Effort: The double-edged sword in school achievement.

Abstract

Self-worth theory suggests that teachers and students often operate at crosspurposes: Teachers encourage achievement through effort, yet many students attempt to avoid the implication that they lack ability by not trying. To test these assertions undergraduates rated their affective reactions to hypothetical test failures under conditions of high or low effort and in the presence or absence of self-serving excuses. Then, in the role of teachers, they administered punishment to hypothetical students under the same failure conditions. Results indicated that inability attributions and negative affect were greatest when failure followed much effort. Conversely, failure reflected less on ability, and shame was correspondingly reduced when students studied little-the same failure condition that subjects, in the role of teachers, punished most severely.

Self-handicapping, excuse making, and counterfactual thinking: Consequences for self-esteem and future motivation.

“…Sherman and McConnell (1995) that self-handicapping should increase upward counterfactual thinking. Rather than leading to affective contrast effects, upward counterfactual thoughts identifying an unstable factor in the form of a self-handicap excused poor performance and therefore protected self-esteem (see also Covington & Omelich, 1979;Weiner, 1985).…”

“…The consequences of upward counterfactuals identifying a selfhandicap for self-esteem and subsequent motivation have thus far been explained with reference to classic models of attribution (Covington & Omelich, 1979;Weiner, 1985), as well as past findings in the self-handicapping literature (McCrea & Hirt, 2001;Rhodewalt et al, 1991) that have proposed that attributing a poor performance to an unstable cause (such as a self-handicap) serves to protect self-esteem. To test this explanation more directly, in Study 4, I manipulated whether participants were exposed to upward counterfactuals suggesting that either a self-handicap (i.e., an unstable factor) or a lack of ability (i.e., a stable factor) was to blame for a poor math performance.…”

“…Thus, counterfactuals are particularly likely to excuse failure when the thought identifies a salient self-handicap. In attribution terms, counterfactuals that identify unstable factors as having prevented a better performance should serve to protect self-esteem following failure (see also Covington & Omelich, 1979;Weiner, 1985).…”

“…Failures lead to lower self-esteem when attributed to internal stable causes, such as ability, than when attributed to external or unstable causes, such as low effort or task difficulty (Covington & Omelich, 1979;McFarland & Ross, 1982;Weiner, 1985). Research on counterfactual thinking has shown that there are also close links between these thoughts and causal judgments, particularly blame assignment, although they do not completely overlap with attribution processes (Branscombe, Wohl, Owen, Allison, & NЈGbala, 2003;Creyer & Guerhan, 1997;Mandel, 2003;Mandel & Lehman, 1996;Wells & Gavanski, 1989).…”

“…It is therefore likely that the ramifications of counterfactual thoughts for blame and responsibility should influence subsequent affect and self-esteem, independent of attribution processes. Counterfactual thoughts blaming low ability for a poor performance are likely to result in decreased self-esteem, relative to counterfactuals placing blame on more unstable factors (see also Covington & Omelich, 1979;Weiner, 1985).…”