Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

To test directly cognitive and motivational explanations of self-serving biases in the field, 141 male and 116 female alpine ski racers provided attributions for their performance in competitions varying in rank on a 5-level hierarchy developed by the United States Ski Association. This hierarchy, which reflects the importance of races, functioned as a naturally-occurring manipulation of ego-involvement. Results supported the cognitive rather than the motivational explanation of divergent attributions for success versus failure. Racers made more internal attributions (to ability and effort) when they did well rather than poorly, but their ego-involvement in the race had no effects on their attributions. Consistent with previous field research, external attributions (to task difficulty and luck) were not affected by performance outcome.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Arkin, R. M. , & Maruyama, G. M. (1979). Attribution, affect, and college exam performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 71, 85-93.

Bradley, G. W. (1978). Self-serving biases in the attribution process: A reexamination of the fact or fiction question. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 56-71.

Forsyth, D. R. , & Schlenker, B. R. (1977). Attributional egocentrism following performance of a competitive task. Journal of Social Psychology, 102, 215-222.

House, W. C. (1980). Effects of knowledge that attributions will be observed by others. Journal of Research in Personality, 14, 528-545.

Iso-Ahola, S. (1977). Immediate attributional effects of success and failure in the field: Testing some laboratory hypotheses. European Journal of Social Psychology, 7, 275-296.

Lau, R. R. , & Russell, D. (1980). Attributions in the sports pages. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 39, 29-38.

Miller, D. T. (1976). Ego involvement and attributions for success and failure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 901-906.

Miller, D. T. , & Ross, M. (1975). Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality: Fact or fiction? Psychological Bulletin, 82, 213-225.

Riess, M. , Rosenfeld, P. , Melburg, V. , & Tedeschi, J. T. (1981). Self-serving attributions: Biases private perceptions and distorted public descriptions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 224-231.

10.

Scanlan, T. K. , & Passer, M. W. (1980a). The attributional responses of young female athletes after winning, tying, and losing. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 51, 675-684.

11.

Scanlan, T. K. , & Passer, M. W. (1980b). Self-serving biases in the competitive sport setting: An attributional dilemma. Journal of Sport Psychology, 2, 124-136.

12.

Simon, J. G. , & Feather, N. T. (1973). Causal attributions for success and failure at university examinations. Journal of Educational Psychology, 64, 46-56.

13.

Tetlock, P. E. , & Levi, A. (1982). Attribution bias: On the inconclusiveness of the cognitive-motivation debate. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 18, 68-88.

14.

Weiner, B. (1980). Human Motivation. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.

15.

Wortman, C. B. (1976). Causal attributions and personal control. In J. H. Harvey , W. J. Ickes , & R. F. Kidd (Eds.), New directions in attribution research (Vol. 1). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Ego-Involvement and Attributions for Success and Failure in a Field Setting

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References