Chapter 10 page 199
Now suppose that the student fails a test. What could the student attribute failure to?
--general lack of ability (i.e., low IQ)
--lack of knowledge (i.e., I just don’t know about history)
--lack of strategies (i.e., I don’t know the best way to study for the test)
--lack of effort (i.e., I didn’t have time to study for this exam.)
--luck
--hard or unfair test
--teacher has it out for me
Crucially for attribution theory, some of these potential causes for success and failure are
controllable, and others are not. For example, general ability is not controllable: You’re either smart or
you’re not. Effort is controllable. Luck is not controllable. Strategies may be controllable (e.g., “I could
learn better study strategies”).
If a student attributes failure to lack of ability, then the student will have little motivation to engage
in academic tasks. (“If I try hard and fail, then everyone will know that I’m stupid.”) On the contrary,
students who attribute failure to a lack of ability will take pains to avoid making effort. (“Hey, it’s not that
I’m stupid. I failed the test because I didn’t study at all. If I had studied, I’m sure I would have done
well.”) Notice that for American students, at least, it seems to be more shameful to be seen as lacking
ability than to be seen as lacking effort!
If a student attributes failure to lack of knowledge, lack of strategies, or lack of effort, then the
student will not come away feeling stupid. (“I could have gotten an A if I had studied harder, or if I had
asked Ms. Smith to help me work out a better study method.”) So these students will be motivated to try
harder next time..
Notice a very important point: If students believe that intelligence is fixed, that their performance
is locked in by an unchangeable intelligence, then they will not be motivated to try to achieve success.
According to attribution theory, some students are motivated to avoid failure, and other students
are motivated to strive for success.
The following causal processes apply to students who are motivated to avoid failure:
failure + attributed to low ability --> shame + pessimism --> poor performance next time
success + attributed to luck + low ability --> little pride + pessimism --> poor performance next time.
These causal processes apply to students to are motivated to strive for success:
failure + attributed to high ability + low effort --> guilt + optimism --> better performance next time
success + attributed to high ability + high effort --> pride + optimism --> even better performance next time.
Now consider what happens to a student who fails. It is embarrassing and shameful to fail.
Students want to avoid being embarrassed and ashamed. The student wants to hide the fact that she/he has
failed because of lack of ability. So the student makes a big show of not making any effort. The student
intentionally makes no effort in order to make it seem as if poor performance is really due to lack of effort
rather than to lack of ability. The student makes no effort on purpose so that she/he can blame failure on
lack of effort. Really, the student fears that even if she/he made a lot of effort, she/he wouldn’t succeed.