Causal Attributions For Success Research Articles

The Role of Causal Attributions in Explaining the Link Between User Participation and Information System Success

Understanding the factors influencing information system IS effectiveness has been of considerable concern to IS researchers, with the role of user participation UP in IS success receiving much attention. The inconclusive and often contradictory research results in this area of inquiry have been attributed to a lack of rigor in method and to the lack of consideration of various intervening mechanisms between UP and IS success. This paper develops a model to explain a potential link of UP with IS success; the model is based upon a synthesis of UP and IS success research coupled with principles of attribution theory. Attribution theory is the study of the process by which people associate causes to outcomes or events. This theory implies the need to consider IS users' causal attributions for the IS-related outcomes they experience, as the nature of these attributions will likely influence users' evaluation of the IS. In synthesizing IS and attribution theory, this paper proposes that users' causal attributions of success and failure subsequent to IS use, is one factor explaining the linkages between UP, beliefs, and IS success. It is argued that UP is a critical determinant of IS success to the extent that it influences beliefs that lead to users' attributions for IS related outcomes, and ultimately to their subjective evaluation and future use of the IS. Consequently, a model is proposed that permits a more meaningful examination of the role of UP in IS success.

Young children's causal attributions for success and failure: ‘Self‐enhancing’ boys and ‘self‐derogating’ girls

This study examined the types of causal attributions young children make for their own success and failure at performance tasks. The results showed that young children's attributions are different from those subsumed under adult models and that there were significant sex, but not ethnic, differences in the attributional styles employed. Boys exhibited a ‘self‐enhancing’ pattern of attributions, whereas girls' attributions were ‘self‐derogating’.

Correlates of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems: Perceived competence causal attributions, and parental symptoms

Young adolescents in the clinical range on internalizing, externalizing, and both internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, as well as youth in the normal range on both types of problems, were identified separately using adolescents' self-reports and mothers' reports of behavior problems. In comparisons of groups identified on the basis of either type of informant, differences among the four groups were found in adolescents' self-perceptions of competence and in their fathers' psychological symptoms. Specifically, normals reported a more positive sense of their social acceptance and their behavioral conduct than all clinical groups, and fathers of adolescents in the clinical range on both internalizing and externalizing problems tended to report more psychological symptoms than the fathers of the normal group. Differences were found in mothers' psychological symptoms only when mothers' reports of adolescents' behavior problems were used to identify the groups. No consistent differences among the groups were found on adolescents' causal attributions for success and failure.

Overcoming Gender Bias in Reward Allocation: The Role of Expectations of Future Performance

The present study examined the relationships among gender, causal attributions for success, and the distribution of organizational rewards. In this study, which attempted to control for methodological deficiencies of previous research, male and female undergraduates reviewed the performance of four stimulus managers: three men and one woman. Participants were asked to make causal attributions for the stimulus manager's success, and to rate how effectively they believed the manager would perform in the future. They were then asked to nominate a manager for an organizational reward. Bias against the female manager was exhibited by females only. Results indicated that lower expectations of future performance for the female manager significantly predicted the bias against her in reward allocation.

Mentoring and Being Mentored:

This paper examines the interface of sexism and ageism when older women are part of a mentoring relationship as either mentors or prottgks. Specifically, issues related to transitional phases, chronological age, and causal attributions for success are reviewed. Educational policies more responsive to the needs of women mentors and protigis are suggested.

WHEN PUPILS DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE DETERMINANTS OF THEIR SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN SCHOOL: RELATIONS BETWEEN INTERNAL, TEACHER AND UNKNOWN PERCEPTIONS OF CONTROL AND SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT

Both dispositional and attributional perspectives on perceptions of control assume that people have some idea of outcome determinants. This, however, may not always be so. This study tested the hypothesis that pupils do not always understand the determinants of their learning outcomes, and that such a sense of unknown control will be associated with poor achievement in school. The study was unusual in that it tapped both dispositional control perceptions, using the new MMPCC, and causal attributions for success and failure in a school examination. Subjects were 186 10-year-old Israeli pupils of heterogeneous SES. Results confirmed that unknown control emerged as a distinct dimension of perceived control in both dispositional and attributional measures, and was consistently associated with poor achievement in school. Attributions of test outcomes to unknown causes were strongly related to dispositional unknown control, and were not affected by success or failure. In contrast, dispositional and attributional internality were unrelated, and did not predict achievement. It is argued that internal beliefs reflect internalised social-educational norms, and as a result have less impact on motivation than perceptions of unknown control. The implications of these findings for educational practice and motivational interventions are discussed.

A comparison of aggressive and withdrawn children's self-esteem, optimism and pessimism, and causal attributions for success and failure.

Aggressive children, withdrawn children, combined aggressive and withdrawn children, and children displaying neither aggressive nor withdrawn behavior were compared on three self-appraisal measures: (a) self-esteem, (b) attributions to ability and lack of ability following success and failure, and (c) optimism and pessimism about one's long-term personal future. From an initial sample of 583 elementary school children, independent and extreme groups were identified by combined ratings of teachers and classmates. Solely aggressive children had higher self-esteem than either solely withdrawn children or children who were both aggressive and withdrawn. The control group of children who were neither aggressive nor withdrawn had the highest self-esteem of all. The control group also attributed success to ability more than the two groups of children with high withdrawal scores but did not differ from the solely aggressive children. There were no significant differences among the groups in attributions to lack of ability following failure or in optimism or pessimism.

Causal Attributions for Success and Failure as a Function of Sex and Job Status in India

This experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that causal attributions for the success and failure of male and female stimulus persons will vary depending on the job status involved. It was predicted that the success of a male in a high status, typically masculine job (bank manager) would be attributed to internal causes like ability and effort, whereas the success of a female in the same job would be attributed to external causes like luck and the nature of the job. The experiment had a 2 (subject's sex) by 2 (stimulus person's sex) by 2 (stimulus person's job status) by 2 (stimulus person's successs or failure) factorial design. with 336 Indian undergraduate students as subjects who read the relevant biographical information about the stimulus person and made attributions for success or failure to effort. luck. ability and the nature (difficulty or ease) of the job. The results were in general support of the hypothesis, which was derived from the conception of sex-role stereotypes with respect to ...

Effects of causal attributions for success on first-term college performance: A covariance structure model.

Effects of causal attributions for success on first-term college performance: A covariance structure model.

The Causal Attributions for Success and Failure of Problem and Non-Problem Secondary Pupils

A comparison was made between the causal attributions offered by fifty-two problem and fifty-six non-problem children of both sexes in relation to situations involving the success and failure of pupils on a number of classroom tests. The results confirmed some general findings of attribution research that effort is an important causal explanation and that success is attributed to internal causes while failure elicits more external responses. In addition different attribution patterns were found between achievement situations, consistent with earlier results. In contrast to previous studies, however, some expected differences between boys and girls and problem and non-problem groups were not confirmed. The usual finding that girls attribute successful outcomes to luck and neglect effort while at the same time attributing failure to lack of ability was not found. Also, an earlier report that problem children will be more external, unintentional and unstable in their pattern of attributions was not supported. The importance of interest as a causal explanation and the overriding effect of outcome in relation to pupils' attributions were significant findings in this study.

An Analysis of Affect and Expectancy Evaluations in Causal Attributions

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.

Children's depressive symptoms, negative self-statements, and causal attributions for success and failure

On the basis of the reformulated model of learned helplessness, we tested relationships among level of depression, negative self-statements, causal attributions for success and failure, and mood states among schoolchildren. The experimental manipulation of success and failure on an anagram task was an extension of previous work with depressed and nondepressed college students. Results showed, first, that depressive symptoms were related to impaired performance. Second, there were no significantly different responses to success and failure by children with depressive symptoms versus those without such symptoms. Neither causal attributions, self-statements, nor postanagram mood was affected by the presence of depressive symptoms, regardless of whether the child succeeded or failed. On the other hand, across conditions, subjects responded differentially to success and failure. Those in the success condition attributed their performance more to ability and luck and less to task difficulty than did those in the failure condition. Additionally, successful subjects reported a more elevated mood than did unsuccessful subjects. Future research is suggested, based on these results and the different patterns of correlations that emerged among negative self-statements, causal attributions, and mood for successful and unsuccessful subjects.

Measuring causal attributions for success and failure: A comparison of methodologies for assessing causal dimensions.

Measuring causal attributions for success and failure: A comparison of methodologies for assessing causal dimensions.

THE ROLE OF GENERALISED EXPECTANCIES IN DETERMINING CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS FOR SUCCESS AND FAILURE IN TWO SOCIAL CLASSES

Summary. The sources of discrepancies in causal attributions for success and failure and for self and other attributions of outcome may become clearer when specific research attention is paid to the role of generalised expectancies in the attributional process. The present study hypothesised that when information about task and outcome is standardised, the attributions of both actors and observers will tend to reflect generalised expectancies, evoked in this study by two levels of SES in both actor and observer conditions, more than they will self‐serving biases. 230 sixth grade Jewish Israeli pupils of two SES levels were assigned to one of three experimental conditions. All pupils received eight anagrams, four soluble by all and four insoluble. Those in the self‐attribution condition attributed their own outcomes to various causes, while those in the similar and different other conditions attributed the same outcomes for pupils of apparently similar or different social class, after having first completed the anagrams themselves. The results indicated that while pupils of high SES tended to attribute both their own and others' outcomes in ways consistent with high generalised expectancy for success, pupils of low SES attributed their own outcomes more to external, unstable factors, and differentiated consistently in their attributions for the self, for similar and for different others. It was argued that these differences reflect undifferentiated, global perceptions of causality among high SES pupils, whose patterns of attribution are consistent both with teacher values and their own experience. Low SES pupils have more differentiated perceptions of causality since uncertainty as to the real causes of their learning outcomes motivates them to greater, but not always adaptive, attributional activity.

Children's causal attributions for success and failure in achievement settings: A meta-analysis.

Children's causal attributions for success and failure in achievement settings: A meta-analysis.

Self-esteem and causal attributions for success and failure in children

In a comparison of causal attributions following success and failure in hypothetical social, athletic, and academic situations, high self-esteem grade school children were more likely than low self-esteem children to attribute their success to “ability” and their failure to either “lack of effort” or “bad luck.” Low self-esteem children, on the other hand, attributed their success more often than high self-esteem children to “good luck” (and in social situations to “effort” and “task ease” as well) and their failure to “lack of ability.” Whereas prior studies that focused only on the internal-external dimension found that low and high self-esteem children differed in their attributional style to success but not to failure, the present study found that when distinctions between behavioral and characterological attributions (stability and globality dimensions) were included, the two groups differed significantly in response to both success and failure. Although perhaps not generalizable beyond the present attribution measure, the most pronounced attribution differences between low and high self-esteem children were observed in the social domain, the least in the academic domain, with athletics falling in between. Finally, it was found that sex and age (within the limited fourth- to sixth-grade range examined in the present study) did not alter the overriding difference in attributional style between low and high self-esteem children.

Causal attributions of success and failure on WISC-R subtests by high and low achievers

Students referred by teachers for a gifted program and students referred for evaluation because of learning difficulties were asked a series of questions about their highest and lowest subtest scores on the WISC-R. Both groups tended to view Performance subtests as best, and the correlations between particular subtests perceived as best or worst and actual scores were significant. For free response attributions, no students ascribed success or failure to luck, and very few mentioned effort. High-achieving students credited ability as most responsible for their best subtest. No significant difference between the groups was found, however, when students rated the relative importance of ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. Equal proportions of students in both groups expressed preferences for continued work on their best or worst subtest.

Conceptual and methodological problems in the analysis of self‐serving causal attributions of success and failure

The present article examined conceptual and methodological foundations of testing the self‐serving hypothesis of causal attributions. This analysis revealed a startling fact that neither major reviews (by Bradley, Miller & Ross; Snyder et al.; Weary & Arkin; and Zuckerman) nor other reports have provided a clear and specific definition of the self‐serving attributions. Furthermore, methodological defects exist because of such fundamental errors as the use of between‐subjects designs, instead of within‐subjects designs, in testing the hypothesis. Therefore, the reported experiments simply reflect the researchers' attempts to interpret subjects' attributions as self‐serving or non‐self‐serving. To better understand the nature and scope of self‐serving motives in causal attributions, it is essential (1) to take into account attributors' personal definitions of self‐serving attributions, (2) to relate the nonreciprocal attributions to social/cultural values about self‐serving behaviors, and (3) to determine the role of intentions in causal attributions of success and failure.

Attributional Analysis of Chronic Illness Outcomes

The Weiner et al. attribution model has generated a great deal of research on attributions for success and failure in academic achievement situations. Studies of success and failure attributions in real-life situations of high personal concern are limited. If the attribution model is to lead to a general theory of motivation, such tests in real-life situations are critical. In this study, causal attributions for success and failure outcomes of chronically ill patients were examined. Results indicated at least partial support for the model. Patients tended to attribute success internally and failure externally, but stability and expectations were not linked in this sample. Moreover, a tendency to respond with no cause to an open-ended measure and to hold little commitment to any causes on a closed-ended measure was characteristic of failure subjects.

Sex-role norms and gender-related attainment values: Their role in attributions of success and failure

Sex-role norms and gender-related attainment values are considered as possible mediators of gender differences in causal attributions for success and failure. Several revisions of attribution theory are suggested in order to extend the theory to include corollaries concerning sex-role norms. The concept of sex-role consistency is employed as a basis for understanding how sex-role norms affect causal attributions. In addition, gender-related attainment values are hypothesized to affect causal attributions via differential salience and functioning of outcomes. Finally, the analysis is applied to an additional area of achievement-related behavior, gender differences in reward allocation norm choice.