figure 12.4 Attributions When participants read an essay expressing favorable opinions of Fidel Castro (a pro-Castro essay), they judged that the writer truly had relatively favorable opinions of Castro. This occurred even in a no-choice condition in which participants knew that the writer had no choice over whether to write a pro- or an anti-Castro essay (Jones & Harris, 1967). Participants, then, attributed the writer’s behavior to a personal characteristic—the writer’s attitude—rather than to a situational feature—the fact that the writer had no choice about which type of essay to write.