In Experiment 1, subjects ranging from age 9 to college age were told the affective reactions of a teacher toward a failing student. The affects included anger, pity, guilt, surprise, and sadness. Subjects were asked to infer the cause of the student's failure; was it due, for example, to low ability or lack of effort? For all ages, there were systematic linkages between the following affect-attribution pairings: anger-lack of effort, guilt-poor teaching, and surprise-lack of effort. In addition, among the adults there was an association between pity and low ability. A second experiment, using subjects from 5 to 9 years of age, examined only the affects of anger and pity. This experiment revealed that a relation between anger-lack of effort was exhibited by the youngest age children, whereas a pity-lack of" ability association was displayed only by the older children. The implications of the findings for self-concept are discussed.