Sex differences in learned helplessness: II. The contingencies of evaluative feedback in the classroom and III. An experimental analysis.

Abstract

Girls show greater evidence than boys of learned helplessness in achievement situations with adult (but not peer) evaluators: They attribute their failures to lack of ability rather than motivation and thus show impaired performance under failure. Two studies are reported linking sex differences in attributions to adults' use of evaluative feedback. Study 1 revealed that both the contingencies of feedback in classrooms and the attributions made by teachers were ones that would render negative evaluation more indicative of ability for girls than boys. For example, negative evaluation of girls' performance referred almost exclusively to intellectual inadequacies, whereas 45% of boys' work-related criticism referred to nonintellectual aspects. Moreover, teachers attributed the boys' failures to lack of motivation significantly more than they did the girls' failures. In Study 2, teacher-boy and teacher-girl contingencies of work-related criticism observed in classrooms were programmed in an experimental situation. Both boys and girls receiving the teacher-girl contingency were more likely to view subsequent failure feedback from that evaluator as indicative of their ability. Implications for developmental theories and for development are addressed.Learned helplessness exists when failure (Dweck, 1975;Dweck & Reppucci, 1973). is perceived as insurmountable. This per-Children who tend to emphasize modifiable ception is associated with attributions of or unstable factors, such as effort, as causes failure to stable, uncontrollable factors, like of failure tend to perceive failure as sura lack of ability, and is accompanied by de-mountable and will often show heightened terioration in performance following failure persistence or improved performance in the face of negative evaluation. The first study in this series (Developmental Psy-G» rls *« mor e likely than boys to exhibit chology, 1976, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 147-156), by Carol S. the helpless pattern of attributions. GirlsDweck and Ellen S. Bush, was "Sex Differences in place less emphasis than boys on motiva-Learned Helplessness: I. Differential Debilitation with tional f acto rs as determinants of failure and P 1o±f oSaSrare based on a symposium are inore apt than boys to blame a lack of

The Impact of Losing in a Competition on the Willingness to Seek Further Challenges

“…Men tend to attribute success to internal factors (such as talent) and failure to external factors (such as effort or lack thereof) while women tend to do the opposite (Dweck et al, 1978). This is especially true for mathematical tasks (Ryckman and Peckham, 1987).…”

How Teachers’ and Students’ Mindsets in Learning Have Been Studied: Research Findings on Mindset and Academic Achievement

“…Her theory of mindset is built on a positive psychology approach in which human intelligence is understood as a malleable quality. Dweck's earlier research (Dweck & Bush, 1976;Dweck, Davidson, Nelson, & Enna, 1978) on attribution of failure feedback could be regarded as the basis for the phrase "implicit theory of intelligence" (Dweck & Leggett, 1988;Levy & Dweck, 1999;Dweck, 2000), which later evolved into the concept of "mindset." In the two primary studies, students' attribution of failure feedback was divided into two categories: "solution-relevant or solution-irrelevant aspects" and "intellectual adequacy," which could be considered as an embryonic form of "fixed mindset" and "growth mindset."…”

The role of feedback in young people’s academic choices

“…It had been hypothesised that girls would respond more strongly to person feedback encouraging them to take engineering. This is because previous research suggests that girls receive more negative feedback in science (Eccles & Wigfield, 2002) and are less likely to receive person feedback (Dweck et al, 1978;Koestner et al 1989;Burnett, 2002). Furthermore, women's sense of self-efficacy in STEM has been found to be linked more to their interactions with others than from their actual performance levels (Zeldin and Pajares, 2000).…”

“…There is evidence that teachers tend to praise boys using person terms while girls receive more process feedback (Dweck et al, 1978;Koestner, Zuckerman & Koestner, 1989;Burnett, 2002). This may mean that girls are less likely to think they have the ability to succeed in STEM and may go some way to explaining why girls are less likely to take STEM than boys.…”