Personality Differences and the Effects of Success and Failure on Causal Attributions and Expectancies of Primary School Children

Abstract

Individual differences in making causal attributions following experimentally manipulated success and failure were investigated among 144 children aged nine to ten years. The types of attribution made were compared under conditions of competition vs cooperation and composition of learning group and the effects of the perceived causes related to personality differences in locus of control. Emotional differences were also studied. More attributions were made following success than failure but only the number of external ascriptions was weakly related to locus of control. Result (success vs failure) was by far the greatest influence on frequency and type of attribution and on level of emotional response. There were no systematic differences between learning milieu or between type of group. Changes in expectancy for future success (expectancy shifts) were influenced more by the result than by type of causal attribution. Locus of control mediated the effect of result on the size of expectancy shift among boys but not amongst the girls in the sample. Results are discussed within the framework provided by Weiner's theory of motivation.