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Selective impact of reattribution of failure instructions on task performance
Author(s) -
Brewin Chris R.,
Shapiro David A.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
british journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.855
H-Index - 98
eISSN - 2044-8309
pISSN - 0144-6665
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1985.tb00658.x
Subject(s) - attribution , learned helplessness , debriefing , psychology , task (project management) , generalization , social psychology , test (biology) , cognitive psychology , mathematical analysis , paleontology , mathematics , management , economics , biology
In an experiment designed to test the attributional reformulation of learned helplessness theory, the relationship between subjects' attributions for failure on an experimental task and their subsequent performance on a test task was investigated. Following debriefing, in which an external and specific cause of the original failure was supplied, it was expected that the greatest improvement in performance would be shown by subjects who had made internal and global attributions for failure. The results indicated that attributions for failure along the global/specific dimension predicted generalization of helplessness to the test task and that debriefing selectively aided subjects making internal/stable and internal/global attributions. The importance of these results for attribution therapies is discussed.