An Analysis of Affect and Expectancy Evaluations in Causal Attributions

Abstract

Two relationships were examined, the relationship between the achievement-related affect and causal attributions for success or failure and the relationship between the expectancy shift and causal ascriptions for success or failure. Subjects were 417 elementary school children, 459 junior high school students, and 175 college students. Two hypothetical boys or girls who received similar marks on an examination but who attributed the results to different causes (ability, effort or luck) were described in a booklet. Subjects were asked to judge which person feels more pleasant (or unpleasant) and which person should expect the same outcome on further similar exams. The method of dual scaling was applied to the paired-comparison data for each sample. Two-dimensional solutions were extracted in the positive affect with success, the expectancy of success after success and the expectancy of failure after failure. Whereas a unidimensional solution was extracted in the negative affect with failure. Developmental shifts were found for successful outcome.