In 3 studies, the authors examined the impact of judgeability concerns in the overattribution bias (OAB; G. A. Quattrone, 1982) by manipulating the presence-absence of a constrained essay, the participants' accountability, and the applicability of the available information. A constrained essay was neither necessary nor sufficient to anchor a judgment. When no essay was circulated, no OAB occurred in the cases of accountability or of inapplicability (Studies 1 and 2). When the essay was

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... however, both accountability and inapplicability were needed to eliminate the OAB (Studies 2 and 3). These findings did not result from conversational rules or demand characteristics. They illustrate that people control the expression of a judgment made under uncertainty; people express the judgment to the extent they feel entitled to do so. The results arc discussed in the wider context of current multistage models of the dispositional inference process.