Theories of Personality 9th Edition

554 Part VI Learning-Cognitive Theories

both the situation and an individual’s expectancy for success were important. These

investigators first asked 8th-grade boys to rate their expectancies for success on

verbal reasoning and general information tasks. Later, after the students worked

on a series of problems, some were told that they had succeeded on those prob-

lems; some were informed that they had failed; and the third group received no

information. The boys were then asked to choose between an immediate, less

valuable, noncontingent reward and a delayed, more valuable, contingent reward.

Consistent with Mischel’s interaction theory, students who had been told that they

had succeeded on the earlier similar task were more likely to wait for the more

valued reward that was contingent on their performance; those who were informed

that they had previously failed tended to choose an immediate, less valuable

reward; and those who had received no earlier feedback made choices based on

their original expectancies for success; that is, students in the no-information group

who originally had high expectancies for success made choices similar to those

who believed that they were successful, whereas those who originally had low

expectancies for success made choices similar to those who believed that they had

failed. Figure 18.2 shows how situational feedback interacts with expectancy for

success to influence choice of rewards.

Mischel and his associates have also shown that children can use their cog-

nitive processes to change a difficult situation into an easier one. For example,

Mischel and Ebbe B. Ebbesen (1970) found that some children were able to use

their cognitive ability to change an unpleasant wait for a treat into a more pleasant

situation. In this delay-of-gratification study, nursery school children were told that

they would receive a small reward after a short period of time, but a larger treat

if they could wait longer. Children who thought about the treat had difficulty wait-

ing, whereas children who were able to wait the longest used a variety of self-

distractions to avoid thinking about the reward. They looked away from the treat,

closed their eyes, or sang songs in order to change the aversive waiting situation

into a more pleasant one. These and other research results led Mischel to conclude

that both the situation and various cognitive-affective components of personality

play a role in determining behavior.

Made choices based on

earlier expectancy

for success

Chose less valuable

noncontingent rewards

Chose more valuable

contingent rewards

Obtained failure No information

Everyone works on a series of problems

Everyone measured for expectancy for success

Obtained success

FIGURE 18.2 Model used by Mischel and Staub (1965).