Ragports et discz~ssions

Childreri’s Reactions to Failure: Implications for Education

Frank D. Fincham* University of Illinois, U.S.A.

Research on children’s reactions to noncontingent outcomes or failure has focused on two response patterns (Dweck I% Goetz, 1978) l . Learned helpless (LH) children expend less effort and show impaired problem solving following failure, a response pattern accompa- nied by cognitions that imply an independence between behavior and outcome (e. g., view- ing failure as due to ability). In contrast, mastery oriented (MO) children show increased effort and stable or improved problem solving, together with cognitions that imply prior failures can be rectified (e. g., seeing failure as due to insufficient effort). The present paper critically examines the educational implications of several conclusions drawn from research on children’s reactions to failure and then identifies a number of directions for future research. Before doing so, however, it is necessary to re-examine two fundamental beliefs about LH and MO response patterns that appear to account for the significance accorded to them.

1 . Re-examination of two basic beliefs

It is important to know whether learned helplessness and mastery orientation are stable patterns of responding manifest across a variety of situations. Their significance would be greatly reduced if they do not display these characteristics, and their implications for educa- tion would he less compelling. Consequently data relating to the stable and global nature of the reponse patterns are examined below.

1-1 Stable individual differences The widespread reference to LH and MO children implies that the response patterns

represent stable individual differences. However, this viewpoint lacks a firm empirical foun- dation owing to the virtual absence of longitudinal research. To my knowledge, our labora- tory is the only one to address this issue2. Fincham, Diener and Hokoda (1987) showed

* This paper was written while the author was funded by a Faculty Scholar Award from the W. T. Grant Foun- dation and Grant 1-5-32169 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The author thanks Thomas Bradbury and John Grych for their critical comments on an earlier draft of the manuscript.

Requests for reprints should be sent to: Frank Fincham, Psychology Department, University of Illinois, 603 East Daniel, Champaign, Illinois 61820.

Strictly speaking, noncontingent outcomes and failure are not synonymous as failure can be contingent on a child‘s actions. However, the failure experienced by children in research on learned helplessness and mastery orien- tation is indeed noncontingent (e. g., use of unsolvable problems) and hence the terms are used interchangeably in the present paper.

Nolen-Hoeksma, Girgus and Seligman (1985) report the existence of a stable attribution style in third through sixth graders over a 3 to 12 month period. However, this study does not investigate the attributional content (effort and ability attributions) associated with learned helplessness and mastery orientation but rather the attribution dimen- sions (internal, global and stable) studied in research on learned helplessness in adults. The relation between an attri- bution (attribution content) and the causal dimensions seen to underly the attribution is an empirical question that has yet to be addressed in research on learned helplessness in children.

164 F. FINCHAM

that the attributions used to identify LH and MO children are stable over a six month period in the fifth grade (test-retest, r= 3). More recently, we have shown that these attributions

also remain relatively stable from the third to the fifth grade (test-retest, r = .43). Teacher reports of LH and MO behaviors showed similar stability (test-retest, r = .49) over the two year period (Fincham, Hokoda & Sanders, in press). Thus, a prima facie case can now be made that the response patterns do indeed represent stable individual differences. However, it remains to demonstrate that LH and MO behaviors, in addition to their associated attri- bution styles, are stable individual difference variables.

1.2 General patterns of responding

Despite the fact that research has been limited largely to the use of cognitive/experi- mental tasks in the laboratory, it has also been assumed that LH and MO behaviors repre- sent global patterns of responding. This issue can be addressed in three ways. First, do the response patterns generalize from one laboratory task to another? Apparently, they do (Rho- les, Blackwell, Jordan & Walters, 1980). Second, is there consistency in the child’s response to failure in different life domains (e. g., social, academic and sports)? Data from our attempt to develop a general measure of attribution style suggests an affirmative answer to this ques- tion. Specifically, the attributions associated with LH and MO responses were consistent for failure in the academic, social and sports domains (average correlations for effort and ability attributions were .53 and 51 , respectively). Third, are the response patterns manifest in more natural settings (e. g., in the classroom where social comparison information is avai- lable)? It appears that this is likely because (a) LH and MO responses are found on tasks administered in the classroom (Licht & Dweck, 1984), and b) teacher reports of LH and MO behaviors have successfully been used to identify children for research on these res- ponse patterns (Fincham, Hokoda & Sanders, in press). There is thus some evidence that points to a general pattern of responding but again it remains to demonstrate that this occurs for LH and MO behaviors.

2. Some important issues for education

Because learned helplessness and mastery orientation are likely to represent stable and global patterns of responding, it is important to examine their implications for education. Several relevant conclusions drawn about the response patterns are therefore critically eva- luated.

2.1 The association with academic achievement

It is believed that LH and MO response patterns are unrelated to academic achieve- ment (Dweck & Licht, 1979). This conclusion, if correct, seems to reduce the significance of the phenomenom for education. There is some indication, however, that the conclusion may be premature because it rests on data pertaining to the relationship between a parti- cular attribution style (making effort attributions for failure) and academic performance at a single point in time. In regard to attribution style, the relative preference for effort versus ability attributions (emphasized in theoretical papers on learned helplessness in children) is related to academic achievement (Fincham, Hokoda & Sanders, in press). In a similar vein, there are data to suggest that LH responses are likely to affect performance over the course of time as (a) attributing failure to ability rather than effort in the third grade predicts fifth grade achievement scores (Fincham, Hokoda & Sanders, in press), and (b) an association exists between LH behavior and chronic academic failure (Johnson, 1981). Thus, LH and MO responses may affect academic achievement and therefore demand the attention of the educator. How might an understanding of these response patterns affect educational prac- tice? The remainder of the paper addresses this issue.

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2.2 Response orientation by task interaction

There is initial evidence to show that LH children have greater difficulty mastering new material when it is preceded by a confusing task than when it is not preceded by a confu- sing task (Licht & Dweck, 1984). This suggests that LH and MO response patterns may interact with the demands of academic material. Specifically, when tasks involve the mas- tery of new concepts and skills (i. e., persistence in the face of difficulty), MO children are likely to perform best. In contrast, tasks that do not entail dealing with new or difficult ideas may be advantageous to LH children or at least not differentially affect LH and MO children.

The interaction between response orientation and task material has far reaching impli- cations for learning and for the assessment of ability. For example, ordering task materials from easy to hard may help LH children learn more but might disadvantage MO children whose learning is more likely to be facilitated by exposure to challenge in the early stages of a task. This consideration is not important for rote or overlearned tasks (e. g., memory tasks) where it has been difficult to demonstrate helplessness but is likely to be particularly relevant for more complex cognitive tasks.

Similarly, attention needs to be paid to the order of items in tests designed to measure ability. Here the ordering of test items may differentially affect the level of performance achieved by LH and MO children. An interesting psychometric implication is that determi- ning the difficulty of a test item is likely to vary as a function of the order of the item relative to others in the test, and the relative proportion of LH and MO children in the sample used to determine item difficulty.

2.3 Origins and prevention

It has heen shown that LH can arise from the pattern of evaluative feedback in the classroom rather than the absolute amounts of positive and negative feedback. Specifically, the LH response pattern is associated with the proportion of negative feedback given for intellectual (e. g., accuracy) versus nonintellectual (e. g., neatness) aspects of performance (Dweck, Davidson, Nelson & Enna, 1978). In fact, limiting negative feedback to intellectual aspects of a task has been shown to produce LH hehavior in the laboratory (Dweck et al., 1978). Although this finding has not been replicated and assumes that the child makes appro- priate attributions based on feedback, it suggests an interesting mechanism whereby LH can be acquired. Other possible ways in which LH and MO responses may originate include: (a) differential exposure to failure; (b) modeling of teacher and parent behaviors and attri- butions; and (c) adopting the attributions made by teachers and parents for the child’s per- formance. There are preliminary data to support each of these mechanisms (Fincham & Cain, 1986; Johnson, 1981).

Thus far, however, there has been no research to evaluate the relative importance of these processes. In the absence of such research it behooves the educator to consider each in the prevention of LH. For example, negative feedback should not be limited only to aca- demic performance, the teacher should model appropriate achievement related behavior and so on. More concretely, a teacher might intentionally fail on a task in front of the class and ccthink out louda in coping with the failure thereby demonstrating alternative, adaptive coping strategies. Unfortunately, there has been no research on the prevention of malada- tive responses to failure. Attention has focused instead on remediation of the LH response pattern.

2.4 The remediation of learned helplessness

A number of studies have investigated interventions designed to remediate LH beha- viors (Forsterling, 1985). An assumption underlying this research is that learned helpless- ness is maladaptive. This assumption has never been challenged yet the adaptiveness of LH

166 F. FINCHAM

and MO response patterns is likely to be dependent on the situation in which they are main- fest. Consider the experimental paradigm most commonly used to investigate these response patterns. First performance is measured on a task, failure experiences are then provided (usually by administering unsolvable .problems), and, finally, performance is again measu- red. Given the temporal proximity of these events and the use of the same task throughout the experiment, it is not clear whether ((giving up)) or stubbornly ((persisting)) is ultimately more adaptive. In any event, it is not difficult to imagine situations in which MO responses are clearly more maladaptive than LH responses. In addition, the possibility that learned helplessness may be a coping strategy for some children that prevents the further escalation of negative responses needs to be considered. Although less than optimal, such a strategy is somewhat adaptive. One clear educational implication of the above argument is that a careful assessment of the situations in which a child manifests LH or MO behaviors is required before deciding whether his or her behavior requires change or is instead situationally appro- priate.

An important feature of intervention research is that almost all studies evaluate the effects of inducing children to attribute failure to lack of effort. In view of the assumption under- lying these studies, it is perhaps not surprising to find that no attempt has been made to teach children realistic attributions for failure. It is simply untrue that all children fail tasks due to lack of effort. Moreover, no amount of teaching children to make effort attributions will change this fact. This does not imply that having children believe that their failures are due to lack of effort does not have some beneficial effects when appropriately applied in some situations and for some tasks. However, it is clearly a mistake to infer from this research that educators should simply teach children to make effort attributions for failure. In fact, it is not even clear whether educators should focus attention on changing attribu- tions, an issue considered in more detail below.

designed to remediate learned helplessness is unfortunate. Despite at least a dozen studies on this topic there has been no demonstration that changes in attribution actually produce changes in behavior. It is quite possible, for example, that the guilt induced by attributing failure to effort is what produces any behavioral change (the induction of such guilt is an- other reason why care is needed in teaching children to make effort attributions). Indeed, the emotional consequences of making different attributions for failure and their implica- tions for intervention has yet to be investigated. Similarly problematic is the focus on per- suasion as a strategy to change attributions (e. g., interventions that consist primarily of telling children, ((you should have tried hardern). Subsequent improvements in performance can be seen to result from compliance with instructions rather than from a change in attri- butions. Even if attributions do cause behavioral change, however, no changes have been found in attribution style as a result of such interventions (e. g., on the measure of attribu- tion style used to identify LH and MO children). This is an important shortcoming because it suggests that any beneficial effects resulting from such interventions may be situation specific or task-specific.

In sum, care should be exercised in making inferences from research designed to reme- diate the LH response pattern. The fact that this research consists primarily of analogue studies using limited interventions (e. g., one brief intervention session), tasks of little edu- cational significance, and no long term follow up, makes it difficult to infer guidelines for educators. Perhaps the most important educational implication to draw from this research is a negative one - that is, there is little basis for focusing exclusively on attributions in attempts to remediate maladaptive responses to failure. Indeed, here is an area where the educator can make a valuable contribution by suggesting strategies that appear, on the basis of classroom experience, to be most effective in dealing with LH behaviors. The effective- ness of such strategies can then be evaluated scientifically.

The continued reliance on attribution retraining as a means of intervention in research

CHILDREN’S REACTIONS TO FAILURE 167

3. Future research directions

Although considerable progress has been made in the investigation of children’s reac- tions to failure there are several issues that have been neglected in this area of research. These include: (a) the ontogenesis of LH and MO response patterns; (b) the origins of lear- ned helplessness and mastery orientation in the family; (c) the prevention of maladaptive responses to failure; and (d), the investigation of factors other that attributions that might mediate these response patterns. The importance of these lacunae is emphasized by the need to substantiate empirically claims made regarding learned helplessness and mastery orienta- tion (e. g., their status as stable, global response patterns).

In regard to the applied significance of LH and MO response patterns, it is apparent that statements on this topic also exceed what is known on the basis of data (e. g., learned helplessness is used to account for learning disabilities, gender differences in math versus verbal achievement, and so on). In fact, the virtual absence of applied research on this topic is striking given the continued claims made about its practical importance. At the very least there is a need for research to be conducted in applied settings. In addition, the nature of the responses investigated should be evaluated in terms of their ecological validity. Clearly there is a need for more meaningful measures of performance than time to solution and persistence on laboratory tasks. Once it is shown that the response patterns do have signifi- cant educational consequences, attention can be turned to designing effective prevention and remediation programs. An important challenge in this regard is to determine when LH behavior simply reflects a motivational problem and when it is associated with a skill deficit.

4. Conclusion

The distinction drawn between LH and MO response patterns may appear to be too simplistic. However, it is a useful starting point for understanding children’s reactions to failure. Current evidence suggests that these patterns constitute a stable individual difference affecting many areas of a child’s functioning. Consequently, some implications of research on learned helplessness and mastery orientation for education were evaluated and several recommendations were made. The lack of definitive data, and in some cases the complete absence of research, led to the identification of several areas of inquiry needed to address both basic and applied issues concerning children’s reactions to failure. Whether the simple distinction between learned helplessness and mastery orientation remains useful, depends on the outcome of such research.

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