Sex differences in attributions and learned helplessness

This investigation assessed the hypothesis that girls are more likely to be learned helpless in math than boys. Students in grades 5 through 11 completed questionnaires assessing their causal attributions for success and failure in mathematics, their self-concepts of math ability, and their expectations for both current and future success in math. Results indicated that sex differences in attributions depended on the type of methodology used (open-ended or rank-ordered questions). The most consistent difference involved the differential use and ranking of ability, skills, and consistent effort. No sex differences were found in either students' perceptions of their own math ability or in their current achievement expectations. Girls, however, rated their future expectations slightly lower than did boys. Taken together, these results provide little support for the hypothesis that girls are generally more learned helpless in mathematics than are boys.     

The development of beliefs about spelling and their relationship to spelling performance

This study examined relations among spelling performance and students' beliefs about spelling, including self-efficacy for spelling ability, outcome expectancy for spelling, and attributions for good spelling across grades 4, 7, and 10. Spelling self-efficacy remained relatively constant across grades. Spelling outcome expectancies for adult life and school declined across grades, as did effort and ability attributions for spelling success, with a disproportional decrease in ability attributions between grades 4 and 7. Self-efficacy was the strongest predictor of spelling performance at all grade levels; attribution for ability entered into the regression for grade 4 students, while outcome expectancies for school and writing were more important in grades 7 and 10. Cluster analyses on the grade 10 sample showed that students with high efficacy as spellers and high outcome expectancy of spelling for writing were the best spellers, with the highest performance reserved for those who attributed good spelling more to effort than ability. The impact of spelling instruction on developing beliefs is discussed.     

Task self-efficacy and task interest as a function of performance on a gender-neutral task

This study experimentally investigates several hypotheses about the relationships between performance on a gender-neutral task and gender, self-efficacy, performance attributions, and task interest. Ninety-two subjects were randomly assigned to a success or failure condition and attempted to solve a series of easy or difficult anagrams. Results indicated that changes in self-efficacy expectations as a result of task success or failure were in accordance with predictions from self-efficacy theory; 2 × 2 × 4 ANCOVAs, with the pretest as the covariate, were conducted on self-efficacy strength, level, and task interest. Subjects decreased their ratings of self-efficacy and task interest as a result of the failure experience, and the same ratings increased as a result of the success experience. Few gender differences were found, supporting the hypothesis that the sex linkage of the task significantly influences gender differences in self-efficacy. Analyses of global verbal and mathematical ability ratings resulted in the same trends. Finally, women in the success condition were significantly more likely than men in that condition to attribute their performance to luck; women in the failure condition were significantly more likely than men or women in any other group to attribute their failure to their lack of ability. Implications of these results for future research on career self-efficacy were discussed.     

The Self-Serving Bias and the Use of Objective and Subjective Methods for Measuring Success and Failure

Abstract

Students (N = 45) were asked to judge their recent exam performance on a success versus failure rating scale. They were also asked to make causal attributions for their test performance on an internal versus external scale. The students' scores were divided into success and failure groups by using both subjective (self-reported outcome) and objective (actual exam scores) definitions of outcome. For both methods, the success group had higher internal attributions for their performance than did the failure group. The effect size for the subjective methods of defining outcome, however, produced a stronger self-serving bias that did the objective definition.     

The Relationship of Gender, Gender-Related Traits, and Achievement Orientation to Achievement Attributions: A Study of Subject-Selected Accomplishments

ABSTRACT Female and male college students (N= 251 and 84, respectively) described important accomplishments in their lives and reported attributions for the causes of their success Regression analyses indicated that, as predicted, students' gender explained a small portion of the variance in attributions, and the goals and performance standards of the students' achievement experiences (achievement orientations) accounted for more variance in attributions than did the other predictors Further analyses showed that the domains of students' accomplishments affected their attributions to effort luck, and ability, and that students' achievement goals and performance evaluation standards predicted their attributions to task difficulty, effort, and ability Researchers are urged to explore attributions made concerning self-selected achievements, and to focus on variables other than sex in their search for the determinants of achievement attributions     

奖赏结构与结果效价对男女儿童成就归因的影响

本研究的目的是考察奖赏结构和结果效价对男女儿童归因风格的影响.被试为小学五年级学生(n=74,男生36人,女生38人),实验通过解决一系列迷津测验来创设成功和失败情境.研究结果表明,能力、运气归因存在性别差异,在竞争奖赏结构条件下,女生对成就状况倾向于做运气归因,而男生倾向于做运气以外其他因素的归因(如能力);在非竞争奖赏结构条件下,男生对成就状况倾向于做运气归因,而女生倾向于做运气以外其他因素的归因.此外,还发现了一些其他的显著效应.     

Attributional bias instrument (ABI): validation of a measure to assess ability and effort explanations for math performance

The present work investigates the validation of a newly developed instrument, the attributional bias instrument, based on achievement attribution theories that distinguish between effort and ability explanations of behavior. The instrument further incorporates the distinction between explanations for success versus failure in academic performance. An important characteristic of the instrument is that it can be used to assess biased attributions. For instance, attributional gender bias is the tendency to generate different attributions (explanations) for female versus male students’ performance in math. Whereas boys’ successes in math are attributed to ability, girls’ successes are attributed to effort; conversely, boys’ failures in math are attributed to a lack of effort and girls’ failures to a lack of ability. Previous research has shown this bias to be committed by teachers, parents, and students themselves. In the present study, high school students in Mexico were administered the instrument and asked to generate attributions for their successes and failures in math. Findings revealed: (1) a factor analysis confirmed the proposed structure of the instrument, (2) boys and girls committed the attributional gender bias, replicating effects in U.S. samples, and (3) additional analyses involving related measures further supported valid use of the instrument.     

Who's to blame? Narcissism and self‐serving attributions following feedback

The study examined the relationship between narcissism, performance attributions, and negative emotions following success or failure. As expected, narcissistic individuals showed more self‐serving attributions for their performance in an intelligence test than less narcissistic individuals: compared with less narcissistic individuals, narcissists revealed a stronger tendency to attribute success to ability and failure to task difficulty. In contrast to this, less narcissistic participants tended to show the opposite pattern by ascribing failure, but not success, to their ability. Additionally, anger and depression could be predicted by an interaction of performance feedback and performance attributions. Mediation analyses revealed that the attribution dimensions ‘task difficulty’ and ‘ability’ mediated the effect of narcissism on anger and depression following failure feedback. The results provide support for the theoretical assumption that attributional processes might, at least to some extent, explain the often reported relation between narcissism and negative emotions following failure. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Survey of Achievement Responsibility (SOAR): Reliability and Validity Data on an Academic Attribution Scale

The Survey of Achievement Responsibility (SOAR) was designed to assess students' causal attributions of success and failure in school-related situations. Unlike other measures of locus of control and attributions, the SOAR simultaneously distinguishes among three broad subject areas—math/science, language arts/ social studies, and physical education-and between two possible outcomes—success and failure. Data on the psychometric characteristics of the SOAR came from two samples from each of two large school districts, one suburban and one metropolitan. A five-stage study of the psychometric qualities of this new instrument revealed: (a) Content validity is high—judges independently classified items into the attribution categories intended by the authors; (b) internal consistency reliabilities are in a range adequate for group research purposes and are comparable to the reliabilities of other measures of attributions; (c) test-retest reliabilities showed attribution profiles to be stable over a 2-month interval; (d) correlations between the SOAR scales and students' self-reports of ability in various subject areas showed differential relationship in the theoretically predicted directions; and (e) correlations between the SOAR scales and achievement tests were statistically significant, though low in magnitude, consistent with reports on other instruments. Finally, use of the SOAR in a spectrum of studies has demonstrated its research utility and indicated directions for further instrument development and research.     

Gender and the attributions of chief executive responsibility for successful or unsuccessful organizational outcomes

This study addresses the effects of gender upon the attributions of responsibility for success and failure by chief executives in an organizational setting. Prior laboratory studies verify that some sex-related differences exist, although their importance and causes have been subject to controversy. In general, gender seems to make a difference in two respects. Men tend to make stronger attributions to their own ability than women and men are less likely than women to attribute their own performance to luck. In short, women are more likely to derogate their own efforts than are men. In this study no major gender-related differences were found in the patterns of attribution of the causes given for success or failure. These results indicate that if a general model of gender-related attributional differences is to be developed, additional studies from natural settings are needed.     

Sex differences in attribution: A Norwegian study

A quasi-experimental study was conducted to examine the effect of sex on actor and observer attributions of success and failure. It was predicted that, contrary to American results in similar studies, Norwegian males and females would tend to be largely similar in their attribution of success and failure. Only same-sex attributions were explored. Subjects were asked to attribute causality along a set of six standard causal dimensions. The results showed that sex had a relatively minor effect on attributions, compared to the effects of attributor role and task outcome. Only in their attributions of ability did men and women differ to some degree in that women were more likely to use lack of ability as an explanation for own failure. The study concludes that cross-cultural research is needed in order to better assess the normative impact on attribution.     

Gender Differences in Persistence and Attributions in Stereotype Relevant Contexts

The present research was designed to examine the effects of gender math stereotypes on performance attributions and persistence. Two experiments tested whether stereotypes guided men’s and women’s reactions to negative or positive feedback on an alleged test of verbal or math ability. In Study 1, attributions to ability were influenced by gender stereotypes: women were more sensitive to feedback on a test that was described as a test of their math ability than when the same test was described as a test of their verbal ability, whereas men showed the opposite pattern. Study 2 replicated these findings for negative feedback and further showed that gender differences in attributions to ability mediated the gender difference in persistence in the math domain following an alleged failure on a math test. The implications of stereotype-consistent attributions for women’s persistence in quantitative fields are discussed.     

Parent perceptions and attributions for children's math achievement

From junior high school on, girls report lower estimations of their math ability and express more negative attitudes about math than do boys, despite equivalent performance in grades. Parents show this same sex-typed bias. This paper examines the role that attributions may play in explaining these sex differences in parents' perceptions of their children's math ability. Mothers and fathers of 48 junior high school boys and girls of high, average, and low math ability completed questionnaires about their perceptions of their child's ability and effort in math, and their causal attributions for their child's successful and unsuccessful math performances. Parents' math-related perceptions and attributions varied with their child's level of math ability and gender. Parents credited daughters with more effort than sons, and sons with more talent than daughters for successful math performances. These attributional patterns predicted sex-linked variations in parents' ratings of their child's effort and talent. No sex of child effects emerged for failure attributions; instead, lack of effort was seen as the most important, and lack of ability as the least important, cause of unsuccessful math performances for both boys and girls. Implications of these attributions for parents' influence on children's developing self-concept of math ability, future expectancies, and subsequent achievement behaviors are discussed.This paper is based on a master's thesis by the first author. This research was funded by grants to Jacquelynne S. Eccles from the following agencies: the Foundation for Child Development, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute of Child Health and Development.We wish to express our thanks to Linda Buford, Sandra Hamman, and Samuel D. Miller, who helped collect and code these data, and especially to the parents, students, and teachers in the Ann Arbor Public School district, whose cooperation made this project possible.     

GENDER-RELATED PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTES AND REACTION TO SUCCESS/FAILURE: AN EXAMINATION OF MEDIATING VARIABLES

The effects of success and failure on task performance, and attributions about performance, were compared for high and low instrumental college women. For the high instrumental group, success facilitated task performance, whereas failure, had no debilitating effect; for the low instrumental group, success had no effect on subsequent performance, whereas failure interfered with it. High instrumental women attributed their success primarily, to internal factors and their failures to external factors (the "egotistical" attribution profile) whereas low instrumental women revealed the opposite profile. The gender-appropriateness of the task had little effect on performance or attribution. Four potential mediators of these differences were investigated: self-esteem, perceived ability, expectancy of success, and attainment value. High-instrumental women's higher perceived ability and performance expectations accounted for their superior task performance, but none of the four mediators accounted for the relationship of instrumentality to attributions.     

Effects of induced success/failure and attributions on the problem-solving behavior of psychologically androgynous and feminine women

The aim of the present study was to examine the relation between masculinity and femininity in women and their responses to induced success or failure. Also experimentally manipulated were the subjects' performance attributions. Psychologically androgynous and feminine women either succeeded or failed at a concept formation task and were provided with internal, external, or no causal attributions for their performance. Then a second concept formation task was administered. The attribution manipulation failed to affect task performance and was not involved in any interactions. For feminine subjects, failure increased the trials necessary to reach criterion on the second task, whereas success had no effect. In contrast, the performance of androgynous subjects was unaffected by failure but facilitated by success. Finally, whereas androgynous subjects attributed success primarily to their ability and failure to task difficulty, feminine subjects attributed success and failure about equally to these two factors. It was suggested that androgynous women's use of the “egotistical” pattern of performance attributions gives them an advantage over feminine women with respect to the maintenance of self-esteem.     

The relationship of time investment and task outcome to causal attributions and self-esteem1

This study examined the relationship between performance outcome, time spent working at a task, and attributions to ability versus effort. It also explored differences in performance time as a function of self-esteem and task-performance expectancies. Subjects worked on a series of concept-attainment items and then were given either success or failure feedback regarding their performance and also information that they had worked either faster or slower than other subjects. They then evaluated their performance and that of a fictitious subject who had also purportedly done the task. Subjects attributed their own and other subjects' successes more to ability if they spent less time at the task and failure outcomes more to ability if they had spent more time at the task. Attributions to success and failure outcomes differed as a function of the interactive effect of self-esteem and task-specific expectancies. Low self-esteem subjects tended to attribute expected outcomes more to ability and unexpected outcomes more to effort, whereas high self-esteem subjects attributed successes more to ability and failure more to effort. Practice time and criteria for satisfaction were also a joint function of self-esteem and task-performance expectancy. The results suggest that task-performance expectancies must be considered when evaluating the role of self-esteem in determining people's responses in performance situations.     

Development of learning-disabled and normally achieving children's causal attributions

The causal attributions of learning-disabled (LD) and normally achieving (NA) children in grades 3 through 8 were compared. Attributions were measured by two scales that asked children to attribute hypothetical academic failure situations to factors that were either within (e.g., insufficient effort) or beyond (e.g., insufficient ability, blaming others) their control. Consistent with a learned helplessness hypothesis, LD girls, regardless of age, were more likely than NA children to attribute their failures to factors beyond their control. In contrast, LD boys' explanations for their failures paralleled those of NA children. That is, with increasing age the LD boys were more likely to attribute their failures to insufficient effort. Explanations and implications of sex differences in developmental patterns of LD children's causal attributions are discussed.The authors wish to thank Ruth Dusseault and Betty Wallace for their help in conducting this research. We also wish to thank the teachers, children, and administrators from the Leon County Schools for their cooperation.     

Effects of knowledge that attributions will be observed by others

The current study was conducted to determine if attribution statements would be affected by subjects' knowledge that their attributions of success or failure would be observed by an opposite-sex peer. At the time subjects recorded their attributions, half of them anticipated that their attributions would soon be observed in their presence by an opposite-sex peer, while the other half recorded their attributions anonymously. Results indicated that attributions of success and failure were affected by the social context. Observed subjects evidenced less tendency to attribute their failure to low ability than did nonobserved subjects. Subjects who succeeded on an identity-relevant task reported higher ability attributions under observation conditions than under nonobservation conditions. Observed subjects evidenced significantly greater willingness to attribute failure to lack of effort than did nonobserved subjects. For a task intended to be of minimal relevance to subjects' identities, nonobserved subjects attributed failure to task difficulty to a significantly greater degree than did observed subjects. Results were discussed in relation to Bradley's contention that self-serving biases in attribution can usefully be conceptualized as strategic self-presentations.     

Children's Beliefs About Gender Differences in the Academic and Social Domains

Children's beliefs about gender differences were investigated among a sample of younger and older elementary school students (total N = 120). Beliefs about gender differences in math, spelling, physical aggression, relational aggression, and prosocial tendencies were assessed using 3 methods that varied in the extent to which gender was referenced overtly. Children who made systematic gender distinctions tended to associate prosocial tendencies and success in spelling with girls and physical and relational aggression with boys. Perceived gender differences were minimal for math, and those that were seen were consistent with same-sex biases. Children who associated positive characteristics with girls tended to associate negative characteristics with boys. Although results were generally consistent across measures, children were more likely to show same-sex preferences when they were asked to compare boys and girls explicitly.