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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 11, No. 4, 369-378 (1985)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167285114003
© 1985 Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Causal Attributions

Effects of Self-Focused Attentiveness and Self-Esteem Feedback

Jerry L. Cohen

University of Rhode Island

Nancy Dowling

University of Rhode Island

Gregory Bishop

University of Rhode Island

William J. Maney

University of Rhode Island

The concept of objective self-awareness (Duval & Wicklund, 1973) has been found to affect the attributions regarding causality of an event. Another body of research has shown that attributions are affected by the need to protect or enhance one's self-esteem so that positive outcomes will be attributed internally and negative outcomes externally. The present research factorially combined these two factors (focus of attention and self-esteem) to ascertain their effects on the attribution process. The subjects, 119 undergraduates, were given feedback concerning their performance on a simulated intelligence test in the presence or absence of a mirror in the experimental room. After receiving the feedback, subjects were asked to respond to an attributional questionnaire assessing their perceptions of their performance as being caused by internal factors (effort, ability) or external factors (difficulty of questions, luck). Results indicated that the type of feedback (negative, none, or positive) interacted with the presence or absence of the mirror in affecting self-attributions of ability. This finding is discussed in terms of how the process of self-awareness may intensify the arousal of self-esteem.


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