An attributional analysis of excuse giving: studies of a naive theory of emotion.
We conducted four studies that pertained to excuses given for a broken social contract. In an initial field investigation, participants recalled occasions in which they had given true and false reasons for not fulfilling a social obligation. Communicated reasons tended to be external to the person, uncontrollable, and unintentional (e.g., "My car broke down"), whereas withheld reasons tended to be internal, controllable, and either intentional (e.g., "I did not want to go") or unintentional (e.g., "I forgot"). The external uncontrollable excuses were anticipated to lessen the anger of the wronged party. In a subsequent simulation study, excuses based on the categories detected in Experiment 1 were manipulated and related to anger ratings. The same pattern of results was displayed, with intent and negligence provoking the highest anger ratings. The final two studies involved laboratory manipulation of a communicated reason for coming late to an experiment. In Experiment 3, a confederate conveyed either an internal controllable, an external uncontrollable, or no reason for making a subject wait, whereas in Experiment 4, subjects were detained and created their own good, bad, any, or no excuse for being tardy, which was communicated to a second, waiting subject. A consistent pattern of good excuse/external uncontrollable reason and bad excuse/internal controllable reason was displayed; offering no excuse resulted in the same judgments as giving a poor excuse. Relative to the external uncontrollable reasons, internal controllable excuses for being late augmented aversive emotional reactions, increased negative personality ratings, and resulted in a desire for no further social contact.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)