Ellis, R. J., & Holmes, J. G. (1982). Focus of attention and self-evaluation in social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(1), 67-77.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.43.1.67
Prior to an interview with a confederate posing as an interviewer (I), 95 undergraduates received instructions that directed their attention during the interaction to their own thoughts and feelings, to the I's behavior, or to neither source in particular. The I's nonverbal and paralinguistic responses became either progressively more warm or progressively more cold during the course of the interview. Results support the notion that different attentional perspectives alter the meaning of another person's social behavior. Other-directed attention resulted in correspondent inferences: The I's behavior was directly reflected in Ss' self-ratings of performance—warm behavior caused positive ratings, cold behavior caused negative ratings. This pattern of results is consistent with predictions derived from a symbolic interactionist perspective on social interaction but is inconsistent with those derived from the model that causal attribution follows focus of attention. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)