Abstract

The present study investigates the influence of supervisors' likings or dislikings of subordinates on their causal attributions of subordinates' work performances. The experimental design of the study is two by two, liking or disliking and success or failure. The subjects of the study are 36 male students of Yon sei University taking an introductory psychology course and assigned randomly to one of the four experimental conditions. The task of subjects is to evaluate proofreadings of another subject(confederate). The liking or disliking between the confederate and the subject is manipulated by the confederate's agreement or disagreement with the subject's opinions on attitudinal issues which are introduced as a personality test to the subjects. The hypotheses of the present study are as follow. First, the supervisor will attribute the successes of the liked subordinate more internally. Second, in contrast, to the failures of the liked subordinate the supervisor will make more external attributions. Third, the supervisor will attribute the successes of the disliked subordinate more externally. Fourth, to the failures of the disliked subordinate the supervisor will make more internal attributions. The results strongly support the 1st, 2nd, and 4th hypotheses but not 3rd hypothesis.