A Process Model of Affect Misattribution

Abstract

People often misattribute the causes of their thoughts and feelings. The authors propose a multinomial process model of affect misattributions, which separates three component processes. The first is an affective response to the true cause of affect. The second is an affective response to the apparent cause. The third process is when the apparent source is confused for the real source. The model is validated using the affect misattribution procedure (AMP), which uses misattributions as a means to implicitly measure attitudes. The model illuminates not only the AMP but also other phenomena in which researchers wish to model the processes underlying misattributions using subjective judgments.