The purpose of the present study was to examine the cognitive and behavioral consequences of manipulating causal attributions during interpersonal competition. Pairs of female undergraduates (N = 83) "competed" in a novel, best-four-out-of-seven dart tossing contest. The salient cause for success or failure in the contest was manipulated by providing either an ability-oriented or effort-oriented instructional set for the novel task. Competitive outcomes (constant success or failure) and margins of victory/defeat (consistently small or large) were also manipulated by providing false feedback about the results of four competitive trials. The dependent variables of primary interest were expectancies for success, the number of practice throws made prior to competition, and the quality of performance on the competitive throws. / The results of this investigation may be summarized as follows: (1) Expectancies for success were differentially affected by the two attributional orientations but in a manner only partially predicted from theory. Given losing outcomes, expectancies remained more intermediate with an effort orientation than with an ability orientation. Given winning outcomes, the expectancies of effort-oriented competitors tended to be less intermediate than those of ability-oriented competitors. (2) Practice behavior was not significantly affected by the attributional manipulation. However, a significant main effect for margin of victory/defeat indicated that subjects experiencing large outcome margins practiced more than those experiencing small outcome margins. In addition, a significant outcome x trials interaction indicated that winners practiced at a constant level across trials while losers decreased their level of practice across trials. (3) The quality of performance was not affected by the attributional manipulation. However, a significant outcome x margin x trials interaction was obtained. This interaction indicated that there was no difference in performance quality between winners and losers when the margin of victory/defeat was small. When the margin of victory/defeat was large, losers performed better than winners on trials 2 and 3. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-10, Section: B, page: 3409. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74961 |
| Contributors | GROVE, J. ROBERT, JR., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 140 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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