Social transgressions, social perspectives, and social emotionality

Abstract

This paper reports two studies on the interrelations involving social transgressions, the perspectives from which the actor who commits such a transgression is evaluated, and the extent and quality of the emotionality experienced by the actor. The first experiment examined subjects' perceptions of vignettes depicting transgressions that were either low or relatively high in apparent intent. The phrasing of the situation descriptions and ensuing questions led subjects to rate the actor in each vignette from one of four social perspectives, corresponding to self-image, public image, subjective public image, and inferred subjective public image. As predicted, dispositional ratings made from the two latter perspectives were more evaluatively negative than were ratings made from the two former perspectives, and ratings were more negative where the transgressions were relatively high in apparent intent. In the second experiment, the quality of the actor's posttransgression subjective public image was varied (positive, neutral, or negative), and subjects were asked to rate how the actor felt. As predicted, ratings of negative emotionality were higher and ratings of positive emotionality were lower when subjective public image was negative. The results of the two studies are interpreted as supporting an impression management theory of social emotionality.