Expectancy of reinforcement in chance and skill tasks under motor handicap

Walls, Richard T.; Cox, Janet

doi:10.1002/1097-4679(197110)27:4<436::aid-jclp2270270403>3.0.co;2-o

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…Thus, despite the fact that the number and sequence of successes were identical on each task, prior performances affected expectancies of future performances only when the outcomes were believed to have been determined internally (i.e., by skill). These findings have since been corroborated several times (Holden & Rotter, 1962;Miller & Seligman, 1973;Rotter, Liverant, & Crowne, 1961;Walls & Cox, 1971). …”

Section: Prior Success and Failuresupporting

confidence: 57%

Attention and Self-Regulation

Carver¹,

Scheier²

1981

1,960

359

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Preface "Seek simplicity and distrust it." Alfred North Whitehead "It will become all too clear that an ability to see patterns in behavior, an ability that some might feel proud of, can lead more easily to a wrong description than a right one." William T. PowersThe goal of the theorist-the scholar-is to take a collection of observations of the world, and perceive order in them. This process necessarily imposes an artificial simplicity upon those observations. That is, specific observations are weighed differently from each other whenever a theoretical account is abstracted from raw experiences. Some observed events are misunderstood or distorted, others are seen as representing random fluctuations and are ignored, and yet others are viewed as centrally important. This abstraction and oversimplification of reality is inevitable in theory construction. Moreover, the abstracted vision builds upon itself. That is, as a structure begins to emerge from continued observation, the structure itself guides the search for new information. The result is a construction that is more elaborate than what existed before, but it still is usually simpler than reality.It is important for scholars to believe in the value of their task, and in the general correctness of the vision that guides their work. This commitment, and the hope of progress that follows from it, make it possible to continue even when the work is difficult and slow. But there is a special danger here, a danger that should not be discounted. The theorist must always be reluctant to believe that the vision is complete, that it is wholly accurate. Simplification makes reality intelligible. But the appeal of simplicity can blind one to the evidence that reality provides. And it is still reality that we are trying to describe. No matter how pretty the picture, it is of no use unless it has a reasonably good fit with reality. These points are applicable to any field of scientific endeavor. But writing this book has made us particularly sensitive to their implications for the analysis of human behavior. The planning of this book began with a very simple goal. We were going to describe a research program in which we had been engaged, and discuss its relationship to closely related work that had been conducted by others. Very quickly, however, the project began to escape its initial boundaries. In effect, the picture that existed in our minds of how self-regulation works began to guide a search for new information. That new information led in tum to a more elaborated model of reality. The result of these changes in perspective is a volume that in viii Preface certain ways is considerably more ambitious in scope than was its original conception. From a relatively simple (and safe) research monograph, the book has evolved into a more complex (and riskier) statement about behavioral self-regulation in general: we are arguing, in fact, for the viability of a model of self-regulation that departs considerably from traditional models.In making this statement about self-regulati...

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Section: Prior Success and Failuresupporting

confidence: 57%