Effects of Actor's and Observer's Roles on Causal Attributions by Japanese Subjects for Success and Failure in Competitive Situations

Abstract

To examine differences between actors and observers for causal attribution for success and failure under competitive situation, 72 male and 72 female students were administered three kinds of mental tasks. Subjects were asked to rate the extent to which they attribute their own (actor role) and opponent's (observer role) outcomes to four causes, ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. According to the notion of self-serving bias or egotism in attribution, actors attribute success to internal factors and failure to external factors. The winning actors attributed success to luck, while the losing actors attributed failure to ability or internal factors. These findings indicated no self-serving bias but rather showed a reverse trend. In contrast, the losing opponent-observers attributed actor's success more to internal factors, while the winning opponent-observers attributed actor's failure more to luck. The cross-cultural influences in achievement motivation were discussed for these attributional tendencies.