This study explored the convergence between attributional egotism and felt injustice, and the consequences of these two constructs on subsequent reward allocations. Drawing from the work of Crosby (1984), Heider (1958), and Snyder, Stephan and Rosenfield (1978), it was contended that individuals who felt that they are victims of injustice use causal inferences similar to those characteristically employed for ego defense. This hypothesis was evaluated in an experimental paradigm which induced feelings of injustice and attributional egotism.
Undergraduate participants (N=153) were provided with one of three descriptions of an experimental task. They were told that the task was used to assess the cognitive abilities of high school sophomores (a low prestige referent), college juniors (a high prestige referent), or merely that it was a standardized achievement test (control). Following this expectancy manipulation, subjects were given implicit success or failure feedback by being given an easy or difficult 30-minute task. When the 30-minutes had elapsed, subjects were asked to imagine that they were to provide feedback in the form of rewards to hypothetical students who had completed the same test the subject had just taken. Following the reward allocation exercise, subjects provided causal accounts for their performance and responded to a number of measures designed to assess their perceptions of the test and self-affect.
Analyses revealed that the manipulations were successful, but that the attributional egotism and deprivation induction were of modest magnitude. Allocation policies across the six different conditions varied, in some cases supporting predictions, in others not. These findings support the contention that attributional defensiveness and deprivation are similar, but surprisingly show that enhancement biases and relative gratification can operate simultaneously. Discussion centered on the explanation of these findings and the implications for future research in this area. / Master of Science
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/88588 |
| Date | January 1984 |
| Creators | Villanova, Peter Danial |
| Contributors | Psychology |
| Publisher | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Text |
| Format | vi, 144 leaves, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
| Relation | OCLC# 11546799 |
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