Developmental trends in cue utilization for attributional judgements

JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 1, 83-94 (1980)

Developmental Trends

in Cue Utilization

for Attributional Judgments*

IRENE HANSON FRIEZE

University of Pittsburgh

AND

DANIEL BAR-TAL

Tel-Aviv University

Fourth through twelfth graders of both sexes were tested for developmental

trends in making causal attributions for success and failure and in using past

history, social comparison, and importance information in making their attribu-

tional judgments. Results suggested that basic information processing rules hod

already developed by the fourth grade but that children continue to develop and

become more consistent in applying these rules. Sex differences indicated that

girls were more defensive generally in not taking responsibility for their outcomes

by attributing them externally.

Although a good deal of research has been conducted with adults to better understand their attributions or beliefs about the causes of success and failure, this work is only now being fully extended to children. Research with adults has suggested that understanding how people perceive or make attributions about the causes of their successes and failures has important implications for understanding their achievement-oriented behavior. People do differ in their causal attributions for succes and failure, and the attributions made by adults in a particular achievement situation have been shown to affect both expectancies for how well one will do in the future (cognitive reactions) and one’s feelings of pride and

*The authors would like to thank Diane Ruble for her helpful comments on an earlier version

of this manuscript and Yaffa Bar-Tal for serving as an experimenter in the study. Requests for reprints should be sent to Irene Hanson Frieze, Learning Research and Development Center, Univer- sity of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260.

83

84 FRIEZE AND BAR-TAL

shame (affective reactions) (Weiner, Frieze, Kukla, Reed, Rest, & Rosenbaum,

1971). The cognitive and affective reactions in turn determine future achievement behavior (Bar-Tal, 1978; Weiner, 1974).

The specific causal attributions made by a person in a particular situation depend upon two factors: (1) the personal tendencies of the person to make certain attributions more than others; and (2) the available information about the situation and the people present or acting upon the situation. While research has demonstrated that adulrs show clear patterns of using certain informational cues in making attributional judgments (Frieze, 1973: Frieze & Weiner, 1971), few studies have investigated the use of information in the attribution process among children. The present paper analyzes the effect of the available information upon causal attributions of children.

Before one can fully understand how children use information to make causal judgments, one must first have confidence that children use the same causal explanations for success and failure as adults. Potentially, there are a number of factors which a person might perceive as causes of an achievement outcome. For example, a person might believe that a particular success was caused by high ability, trying hard, good luck, the ease of the task, and/or the help of other people. Conversely, a person might attribute failure to low ability, not trying sufficiently hard, bad luck, being in a bad mood, the difficulty of the task, and/or the interference of other people (Elig & Frieze, 1975; Frieze, 1976a). Research with children has suggested that similar causal attributions are used by children to explain the causes of success and failure (e.g., Bar-Tal, 1977; Frieze & Snyder, 1977).

A number of studies with adults have been carried out to investigate the use of informational cues in making attributional judgments. These studies have showed that information about how one has performed in the past is used in making inferences about how much ability is a cause of the outcome; if the outcome is consistent with the past it is more attributed to ability while inconsistent outcomes are attributed to luck. Important events are attributed more to effort if one is successful and to lack of effort for failure at an unimportant event. Other’s outcomes give information used to make task ease or difficulty attributions (Frieze, 1973; Frieze, 1976b; Frieze & Weiner, 1971).

Although children do use the same types of causal explanations as adults (e.g., Ruble, Parsons, & Ross, 1976)) given the same information, they do not always make the same specific causal attribution as an adult would. One possible reason for this difference is that children utilize information differently from adults. Indeed, previous research has suggested that one of the major differences between the information processing of adults and children in making attributional judgments is in the inability of children to simultaneously use a variety of information cues; also, younger children tend to be less systematic in using information than older children and adults. For example, Ruble, Parsons, and Ross (1976) found that information about the performance levels of other chil-

CUE UTILIZATION FOR ATTRIBUTIONS 85

dren was used more by second graders than by younger children. The older children used this information to make judgments about the task difficulty, replicating adult data. Other studies which investigated how children use information about patterns of prior success to judge task difficulty obtained similar results (Ames & Ames, 1975; Shaklee, 1976). In addition, Zonana (1974) has specifically analyzed how information processing rules differ for older and younger children. She found that when given two informational cues about a situation,, younger children used only one of these to make judgments about the ability and effort of another child while fifth graders were able to use both cues.

The present study was designed to investigate developmental trends in cue utilization for attributional judgments. In order to do this, a paradigm previously developed for use with adult subjects was utilized (Frieze & Weiner, 197 1). This involved an analysis of variance technique which allowed for simultaneous pre- sentation of several information cues. On the basis of the above reviewed studies it is hypothesized that children would generally use rules similar to those of adults for utilizing information in making causal attributions; however, these rules were expected to develop as children matured and gained experience in making causal judgments. Thus, older children should show more systematic use of the various cues. Also, a number of researchers have suggested that younger children may be less able to use multiple cues in making judgments (e.g., Ruble et al., 1976). Thus, it was further predicted that younger children would use a smaller set of informational cues although we could not predict which specific cues would be utilized.

Along with developmental differences found in responses to particular information cues, previous research has also demonstrated that children react differently to success and failures depending upon their ages. Older children show greater differentiation in the affect associated with success or failure both in terms of self ratings and nonverbal indicators of affect. Also, older children are more responsive to failure in lowering their expectations (Ruble, Parsons, & Ross, 1976). Such trends were also predicted in the present study.

Sex differences in the causal attribution categories used by various age groups of subjects were also expected. A number of studies have reported some differences in the categories of causes used by women as compared with men in explaining their successes and failures. Although the data are sometimes con- tradictory, women appear to make attributions which result in their feeling less pride and more shame and which produce low expectations for future success (Frieze et al., 1978). Several studies have shown women to rely more than men upon luck as a causal explanation for both success and failure (e.g., Bar-Tal & Frieze, 1977; Simon & Feather, 1973). McMahan (197 1) and Frieze (1973) found a trend for women to be less likely than men to attribute successful events to their own abilities. This tendency corresponds with the generally lower expectancies and estimates of their abilities which have been reported by females of all ages (Crandall, 1969; Frieze et al., 1978). Parsons, Ruble, Hodges, and


Small (1976) found that the lower expectancies of girls were found in children as young as 6%. Females who attribute their successes more to luck and less to their abilities would feel less pride in their successes and would have lower expectancies for continued success since luck is not only external but unstable. McMahan (1971) also notes that women were more likely than men to attribute failures to lack of ability, while Nicholls (1975) found a similar pattern for girls. It is hypothesized that these sex differences in causal attribution patterns will be most evident in older girls who have been exposed to a longer period of sex-role socialization than younger girls.

METHOD

Subjects

Subjects were 116 children from a Pittsburgh private school of predominantly white middle class students. The following whole classes of the school participated in the study: fourth grade (9 males and 11 females of ages %lO%), two sixth grade classes (15 males and 17 females of ages 1 l- 12), two eighth grade classes (13 males and 17 females of ages 12?& 14)) two tenth grade classes (18 males and 6 females of ages 15- 16)) and one twelfth grade class (6 males and 4 females of ages 17- 18).

Procedure

Each class participated separately in the study, and the testing situation was similar in each classroom. The instructions were given by a female experimenter who explained the purpose of the study and answered any questions which were raised during the session. Each child received an “Attributional Questionnaire ” with printed instructions which were read aloud. The instructions were as fol- lows:

We would like to know what you think about when you get high and low grades on

tests. For example, there are many reasons that boys and girls give when they get a

high grade. They might say it was because they were good in class or that they tried hard or they had good luck on the test. They might also say it was because the test was

easy or because they had a good teacher.

To ensure that each child understood the instructions, the children were first asked to judge why they might obtain a good grade or a bad grade on two practice trials. The children were presented with five possible causes: ability, effort, luck, test difficulty (task difficulty), and the teachers.’ Causal ratings

‘These causal categories were selected because of their frequency of occurrence in pilot data asking children why they felt success or failure occurred (ability, effort, test difficulty, and teacher)

and their use in previous research (luck).


were made on four-point Likert-type scale, ranging from not at all (1) to very much (4). In addition, the subjects were asked how they felt about how their success or failure and how they thought they would do on another similar testing in the future. The answers for these two questions were made on five-point Likert-type scales. After the children finished with the two practice trials, the experimenter asked them to respond to the experimental stimuli with the following instructions:

On the next pages, there are different things that could happen to you after taking a test. Because each one is a little different you might feel the reason for your grade is different. Or you may feel that the reasons are the same. Think about each new

situation and decide why it happened. As you did on the samples on these two pages,

circle one number for each of the reasons given. Do every page. Each one is a little bit

different from the others.

A special precaution was taken to ensure that all the children would understand the instructions. The experimenter repeated the instructions and ap- proached children who had difficulty to understand the questionnaire. The subjects received descriptions of 16 different situations which varied on four vari- ables: performance on a test (high grade or low grade), past performance on past tests (very good or very poor), importance of the test (important or not important), and others ’ performance on the test (did well or did poorly). Thus, there were 16 possible combinations of information (2 x 2 x 2 x 2). The order of the situations was presented in a random order which changed from subject to subject. Information was always presented in the same order to avoid confusion. A sample situation was

You got a high grade on a test in this class.

You have done very poorly on past tests in this class.

The test was not important to you.

Everyone else did well on the test.

Following each description, the subject was instructed to make attributions for the outcome to each of the five causes on a I- to 4-point scale (Not at all a factor to Very much a factor) and to answer two questions about affect and expectancy as described previously in the practice trials.

RESULTS

Data were analyzed by 5 x 2 x (2 x 2 x 2 x 2) analysis of variance. The between-subject factors were grade level and sex of subject, while the within- subject factors were outcome, past history, importance, and social norms. With this complex design, there were many higher level interactions which are dif-


TABLE 1

Analysis of Variance Summory-

F Values for Information Processing Effects” 2

Roting

Effects Ability Effort Luck Tosk Teacher Affect Expectancy

Main Effecfs:

Outcome (C) 115.49*** 64.a4*** 1.87 16.06*** 24.76*** 430.47*** 170.58***

Past (D) 6.96** 0.04 0.90*** 0.18 0.01 0.63 58.66***

Importance (E) 7.29** 21.40*** 0.86 0.12 8.05** 0.19 4.26’

Norms (F) 0.94 0.34 0.00 0.02 0.20 14.20*** 1.20

Outcome X Info:

CD 69.60*** 7.41** 4.89* 10.35** 51.3e*** 2.11 3.61

CE 1.18 24.91*** 0.09 22.04*** 0.14 43.41*** 0.00

CF 3.25 3.73 9.51** 31.07*** 8.13** 3.55 1.42

‘Because of the complexity of this data, only a partial list of the interactions is presented. 2* - - p < .05; ** = p < .Ol; l ** = p < .OOl.

ficult to interpret. Results for grade level and sex effects are summarized in Table 2 while Table 1 summarizes general information utilization effects. Results generally replicated adult data with the addition of a variety of age and sex effects.

Outcome

Outcome effects replicated earlier studies. Ability, effort, and the teacher were seen as more important causes of success than failure while the task difficulty was seen as more a cause of failure than success (ps all < ,001). Affect and expectancy ratings were also higher after success than failure @s < .OOl).

Information Utilization

Analysis of variance results for cue utilization (Table 1) showed that in general children utilized information in much the same way as adults in making causal judgments. Averaging over all age and sex groups, by looking at the interaction of outcome by past history (CD), outcomes consistent with past outcomes were relatively more attributed to the stable factors of ability 0, < .OOl) and the task @ < .Ol) than inconsistent outcomes, while inconsistent outcomes were more attributed to effort (p < .Ol) and luck (p < .05) than consistent outcomes. Thus, if the child had done well in the past and once again did well (consistent outcome), he was likely to perceive that his success was due to his high ability or task ease. If he had done well before but poorly this time (inconsistent outcome), he attributed the failure to lack of effort or bad luck.

There was also a main effect for past history information such that children


who had performed better in the past rated themselves as having higher ability @ < .Ol) and those who had done poorly rated luck higher @ < .OOl) regardless of whether they succeeded or failed. Also, when the child had done well in the past, successes were more attributed to the teacher than failures (p < .OOl).

Information about the importance of the test was used by children both directly and in interaction with whether they succeeded or failed. Success and failure outcomes for more important tests were more attributed to ability (p < .Ol), effort (p < .OOl), and the teacher (p < .Ol). Also the Outcome x Impor- tance interaction (CE) indicated that success on‘important outcomes or failure for unimportant outcomes was more attributed to effort (p < .OOl) and less to the task (p < .OOl). Information about the successes or failures of other people on the exam was used for task, luck, and teacher attributions as is seen in the interaction of Outcome by Norm Information (CF). Outcomes similar to everyone else’s were attributed to the task (p < .OOl) or the teacher (p < .Ol), whereas those at variance with other people were relatively more attributed to luck (p < .Ol). Social norms were not utilized independently of outcome. Thus, how well others did was not used for judgments without taking the immediaate success or failure into consideration.

Information about the past was also utilized by children in making expectancy and affect judgments. When the child had done well in the past, he or she expected to do well in the future (p < .OOl) regardless of how he or she had just done (main effect for past history). If others had done poorly (main effect for norms), the child rated him/herself as feeling better about her own performance regardless of whether it was a success or failure @ < .OOl). Affect also was related to Outcome x Important interactions such that the child felt better after success and worse after failure if the test was important (p < .OOl).

Developmental Trends

As shown by Tables 2 and 3, there were no main effects for grade level but several interactions were significant. Looking first at the grade outcome interactions, it can be seen that younger children’s ratings of ability (p < .Ol) and effort (p < .05) were more influenced by the outcome. Thus, the younger the children, the more they tended to see ability and effort being a cause of success and lack of ability and lack of effort as a cause for failure. Also, younger children dif- ferentiated more between success and failure in attributing their performances to the teacher (p < .05). Thus, the younger children saw the teacher as more responsible for both success and failure than did older children. Older children blamed the task more for failure @ < .OOl). There was a general trend for younger children to feel better about success and less bad about failure, although the fourth graders reversed this trend (p < .05 for the interaction).

There were also some three-way interactions with grade by outcome by


TABLE 2

Analysis of Variance Summary TobId Values

For Age and Sex Effects

EfkdS Ability Effort Luck Task Teacher Affect Expectancy

Main Effects:

Grade level (A) 0.21

Sex (B) 1.25

Grade x Info’:

AB 1.06

AC 6.29**

AD 0.12

AE 1.50

AF 1.33

ABC 1.21

Gmde X Outcome X Info:

ACD B.99***

ACE 0.50

ACF 1.07

sex x Info:

BD 0.18

BE 3.91*

BF 0.93

Sex X Outcome X Info:

BCD 4.95*

BCE 1.94

BCF 0.24

ABCD 2.11

ABCE 1.24

ABCF 0.46

0.78 1.51

0.05 0.21

0.14 1.74

2.49’ 0.28

1.35 0.14

0.88 1.21

1.18 1.36

0.15 0.54

0.26 1.43 0.37

4.91* 0.12 0.46

0.85 1.35 0.53

5.12** 3.28’ 2.86*

0.31 0.70 1.32

0.48 0.90 1.00

0.47 0.23 2.59*

2.52* 1.08 0.09

2.33

0.05

0.76

0.97

3.37*

0.54

0.79

0.80

0.68 1.48

2.17 0.81

2.69* 0.80

0.34

1.29

1.96

2.87 0.23

0.22 0.35

1.42 1.47

1.23

0.16

0.04

0.00 0.16

0.00 1.79

6.92** 0.70

2.07 1.52

1.02 0.48

2.40 1.18

0.08 7.99*** 0.68

2.80* 1.44 5.09**

3.55** 2.56’ 0.68

7.23*** 0.34 1.18

3.50 0.00 0.12

5.45** 0.26 1.00

0.37 3.61 0.73

0.87 0.10 0.05

0.03 0.45 0.73

1.43 2.34 0.79

0.80 1.67 0.70

3.34” 2.74* 0.54

4.01*

0.12

0.12

0.99

1.65

0.44

‘Past history (D), Importance of the task (E), and Normative information about how others

performed (F) represent the three types of information combined with Grade (A), Sex (8). and Outcome

(C).

information. Looking first at the use of past history information, older children made more systematic use of past history information to make ability attributions 0) < ,001). Thus if they had done well in the past and succeeded again, or poorly and failed again, the older children attributed this more to ability than did younger children. Older children also made more use of normative information in deciding whether task ease or difficulty was responsible for success and failure (p < .Ol). When others performed as they did, the qlder children attributed this consistency to the task more than younger children did (ACF interaction).

TA

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Mea

n

Rat

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s fa

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ucc

ess

and

F

ailu

re

by

Gra

de

Lev

el’

Ab

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E

ffo

rt

Lu

ck

Tas

k T

each

er

Aff

ect

Suc

ce

ss/F

ailu

re

Su

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s/F

ailu

re

Su

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s/F

ailu

re

Su

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s/F

ailu

re

Su

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s/F

ailu

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Exp

ecta

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Su

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s/F

ailu

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Su

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s/F

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Ove

mll

3.05

2.

20

3.24

2.

47

2.56

2.

45

2.60

2.

94

2.90

2.

31

4.23

2.

08

4.23

3.

16

Gm

de

4 3.

39

1.82

3.

40

2.12

2.

58

2.57

2.

88

2.69

3.

25

2.03

4.

13

2.30

4.

27

Gm

de

6 3.

12

2.22

3.

41

2.49

.3

.13

2.60

2.

40

2.64

2.

87

3.00

2.

07

4.42

1.

81

4.35

3.

51

Gm

de

8 2.

91

2.27

3.

22

2.58

2.

25

2.19

2.

67

2.75

2.

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2.47

4.

39

1.94

4.

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3.13

Gm

de

10

2.87

2.

33

3.15

2.

60

2.54

2.

47

2.41

3.

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2.56

2.

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4.25

2.

10

4.23

3.

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Gm

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12

2.95

2.

36

3.03

2.

55

2.82

2.

64

2.39

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76

3.96

2.

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3.89

2.

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o 4

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sca

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Sex Differences

Sex differences in general were relatively minor. Girls more often than boys attributed their outcomes to the task (main effect for sex; p < .05). This was especially true when they had done well in the past (p < .Ol) and when everyone else did well too (p < .05) as shown in Table 4. Boys made the highest ratings for task attributions when others did poorly or they themselves had done poorly in the past. Girls were also more influenced by normative information in making effort attributions (BCF interaction; p < .Ol). A girl who succeeded when everyone else did also attributed this more to effort while boys made higher effort attributions when they succeeded when others did poorly. Girls also used information about their having done poorly in the past more than boys in rating themselves as having low ability when they failed (BCD interaction; p < .05). Girls had higher expectancies after success and lower ones after failure, especially when their past outcomes were consistent with their immediate outcome (BCD interaction; p < .05). Thus, girls’ expectancies were more influenced by the immediate success or failure they had just experienced than were boys (BF interaction; p < .Ol).

TABLE 4

Differential Use of Information by Males and Females in

Making Task Attributions

Type of Infommfion:

Did well in the post’

Did pcxrly in the post

Males Females

2.63 2.93

2.72 2.79

Others did well2 2.63 2.91

Others did poorly 2.72 2.81

‘Two way interaction of sex by past history @ < .Ol).

2Two way interaction of sex by norm information (p < .05).

DISCUSSION

The results of the present study indicate that children as young as fourth grade can meaningfully use a complex set of informational cues to make causal attributions. The data demonstrate that by the fourth grade children already are able to utilize information in ways very similar to adults. Apparently, children do not restructure or redefine the meaning of this information and, even in a complex judgment task, make reasonable ratings. However, a number of developmental trends were found in information utilization. Younger children were most strongly influenced by the information concerning whether they succeeded or


failed on a task in determining why they performed as they did. This was especially true for ability and effort attributions. This result is consistent with Weiner and Peter (1973) findings which indicated that young children tend to judge achievement and moral events more on the basis of their outcomes than older children. In addition, older children used information in more consistent ways than young children. The older children made more use of past history information and were more able to use information concerning others’ performance (social norms) than young children. These results further demonstrate that children become more proficient in information utilization as they get older. The present findings replicated the results of Ruble et al. (1976) and Shaklee (1976) which suggested that young children are less consistent in using information than older children.

Younger children were also found to attribute their outcomes to the teacher more than did older children. It is possible that young children perceive their teacher as a powerful figure who influences their own performance. Older children, on the other hand, may tend to externalize their failures by attributing them more to task difficulty than younger children. The present study thus provides further evidence for the idea that the ability to process information develops with age and that there are qualitative and quantitative differences in information utilization between younger and older children.

Sex differences found in this study are also interesting since they further demonstrate the debilitating cognitive patterns which have been found for girls and women in other studies (e.g., Frieze et al., 1978) and suggest that these differences begin at a young age. For the present study girls tended to have lower expectancies than boys after failure and to attribute consistent failures more to their low ability. Thus, girls would tend to be more debilitated by a failure experience and would be expected to give up easier. They were also more external in using task attributions more than were boys and thus might be expected to feel less person responsibility for their success and failures and perhaps to avoid achievement situations because of their lack of involvement in them.

The present study is of special interest for the understanding of the antece- dents of pupils’ attributions regarding their successes and failures in the classroom. The information provided to pupils regarding their outcome, past history, importance of the test, and consensus are important determinants of pupils’ attributions. This interest is important in view of the evidence that pupils’ attributions influence pupils’ achievement behaviors which in turn affect academic achievement (see Bar-Tal, 1979, for review).

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