Locus of control and causal attribution for positive and negative outcomes on university examinations

Gilmor, Timothy M.; Reid, David

doi:10.1016/0092-6566(79)90027-8

Cited by 28 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…A similar modesty bias among those with interdependent selves has also been suggested by Shikanai (1978), who studied the causal attribution for one’s own success or failure in an ability task. Typically, American subjects believe that their internal attributes such as ability or competence are extremely important to their performance, and this is particularly the case when they have succeeded (e.g., Davis & Stephan, 1980; Gilmor & Reid, 1979; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1982; Weiner, 1986). In the Shikanai study, Japanese college students performed an anagram task.…”

Section: Consequences Of An Independent or An Interdependent View Of ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.

Markus¹,

Kitayama²

1991

Psychological Review

16,943

453

15,636

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People in different cultures have strikingly different construals of the self, of others, and of the interdependence of the 2. These construals can influence, and in many cases determine, the very nature of individual experience, including cognition, emotion, and motivation. Many Asian cultures have distinct conceptions of individuality that insist on the fundamental relatedness of individuals to each other. The emphasis is on attending to others, fitting in, and harmonious interdependence with them. American culture neither assumes nor values such an overt connectedness among individuals. In contrast, individuals seek to maintain their independence from others by attending to the self and by discovering and expressing their unique inner attributes. As proposed herein, these construals are even more powerful than previously imagined. Theories of the self from both psychology and anthropology are integrated to define in detail the difference between a construal of the self as independent and a construal of the self as interdependent. Each of these divergent construals should have a set of specific consequences for cognition, emotion, and motivation; these consequences are proposed and relevant empirical literature is reviewed. Focusing on differences in self-construals enables apparently inconsistent empirical findings to be reconciled, and raises questions about what have been thought to be culture-free aspects of cognition, emotion, and motivation. In America, "the squeaky wheel gets the grease." In Japan, "the nail that stands out gets pounded down." American parents who are trying to induce their children to eat their suppers are fond of saying "think of the starving kids in Ethiopia, and appreciate how lucky you are to be different from them." Japanese parents are likely to say "Think about the farmer who worked so hard to produce this rice for you; if you don't eat it, he will feel bad, for his efforts will have been in vain" (H. Yamada, February 16,1989). A small Texas corporation seeking to elevate productivity told its employees to look in the mirror and say "I am beautiful" 100 times before coming to work each day. Employees of a Japanese supermarket that was recently opened in New Jersey were instructed to begin the day by holding hands and telling each other that "he" or "she is beautiful" ("A Japanese Supermarket," 1989). Such anecdotes suggest that people in Japan and America may hold strikingly divergent construals of the self, others, and the interdependence of the two. The American examples stress attending to the self, the appreciation of one's difference from others, and the importance of asserting the self. The Japanese examples emphasize attending to and fitting in with others and Many thanks to

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Section: Consequences Of An Independent or An Interdependent View Of ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.

Markus¹,

Kitayama²

1991

Psychological Review

16,943

453

15,636

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Self-serving bias refers to the tendency of individuals to attribute their success to internal causes such as ability or effort, and to attribute their failure to external causes such as luck or task difficulty (e.g., Bradley, 1978;Miller & Ross, 1975;Nisbett & Ross, 1980). Many empirical studies have demonstrated that selfserving bias is prevalent in Western societies, such as the United States (e.g., Davis & Stephan, 1980;Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1982;Kashima & Triandis, 1986), Canada (e.g., Fry & Ghosh, 1980;Gilmor & Reis, 1979), the United Kingdom (e.g., Van der Pligt & Eisen, 1983), and Yugoslavia (e.g., Chandler, Shama, Wolf, & Planchard, 1981). It has been explained that people tend to make such a biased attribution to enhance or protect their self-evaluation (e.g., Heider, 1958Heider, , 1976Zuckerman, 1979).…”

Section: Past Research On Self-serving Bias and Its Cultural Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Indirect Self-Enhancement in Relationship among Japanese

Muramoto

2003

Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology

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Past research in cross-cultural psychology has emphasized a contrast between Western self-serving tendency and East Asian self-effacing tendency in attributions. The present author, however, poses a question to this simple dichotomy and presents some empirical evidence for indirect self-enhancement among Japanese. Participants were asked to recall their positive and negative life events and to make attributions. Results showed that Japanese tended to make self-effacing attributions for their success and failure. At the same time, however, they expected their parents, siblings, and close friends to make internal attributions for their success more than for their failure. In addition, they believed that these people understand them to a large extent. Japanese would not enhance or protect their self-esteem explicitly, but that they would do so indirectly through others' eyes.

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“…When a positive set is salient, positive behaviors are attributed to stable internal factors and negative ones are attributed to other factors. For example, students who do well on exams make more attributions to ability for their performance than those who do poorly (Arkin & Maruyama, 1979;Davis & Stephan, 1980;Gilmor & Reid, 1979), athletes attribute their wins to ability and their losses to other, chiefly external, factors (e.g., Lau & Russell, 1980), and separated and divorced persons often use attributions to exonerate themselves and blame their spouses for marriage problems (Harvey, Wells, & Alverez, 1978). This phenomenon has also been found extensively in natural settings.…”

Section: Positive Setmentioning

confidence: 99%

A General Model of the Attribution Process

Green¹,

Lightfoot²,

Bandy³

et al. 1985

Basic and Applied Social Psychology

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A general model of attribution is proposed. It is suggested that the attribution process begins with the attention of the perceiver, which is influenced by cognitive, motivational, and stimulus factors. Once attention is directed, a taxonomy of variables determines the attribution, depending on how much information the perceiver has about the actor. For a stranger, where the least information is available, the attribution depends on whether a person schema or normative script is salient, and whether or not the behavior is expected. For the self, where the most information is available, the direction of the attribution depends on set valence (beliefs about the self in this situation) and whether the behavior is positive or negative. Integration of the model with previous research in areas such as the fundamental attribution error, expectancy violation, the selfserving bias, and the actor-observer bias also is discussed.Requests for reprints should be sent to

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Locus of control and causal attribution for positive and negative outcomes on university examinations

Cited by 28 publications

References 7 publications

Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.

Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation.

An Indirect Self-Enhancement in Relationship among Japanese

A General Model of the Attribution Process

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