Cue utilization and attributional judgments for success and failure

Abstract

Summary Two experiments are reported which examine causal attributions in achievement‐related contexts Subjects were provided with information about an achievement‐related activity (the immediate outcome of the action, percentage of prior success and failure at the same and similar tasks, percentage of success and failure of others, time spent at the task, task structure, and whether the achievement activity was undertaken by oneself or others) The subjects were required to attribute the immediate performance outcome (success or failure) to the causal factors of ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck The data revealed that the achievement cues were systematically utilized both as main effects and in configural patterns Included among the significant findings were that success is more likely to be attributed to internal factors (ability and effort) than is failure, consistency with the performance of others results in task ascriptions, whereas inconsistency is attributed to ability, effort and luck, and consistency with one's own past performance is ascribed to ability and task difficulty, while inconsistent outcomes give rise to luck and effort attributions Individual data analyses revealed considerable systematic yet idiosyncratic usage of the achievement information The results suggest a confounding in the locus of control literature, and new directions for the study of achievement motivation

When discounting fails: An unexpected finding

“…This approach may help to clarify the reason that unexpected outcomes in achievement situations are attributed to unstable causes, such as effort or luck, while expected outcomes are attributed to stable causes, such as skill and task difficulty (Frieze & Weiner, 1971). Because unstable causal factors vary over time and across situations, one cannot have prior information about them.…”

Effects of status and outcome on attributions and just-world beliefs: How the social distribution of success and failure may be rationalized

“…As may be seen in Table 1, ability was rated comparatively higher in high-status success and in low-status failure than in highstatus failure and low-status success. On the other hand, high-status failure and, particularly, low-status success were attributed to luck more than high-status success and low-status failure (see also, for instance, Deaux & Emswiller, 1974;Frieze & Weiner, 1971). …”

Scarcity, engagement, and value

“…Research in communication began to suggest that adding scarcity to a communication intensifies the evaluative response to that communication even when the response is negative (Bozzolo and Brock 1992;Ditto and Jemmott 1989;Frieze and Weiner 1971). In order to reconcile these opposing effects of scarcity on value, Brock and Brannon (1992) liberalized commodity theory, extending its scope to messages, experiences, traits and skills, and negative objects, granting that commodifying factors polarize evaluative responses.…”

“…It subsequently became clear that scarcity does not only affect the value of desirable things. Research demonstrated that, rather than simply enhancing value, scarcity can intensify evaluative responses for negative events as well in contexts like person attribution (Frieze and Weiner 1971), intimate self-disclosure (Petty and Mirels 1981), reaction to medical diagnoses (Ditto and Jemmott 1989), and persuasive communication (Bozzolo and Brock 1992). In a special issue concerned with such intensification effects of scarcity, several possible underlying mechanisms were proposed (Pratkanis and Farquhar 1992), including increased attention (Bozzolo and Brock 1992;Brock and Brannon 1992;Folger 1992).…”