Controversies or consistencies? A reply to Brown and Weiner.

Abstract

In the preceding article, Brown and Weiner identified several presumed controversies concerning the affective consequences of effort and ability ascriptions in success and failure. In this rejoinder, we attempt to resolve areas of apparent conflict and to offer a broad synthesis around the self-worth theory of achievement motivation. Attribution and self-worth theories focus on different yet compatible aspects of achievement affect. The former theory focuses on the moral-like (guilt) consequences of not trying, and the latter attends to ability-mediated affect (shame and humiliation). It is demonstrated that although effort expenditure reduces feelings of guilt, it also triggers incompetency-linked affect via ability demotion. Thus for students, effort becomes a double-edged sword: Although high effort may reduce the negative affect association with noncompliance to a work ethic, it also implies that the cause of failure is low ability, a realization that leads to shame and humiliation. This dynamic underscores the need for students to establish and balance an image of competency and diligence as competing sources of approval and worth. Different aspects of this coping process are accentuated depending on which role-playing methodology is used. When subjects infer ability from the circumstances of failure, the defensive aspects of effort manipulation are illuminated. When ability level is assumed by subjects, either high or low, the role of effort as a moral component of worth is emphasized.

The Comparative Effects of Strategy and Effort Attributions

“…It is worth noting, however, that McNabb (1983) in a recent study also found a trend which indicated teachers judge student affect but not future performance to be more positive under effort in contrast to strategy attributions. The controversies on the affective consequences of effort and ability Covington and Omelich, 1984;Weiner and Brown, 1984) may be further complicated by the addition of strategy attributions. In any event, it would seem that affect has been and will continue to be more difficult to predict from attributions than are future performance expectations or attitude.…”

Shame and guilt in children: Differential situational antecedents and experiential correlates

“…A lack of ability has been recognized repeatedly as eliciting shame (Covington & Omelich, 1984;Weiner, 1985). In sum, any behaviour that leads people to think that they have behaved incompetently or incoherently and that important other persons might consider them to be incompetent or incoherent provokes shame.…”

Conceptions différenciées et non différenciées de la compétence et de l'effort en fonction de l'âge: conséquences sur les affects et sur les stratégies d'auto‐handicap

“…Bien que les rtsultats ci-dessus ne permettent pas de resoudre la controverse concernant les liens qui existent entre les attributions causales et les affects, il semble toutefois que ces liens ne soient pas aussi intangibles qu'on a pu le considerer initialement (Brown & Weiner, 1984;Covington & Omelich, 1984;Nicholls, 1976). Ainsi, une information de competence mene-t-elle chez les adolescents a une inference d'effort eleve et de faible culpabilite lorsque la comprehension d'un texte constitue la finalite d'un apprentissage, alors qu'une information d'incompetence conduit a une inference d'effort faible et de forte culpabilite.…”

“…Dans les conditions d'implication de l'Ego, comme une perception de competence elevee mene a une inference d'effort faible, les sujets rapportent a la fois des sentiments de fierte et de culpabilite. A I'inverse, et dans les mCmes conditions d'implication de l'Ego, une perception de competence faible mene a une inference d'effort eleve et s'associe respectivement a des sentiments d'embarras et de moindre culpabilite (Covington & Omelich, 1984;Jagacinski & Nicholls, 1984). Le second objectif du present travail consiste donc a vkrifier dans des situations reelles (i.e.…”