Self-Esteem and Group Performance as Determinants of Egocentric Perceptions in Cooperative Groups

Abstract

Forty-eight male subjects who had previously completed Berger's selfacceptance (self-esteem) scale worked on problem-solving tasks in four person groups. After completion of the tasks, bogus feedback was provided which indicated that the group as a whole had done very well, very poorly, or average. No feedback was provided about the quality of individual performances. As predicted, perceptions of personal responsibility for the group's performance were found to be directly related to the quality of the bogus feedback; subjects in the success conditions felt more responsible than did subjects in the failure conditions, with the average feedback conditions falling intermediate. Contrary to predictions, self-esteem was not related to perceptions of personal or environmental responsibility for the group's performance. However, an interaction was obtained between selfesteem and group performance feedback on how much subjects felt that their prior behaviors were influenced by the other group members. High self-esteem subjects felt that their solutions to the problems were not influenced by the other group members under success conditions, but that their solutions were influenced by the other group members under failure conditions. Thus, high self-esteem subjects managed to shift relative credit for a group success to themselves and relative blame for failure away from themselves. Low self-esteem subjects felt equally influenced in all conditions. The results extend the phenomenon of egocentric perception to face-to-face group situations, and several differences between the present results and results obtained in noninteracting group situations were noted.

Group performance and interpersonal evaluations as determinants of egotistical attributions in groups1

“…As in earlier studies (Schlenker & Miller, 1977a,b;Schlenker et al, 1976), group performance influenced subjects' perceptions of the accuracy of the measure of group performance, F( 1,84) =; 18.3, p < .001, and the amount of agreement existing within the group with regard to the decision problems, F( 1,84) = 12.9, p < .001. Subjects believed that the measure was more accurate and that more agreement had existed when the group succeeded rather than failed.…”

“…The female experimenter gave the subjects an instruction sheet which explained the events to follow, answered questions, and then distributed two decision problems for the subjects to consider individually. The problems were closely modeled after those used in previous studies (Schlenker & Miller, 1977b;Schlenker et al, 1976) and generally elicited a wide range of opinions from the subjects. One problem described the case of George, a kindly but incompetent employee who was doing his company more harm than good.…”

The Directness and Oppositional Intensity of Conflict Expression

“…For example, in some Eastern cultures it is common to involve a third party as a way to indicate one's intention to resolve the conflict and preserve the other party's face (Schlenker, Soraci, & McCarthy, 1976). For example, in some Eastern cultures it is common to involve a third party as a way to indicate one's intention to resolve the conflict and preserve the other party's face (Schlenker, Soraci, & McCarthy, 1976).…”

Attribution of success and failure revisited, or: The motivational bias is alive and well in attribution theory

“…More recent studies argue against the above conclusions. All of these included a neutral outcome condition in which subjects either did not receive information about their performance outcomes (Fitch, 1970;Larson, 1977) or received information that their performance was average (Kuiper, 1978;Lefcourt et al, 1975;Schlenker, 1975;Schlenker & MiUer, 1977a;Schlenker et al, 1976;Wolosin et al, 1973). The studies by Fitch (1970), Kuiper (1978) and the first experiment by Wolosin et al (1973) showed only self-enhancing effects; that is, in comparison to a neutral outcome condition, subjects made more internal attributions under success but did not make more external attributions under failure.…”