Self-awareness, probability of improvement, and the self-serving bias.

Evidence for the self-serving bias (attributing success internally and failure externally) is inconsistent. Although internal success attributions are consistently found, researchers find both internal and external attributions for failure. The authors explain these disparate effects by considering the intersection of 2 systems, a system comparing self against standards and a causal attribution system. It was predicted that success and failure attributions are moderated by self-awareness and by the ability to improve. When self-focus is high (a) success is attributed internally. (b) failure is attributed internally when people can improve, (c) failure is attributed externally when people cannot improve, and (d) these attributions affect state self-esteem. Implications for the self-serving bias are discussed.     

Effects of task success or failure on causal attributions and person perception

An actor's outcome on a task (success-failure) was manipulated orthogonally to information that the actor either used or did not use drugs. Casual attributions for success-failure were obtained as well as trait ratings of the actor. Subjects read a case study of an artist who either succeeded or failed in his profession. For half of the subjects, the artist was described as using hard drugs, and no mention of drugs was made for. the other half. It was predicted and confirmed that success-failure interacted with drugs-no drugs in determining attributions of ability. It was also found, as expected, that success was attributed to ability and motivation more than was failure. Further, success tended to be internally attributed to the actor, while failure was externally attributed. The interaction obtained for ability attribution was not obtained for a measure of trying, nor for the trait ratings. The results confirmed Kepka and Brickman's (1971) suggestion that ability and motivation are qualitatively different concepts in naive psychology, but some of their specific conclusions are questioned.     

Perfectionism, achievement motives, and attribution of success and failure in female soccer players

While some researchers have identified adaptive perfectionism as a key characteristic to achieving elite performance in sport, others see perfectionism as a maladaptive characteristic that undermines, rather than helps, athletic performance. Arguing that perfectionism in sport contains both adaptive and maladaptive facets, the present article presents a study of N = 74 female soccer players investigating how two facets of perfectionism-perfectionistic strivings and negative reactions to imperfection (Stoeber, Otto, Pescheck, Becker, & Stoll, 2007 )-are related to achievement motives and attributions of success and failure. Results show that striving for perfection was related to hope of success and self-serving attributions (internal attribution of success). Moreover, once overlap between the two facets of perfectionism was controlled for, striving for perfection was inversely related to fear of failure and self-depreciating attributions (internal attribution of failure). In contrast, negative reactions to imperfection were positively related to fear of failure and self-depreciating attributions (external attribution of success) and inversely related to self-serving attributions (internal attribution of success and external attribution of failure). It is concluded that striving for perfection in sport is associated with an adaptive pattern of positive motivational orientations and self-serving attributions of success and failure, which may help athletic performance. In contrast, negative reactions to imperfection are associated with a maladaptive pattern of negative motivational orientations and self-depreciating attributions, which is likely to undermine athletic performance. Consequently, perfectionism in sport may be adaptive in those athletes who strive for perfection, but can control their negative reactions when performance is less than perfect.     

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.     

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.     

奖赏结构与结果效价对儿童自我—他人成就归因与评价的影响

本研究旨在考察不同的奖赏结构和结果效价对儿童自我-他人成就归因、自我-他人奖赏评价的影响。实验采用2×2×2混合设计,其中自我-他人归因与评价为被试内设计。被试为小学五年级学生74名(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。实验结果表明,奖赏结构对儿童自我-他人能力归因的影响、奖赏结构与自我-他人归因的交互作用对能力归因的影响、自我-他人运气归因均达到了显著性水平;努力和任务难度归因不显著;儿童对自我和他人的成就结果倾向于做能力和运气归因,较为忽略努力和任务难度在成就行为中的作用。     

Understanding Intentions to Exercise Following a Structured Exercise Program: An Attributional Perspective1

The present study examined the relationships among perceived outcome, causal attributions, affect, expected success, and intentions to exercise following a structured exercise program. Participants were 105 volunteers who had just completed a 12-week exercise program. Results indicated that perceived outcome over objective outcome (% attendance) was significantly more important for understanding the attribution process. Interesting interactions indicated that (a) individuals who made personally controllable attributions reported higher positive affect following perceived success, but lower positive affect following perceived failure than those who made personally uncontrollable attributions, and (b) individuals who made external attributions following perceived failure reported higher expected success than those who made internal attributions. Finally, both positive affect and expected success showed positive relationships with intention to exercise following the program. It was suggested that attribution theory may be beneficial to understanding continued exercise following structured exercise programs.     

Affect as a mediator of attributional egotism

A three-stage model of the relationships among achievement outcomes, outcome-related affect, attribution, and emotion is tested in two studies. It is suggested that success and failure elicit positive and negative affective states due to prior conditioning. These affective states then lead to an attribution process that serves to defend and enhance self-esteem. Next, emotional labels are chosen that are consistent with the affective states and the attributions. Two studies were designed to test the proposed relationships among achievement outcomes, affective states, and attributions. In the first study, subjects received information indicating that they were strongly or mildly aroused as a result of receiving outcome feedback on an achievement task. The results indicated that low arousal reduced egotistical attributions to internal factors. In the second study, subjects either succeeded or failed on an achievement task. Half of the subjects were provided with an opportunity to misattribute the arousal elicited by their outcomes to an irrelevant source. Subjects in the misattribution condition made less egotistical attributions to external factors than subjects who were given no opportunity to misattribute their arousal. The results of both studies suggest that outcome-related affect mediates the relationship between outcomes and attributions in achievement situations.     

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.     

Actors' and observers' attributions for success and failure: A comparative test of predictions from Kelley's cube,self-serving bias,and positivity bias formulations

An experiment was conducted to test implications of Kelley's cube, self-serving bias, and positivity bias formulations for attributions associated with success and failure on a test of “abstract reasoning.” Subjects either experienced or observed outcomes on three tasks. They then made attributions for only the third outcome, which was either a success or a failure. The first task was of the same type and had the same outcome as the third task, thus providing the information that the outcome being attributed was high in consistency. The second task was of a different type than the first and third tasks, and its outcome either did or did not differ from their outcomes, thus varying information about the distinctiveness of the outcome being attributed. Consensus was manipulated by presenting false norms, ostensibly from a previous experiment. In contrast to previous research, the present study included thorough checks on all of these informational manipulations. Regardless of attributor role (actor or observer), subjects attributed success more to internal than to external factors and attributed failure more to external than to internal factors. These findings indicate a general bias toward positive evaluations. Discussion centers on possible alternative interpretations of these findings, restrictions on their generality, and the limitations that they seem to impose on the applicability of the other two formulations.     

Affective state mediates causal attributions for success and failure

The influence of affect on causal attributions for success and failure was examined in this experiment. A positive, neurtral, or negative mood was induced in subjects who then learned they had either succeeded or failed an aptitude test taken previously. Relative to neutral mood control conditions, subjects in both positive and negative mood conditions showed a pronounced self-serving bias, particularly following success. The finding is interpreted as self-regulation of affective state. Specifically, causal attribution of success to internal factors can sustain or enhance positive affect; attribution of failure to external factors can diminish negative affect. Ancillary analyses corroborated this interpretation.     

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.     

Information availability,goodness of outcome,and attributions of causality

H. H. Kelley's (American Psychologist, 1973, 28, 107–128) framework for studying attribution processes is introduced as a means of accounting for characteristic asymmetries in success/failure attributions. It is argued that while success/failure asymmetries should occur in the presence of single-observation information, asymmetries should be eliminated when individuals are allowed to observe the covariation between their own actions and outcomes. Subjects participated in a 15-trial stock market simulation in which type of information (single-observation or covariation) and goodness of outcome (relative success or failure) were manipulated. The obtained results supported the experimental hypotheses. Given single-observation information, subjects were more likely to accept personal responsibility for good than for poor outcomes. However, subjects' attributions were not affected by goodness of outcome when they were provided with covariation information. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of the current debate between motivational and information-processing explanations of asymmetries in success/failure attributions.     

Attributions for Successful and Unsuccessful Health Behavior Change

In an application of Weiner's (1985) attributional theory of motivation, 466 undergraduates gave attributions for their own successful or unsuccessful health behavior changes using a retrospective incident-report questionnaire. Scores from the Causal Dimension Scale (CDS; Russell, 1982) indicated that the average attribution was internal, unstable, and controllable, and that success attributions were more stable and controllable than failure attributions. By a large margin, the most common attribution types were internal-unstable-controllable causes for unsuccessful attempts, followed by internal-stable-controllable and internal-unstable-controllable causes for successes. These findings correspond to a pattern known as personal changeability of causes, which enhances perceived control ova both positive and negative outcomes. Stable attributions were associated with maintenance of health behavior changes and with expectations that negative outcomes would continue into the future. The personal-changeability tendency was strong for change attempts involving eating, but modified by a self-serving effect for exercise and substance use and by a self-effacing effect for road safety.     

An Attribution Theory Analysis of Romantic Jealousy

Two studies examined the utility of attribution theory (B. Weiner, 1985, 1995) in explaining romantic jealousy responses. In Study 1, by varying hypothetical scenarios according to Weiner's attribution distinction (B. Weiner, 1995), 156 undergraduates perceived jealousy to increase when an unfaithful partner's interaction with interlopers was deliberate (i.e., personal causality), controllable, intentional, and without mitigating excuses. High trait jealousy amplified these ratings but did not affect the underlying attribution relationships. Reversing the attribution-to-jealousy linkage in Study 2, 128 participants from the general population recalled jealousy episodes in their lives, then made attributions for the events and categorized them using Weiner's dimensions (B. Weiner, 1985). Jealousy was more likely when the cause of a partner's indiscretion was perceived to be internal, controllable, and intentional—although not necessarily stable. The findings verify that attribution theory identifies blame conditions that trigger jealousy responses.     

Praise or blame? Affective influences on attributions for achievement

Three experiments showed that mood influences achievement attributions and that cognitive processes underlie these effects. In Experiment 1, happy Ss made more internal and stable attributions for success than failure in typical 'life dilemmas'. In Experiment 2, attributions for real-life exam performance were more internal and stable in a happy than in a sad mood. Dysphoric moods resulted in self-critical rather than self-enhancing attributions, contrary to motivational theories, but consistent with cognitive models and the clinical literature on depression. In Experiment 3 this pattern was repeated with direct self vs. other comparisons, and for self-efficacy judgements. The results are interpreted as supporting cognitive rather than motivational theories of attribution biases. The implications of the results for clinical research, and contemporary affect-cognition theories are considered.     

Sex differences in performance attribution and contingency judgment

In two studies, male and female subjects were given attribution measures before and after performance on a novel finger maze. Neither study revealed any sex differences in expectancy and anticipated attributions prior to maze performance. In Experiment 1, no sex differences in attributions were obtained regardless of whether the outcome was success or failure. In Experiment 2, where the outcome was made completely noncontingent on behavior, females had greater illusion of control as well as higher luck attribution. This paradoxical finding was interpreted as reflecting females' tendency to depend on external and internal attributions simultaneously.The data presented here are based on a larger research project on reinforcement contingencies and performance attributions supported by a research grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.     

Self-esteem and responses to success and failure: Subsequent performance and intrinsic motivation

A model is proposed in which the goal of people with high self-esteem is to cultivate personal strengths in order to excel, whereas the goal of people with low self-esteem is to remedy personal deficiencies in order to become adequate In two experiments, subjects received initial outcome feedback of either success, humiliating failure (internal attribution), or failure that allowed face-saving (external attribution) Experiment 1 then measured subjects intrinsic motivation to pursue the task during free-choice time Subjects with high self-esteem had the highest intrinsic motivation after success Subjects with low self-esteem had the highest intrinsic motivation after the humiliating failure Experiment 2 required a second performance on a similar task Performance results were consistent with the intrinsic motivation results of Experiment 1, with one exception High self-esteem subjects were sensitive to the different failure treatments, performing well after humiliation but poorly after face-saving Subjects with low self-esteem performed the same in both failure conditions The relation of the present model and results to previous work is discussed     

The role of surprise in the attribution process

Abstract

We report five studies which compared two theories linking surprise to causal attribution. According to the attributional model, surprise is frequently caused by luck attributions, whereas according to the expectancy-disconfirmation model, surprise is caused by expectancy disconfirmation and stimulates causal thinking. Studies 1 to 3 focused on the question of whether surprise is caused by luck attributions or by unexpectedness. In Studies 1 and 2, subjects had to recall success or failure experiences characterised by a particular attribution (Study 1) or by low versus high surprisingness (Study 2), whereas in Study 3, unexpectedness and luck versus skill attributions were independently manipulated within a realistic setting. The main dependent variables were unexpectedness (Studies 1 and 2), degree of surprise (Studies 1 and 3), and causal attributions (Study 2). The results strongly suggest that surprise is caused by expectancy disconfirmation, whereas luck attributions are neither sufficient nor necessary for surprise. Studies 4 and 5 addressed the question of whether surprise stimulates attributional thinking, again using a remembered-incidents technique. The findings of the previous studies were replicated, and it was confirmed that surprising outcomes elicit more attributional search than unsurprising ones. Additional results from Study 5 suggest that causal thinking is also stimulated by outcomes that are both negative and important.     

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.