The phenomena of expectancy shifts has been examined and discussed in the psychology literature for the past twenty years. Expectancy shifts are defined as changes in subjects' expectancies to succeed in response to success and failure experiences. The causal stability, expectancy confidence, and judgment of control hypotheses are three different explanations about subjects' expectancy shifts. The causal stability explanation contends that expectancy shifts are mediated by the relative stability of the attribution that a subject makes about their performance on that task (Weiner, Nirenberg, & Goldstein, 1976). The expectancy confidence model suggests that expectancy shifts are inversely related to the subject's confidence that their expectancy of success ratings are accurate (Wollert, 1977). The judgment of control explanation hypothesizes that subjects' judgments of control mediate their expectancy shifts (Pasahow, Note 1). Drawing on the evidence indicating that depressives, as compared to nondepressives, are more accurate in ascertaining the objective nature of response-outcome contingencies (Alloy & Abramson, 1979), the judgment of control hypothesis contends that the small expectancy shifts manifested by depressives on ostensibly skill determined, but objectively uncontrollable tasks are due to these subjects' greater ability to detect response-outcome contingencies. / To test the predictions of these three explanations of expectancy shifts, nondepressed and depressed college students were exposed to an ostensibly skill determined task which was objectively uncontrollable. Subjects were exposed to one of two payment conditions. For the first payment condition, subjects were given money to start with, and gained and lost money for success and failure trials, respectively. In the second payment condition, subjects started out with no money and gained money for success trials, but did not lose money for failure trials. / The results indicated that although the measure used to assess stable-unstable attributions was not highly reliable, subjects' attributions on this dimension were, as predicted by the causal stability hypothesis, found to be related to their expectancy shifts. Contrary to the predictions of the expectancy confidence model, depressed and nondepressed subjects did not exhibit different expectancy confidence, and expectancy confidence was not found to be related to expectancy shifts. In contrast, consistent with the predictions of the judgment of control hypothesis, subjects' judgments of control were related to their expectancy shifts. In addition, as compared to the judgments of control reported by depressed subjects, nondepressed subjects overestimated the amount of control that their responses exerted over task outcomes when half of the trials were associated with the acquisition of money. No differences existed between these subjects' judgments of control when money was won and lost for success and failed trials, respectively. Depressed subjects did not exhibit smaller expectancy shifts than nondepressed subjects. The manner in which task complexity may have influenced judgments of control and expectancy shifts, and accounted for these findings was discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-03, Section: B, page: 1186. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74450 |
| Contributors | PASAHOW, ROBERT JAY., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 76 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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