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Impact of esteem-related feedback on mood, self-efficacy, and attribution of success: Self-enhancement/self-protection

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Abstract

It is suggested that positive ego-enhancing and negative ego-diminishing feedback conditions concerning social perceptiveness can give rise to altered affective states concerning self-esteem that generalize to other areas of cognitive functioning in such a way that this feedback accompanies a systematic self-serving attributional bias of cognitive/intellectual performance. The results of 40 participants in an ego-enhancing and 45 in an ego-diminishing feedback condition indicate more attribution of problem-solving success by the first group to effort and to ease of the task; participants who received ego-diminishing feedback attributed their initial problem-solving success less to ease of the task. Other more direct evidence of self-protective strategies on the part of those in the ego-diminishing feedback condition includes lower success expecta y on retest and reduced volunteering for additional challenge. The results are interpreted as evidence of the impact of generalized esteem-related affect on future success expectancy, on risk-taking, and on the attribution of success when future replication is a boundary condition.

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  1. School of Psychology, University of Ottawa, 651 Cumberland, K1N 6N5, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Michael McCarrey

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  1. Michael McCarrey
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McCarrey, M. Impact of esteem-related feedback on mood, self-efficacy, and attribution of success: Self-enhancement/self-protection. Current Psychology 3, 25–31 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686554

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686554

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