (Nisbett, Caputo, Legant, & Marecek, 1973), individuals tend to explain the behavior of others more in terms of stable characteristics, while they explain their own behavior more in terms of situational variation. In a previous study, we found that socially excluded individuals showed a larger actor-oberserver difference than included individuals. The aim of this study is to investigate whether this finding also applies to a group level. The ultimate attribution error (Pettigrew, 1979) - which was proposed to be an extension of the fundamental attribution error (Ross, 1977) - states that individuals explain negative behavior of a disliked outgroup member more in terms of stable characteristics. If the actor-observer difference also applies to the group level, individuals should also explain the behavior of ingroup members more in terms of situational influences.