Abstract
Two experiments examined the relationship between the desire for effective control over performance outcomes and attributions of causality for those outcomes. In Experiment 1, subjects were led to believe that they had either succeeded at or failed a test that was either unimportant or important. As predicted, failure of the important test was attributed more to lack of effort (a controllable cause) and less to lack of ability (an uncontrollable cause) than was failure of the unimportant test. In Experiment 2, all subjects were led to believe that they had failed a test. Once again, subjects were informed that the test was either important or unimportant. In addition, half the subjects were told that they would be undergoing more tests in a later testing session, while half were not informed of any future testing. As in Experiment 1, subjects failing the important test attributed their failure less to lack of ability than did subjects failing the unimportant test. The anticipation of future testing interacted with test importance in its effects on attributions to ability. Subjects performing the unimportant task attributed their failure more to lack of ability when anticipating future performance than when not. Attributions of subjects performing an important task were not affected by the anticipation of future performance. Results were discussed in terms of the need for control over performance outcomes.
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This article is based on a doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of Waterloo, Canada. I would like to express my appreciation to the principal members of my thesis committee, Mark Zanna and John Holmes, and especially to my supervisor, Michael Ross. Thanks are also due to Marvin Brown for his comments on an earlier draft of this article, and to the Canada council for their support while this research was being conducted.
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Mark Pancer, S. Control motivation and attributions for performance. Motiv Emot 4, 47–59 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00995929
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00995929