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Do causal attributions serve the need to protect and / or enhance self-esteem? In a recent review. Miller and Ross (1975) proposed that there is evidence for self-serving effect in the attribution of success but not in the attribution of failure; and that this effect reflects biases in information-processing rather than self-esteem maintenance. The present review indicated that self-serving effects for both success and failure are obtained in most but not all experimental paradigms. Processes which may suppress or even reverse the self-serving effect were discussed. Most important, the examination of research in which selfserving effects are obtained suggested that these attributions are better understood in motivational than in information-processing terms.According to Heider's (1958) "naive analysis of action" model, attributions of causality are influenced by subjective needs and wishes as well as by the more objective evidence. The literature on attribution of success and failiu-e (e.g., Bradley, 1978; Hastorf, Schneider, & Polefka, 1970;Snyder, Stephan, & Rosenfield, 1978) labelled the effects of needs and wishes on attribution as defensive, egocentric, egotistic, or self-serving. Specifically, it was suggested that people attempt to enhance or protect their selfesteem by taking credit for success and denying responsibility for failure. The notion that internal attribution of success and external attribution of failure are self-serving was supported by NichoUs (1975) and Riemer (1975) who showed that such attributions are related to more positive affective states.

Yoked pairs of subjects solved puzzles such that one member of each pair was given choice about what puzzles to work on and how much time to allot to each, while the yoked subject was assigned the same puzzles and time allotments as those chosen by the first subject. It was predicted and found that subjects who chose the activities and time allotments -in other words, who had additional self-determination--would be more intrinsically motivated than subjects doing the same activity without choice.

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Self-handicappers erect impediments to performance to protect their self-esteem. The impediments may interfere with the ability to do well and, as such, may result in poor adjustment. Using a longitudinal design, the present studies examined prospective effects of self-handicapping on coping, academic performance, and several adjustment-related variables (e.g., self-esteem). It was found that, compared to low self-handicappers, high self-handicappers reported higher usage of coping strategies implying withdrawal and negative focus. High self-handicappers performed less well academically, an effect that was mediated in part by poor study habits. Finally, high self-handicapping resulted in poorer adjustment over time, and poorer adjustment resulted in higher self-handicapping over time. These relations are consistent with the idea of a vicious cycle in which self-handicapping and poor adjustment reinforce one another.

In this experiment, we examined the relation between content of praise, type of involvement, and intrinsic motivation. College students were introduced to a hidden-figure task in either an ego-involving (i.e., testlike) or task-involving (i.e., gamclike) manner and then received either ability-focused, effort-focused, or no praise for their performance. As predicted, task involvement increased intrinsic motivation relative to ego involvement, and ability praise increased intrinsic motivation relative to effort praise or no praise. Furthermore, praise and involvement interacted so that subjects who received effort praise were relatively more intrinsically motivated under task-involving than ego-involving conditions, whereas those who received ability praise were relatively more motivated under ego-involving than task-involving conditions. Also, the higher levels of intrinsic motivation were accompanied by a choice of higher level of challenge and better performance at a related but more complex task. Finally, a significant Sex X Praise interaction was found, reflecting that women tended to display more intrinsic motivation in the no-praise condition than in the two praise conditions, whereas men showed the reverse pattern.Cognitive evaluation theory proposes that intrinsic motivation is based on people's needs to be self-determining and competent (Deci & Ryan, 1980. This general perspective gives rise to two more specific predictions: (a) External events that diminish feelings of self-determination (e.g., monetary rewards, surveillance, evaluation, etc.) will undermine intrinsic motivation, and (b) competence feedback delivered within a context of perceived self-determination will enhance intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985). The latter prediction has been examined in over two dozen studies, each assessing the effects of competence feedback (usually delivered in the form of verbal praise) relative to some control condition. More specifically, four kinds of comparisons have been conducted: (a) positive feedback versus no feedback, (b) positive feedback versus feedback that indicates average or below-average performance, (c) positive feedback versus other types of rewards, and (d) positive feedback presented in an informational versus controlling manner, where informational is defined as providing effectance-relevant information in the context of perceived autonomy and con-trolling^ denned as inducing a pressure toward a specified outcome (Deci & Ryan, 1985).As regards the positive-feedback versus no-feedback comparison, several studies with college students have demonstrated that positive feedback leads to greater intrinsic motivation than

The analysis of self-other data for the study of person perception accuracy is illustrated and discussed. Length of acquaintance, length of cohabitation, and trait empathy were investigated for their moderating effects on person perception accuracy, defined as the level of self-other agreement. Self-other agreement was computed four ways. A trait-by-trait analysis was performed twice, first using the moderator variable to form subgroups from which self-other correlations within each trait were computed and then using the moderator as a continuous variable in a series of moderated multiple regressions. Next, a profile analysis was performed that isolated two accuracy components, implicit profile accuracy and ideographic accuracy, which were conceptually similar to Cronbach's stereotype accuracy and differential accuracy components. The analyses, taken together, provided a componential and informative (if not comprehensive) analysis regarding accuracy as it is manifest in self-peer agreement data. Sex and cohabitation length moderated accuracy whereas acquaintance length and trait empathy did not.

Self‐determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1987, 1991) proposes that internalization can be facilitated by supporting a person's autonomy. Autonomy support can be achieved using 3 means: giving a rationale for doing a task, offering some choice about how to do the task, and acknowledging feelings about the task. We examined the effects of these 3 factors on acceptance of change in a work organization. Employees from a large Canadian telecommunications company that was in the midst of profound transformation completed scales on 2 separate occasions. Cross‐sectional and longitudinal results demonstrated that the 3 factors facilitated acceptance of organizational change, with substantial effect sizes. Implications for successful organizational transformation are discussed.