SOC 463/663 (Social Psych of Education) - Attributions & Beliefs

Attributions & Beliefs

Melanie Tannenbaum, M.A. Sociology 463/663

Spring 2015

This Week

Attributions

Attribution Theory

Attribution Training

Beliefs about Intelligence

Implicit Theories

Consequences

This Week

Attributions

Attribution Theory



Implicit Theories

Consequences

Attributions

What’s Going On Here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FIEZXMUM2I

!

Is the large triangle mean?

Yes

No

Can’t Tell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FIEZXMUM2I

Attribution Theory

Theories about how people explain the causes of the events that they observe.

Attribution TheoryPeople tend to make very complex inferences about motives and personalities based on very small amounts of information.

!

We like to believe inferences, but there are many ways that they can fail us.

The small shapes could have been trying to play with the large shape, who was just grumpy.

The small shapes could have been trying to steal something from the large shape, who was rightfully mad.

!

Also, they are shapes.

Attributions

Subjective explanations

(causal judgments)

for why things are happening.

Attributions: What?

B = f (P, E)

Behavior is a function of the person and the environment. !

Causal attribution is the process of deciding if you think that someone’s behavior was caused more by P or by E.

!You can make these attributions for others and you can also

make these attributions for yourself.

Attributions: When?

When things go wrong

When important things happen

When expectancies are violated

But…

Often spontaneous and implicit assumptions of causality!

Attributions

“Causal attributions answer ‘why’ questions, such as ‘Why did I fail this exam?’ or ‘Why don’t any of my classmates like me?’ It is intended that these examples describe situations of failure because we are more likely to want to know ‘why’ given negative, unexpected, or atypical outcomes.”

- Graham, 1991

Attributions: Why?

Fritz Heider

People are “naive scientists”

Goal is to accurately assess reasons

Distinction between internal and external causes

Internal: Ability, personality, effort, preferences

External: Luck, task difficulty, circumstances

Weiner: Three Dimensions

ControllabilityStabilityLocus

Internal or

External

Constant or

Varying

Controllable or

Uncontrollable

Ability or Effort?

EffortAbility

Internal Stable

Uncontrollable

Internal Unstable

Controllable

Why did I fail that final exam?

Locus of Causality

Internal External

Stability

Stable Ability I’m stupid and bad at Calculus.

Task Difficulty Calculus is really hard.

Unstable Effort I didn’t work as hard as I should have.

Luck This was a really tricky test.

Person Blame vs.

System Blame

Sources of Info

Prior performance history

!

Social norms

!

Teachers

Teacher Responses

Teachers respond to student performance…

Unintentionally & Spontaneously (Nonverbal)

Deliberately (Praise, blame, helping)

Students learn from teachers’ reactions…

About themselves

About their peers

Reactions to Others’ Outcomes

Assumptions about teacher feedback

When the teachers sees…

Success and attributes it to high ability he/she responds with praise

Success and attributes it to high effort he/she responds with praise

Failure and attributes it to low ability he/she responds with pity

Failure and attributes it to low effort he/she responds with anger/blame

Ability vs. Effort

Naive theory of ability & effort as compensatory

Ability makes up for lacking effort and vice versa

“Smart students don’t have to study as much”

Help-seeking

“Avoid the kind of effort that implies a concession of lack of ability.”

If two students achieve the same outcome, the one who tried harder is often seen as lower-ability.

Barker & Graham, 1987Children watched videos of a pair of students working on easy

math problems. !

Half of the children saw a video where both students solved all of the problems. One student received lots of praise and the

other student received only neutral feedback (“Correct.”) !

The other half saw a video where both students failed all of the problems. One student was criticized and the other student

received only neutral feedback (“Not correct.”) !

The students praised for success and the students not blamed for failure were both judged as likely lower-ability than their counterparts.

Attributional ConsequencesResponses to poor performance…

Pity?

Implies that student could not have changed the outcome

Low ability inference

Anger/Blame?

Implies that the student could have changed the outcome

Low effort inference, but often also a high ability inference!

Graham, 1984

Sixth graders tried (and failed) a novel puzzle task. !

A female experimenter posing as a teacher responded with pity, with anger, or with no emotion.

!

Children were most likely to attribute their failure to low ability when the teacher conveyed pity, and most likely to attribute their failure to insufficient effort when the

teacher conveyed anger.

Attributional Consequences

Responses to good performance

Positive feedback sustains motivation

But…too much for low difficulty tasks?

Signals low expectations

Low ability inferences

Attributional ConsequencesUnsolicited help?

Low ability inferences

Blame?

High ability inferences

Naive Theories

“Help is given to those who cannot help themselves”

“Those who are blamed can help themselves”

Graham & Barker, 1990Participants watched a video of two students

working on math problems as their teacher walked around their desks.

!

The teacher provided one student with unsolicited help very early on, before the student could even really be struggling. The teacher simply looked at

the other student’s paper and kept walking. !

Participants assumed that the helped student was likely lower in ability than his unhelped counterpart.

Attributional ConsequencesCompared to letter grades, written feedback elicits…

Greater task (mastery) orientation

Focus on process of learning (mastery goals)

Less ego-involvement

Focus on grades, etc. (performance goals)

Explanatory Styles“Trait”-like ways that we explain things

Do you tend to see events as internal/external? Stable/unstable? Controllable/uncontrollable?

Pessimistic Explanatory Style: Internal, Stable, Uncontrollable for negative events/failures.

Significant correlations between having a pessimistic explanatory

style at age 25 and physical health problems at ages 45-60!

Fundamental Attribution ErrorThe tendency to attribute a person’s behavior to personality while ignoring situational causes.

Fundamental Attribution ErrorA driver who cuts you off is automatically a jerk or a

bad driver (or worse…)

Maybe she was in a hurry, had to swerve to avoid an object in the street, had kids pulling her hair…

Fundamental Attribution ErrorObservers often don’t consider the situational

advantages enjoyed by those who succeed.

Bill Gates had access to real-time programming

years before most people did.



A disproportionate number of pro hockey players have January, February, or March

birthdays.



A disproportionate number of pro soccer

players have September, October,

or November birthdays.



Children born on opposite ends of the cutoff date differ by

12% in 4th grade standardized math &

science scores.

Students trying to look good

Desirable: High Ability

Self-serving biases

Taking credit for successes

Deflecting blame for failure

Problem: Claiming high ability in light of failure

“What’s so great about self-esteem?”

Self-Serving Attributional BiasThe tendency to attribute failures to external causes and successes to internal causes.

This usually occurs because people want to maintain a positive image of themselves.

Think for a moment…

The last time you got an A, was it because you were smart & prepared, or because the test was easy?

The last time you got a C, was it because you weren’t smart or prepared, or because the test was hard or unfair?

Self-Serving Attributional Bias

After a professional sports game, 80% of statements made about the victory by coaches/athletes cited internal causes

(“we trained hard”), while 47% of the statements made about the loss cited external causes (“bad calls”).

!

In shareholder business letters, CEOs claimed credit for 83% of positive events but only claimed blame for 19% of

negative events.

Reactions to Own Outcomes

When I experience….

Success and attribute it to high ability I feel pride

Success and attribute it to high effort I feel contentment

Failure and attribute it to low ability I feel shame

Failure and attribute it to low effort I feel guilt

Consequences of Attributions

Motivations & expectations depend on attributions

Ability vs. Effort

How will I do next time?

What do I need to do next time?

Amount of effort/studying needed

Should I seek help or not?

What To Do?Perry et al., 2010

Two types of dysfunctional attributional thinking

Relinquished Control

Bad luck, low ability, test difficulty, and poor teaching

Rely on uncontrollable causes

Devalued Control

Discount effort & strategy

Rely on controllable causes

Bad Starts and Better Finishes Perry et al., 2010

Attributional Re-Training

Three components administered in a 1-hour session

Causal Search Activation

Attribution Induction

Attribution Consolidation

First-year students in Intro Psych class after 1st exam



Attribution Induction

Causal Search Activation

Initiate attributional thinking about causes of success & failure

after feedback on 1st exam !

10-item survey assessing various attributions

!“If I study in appropriate ways, I will be able to learn the material

in my courses.” !

Estimates roles of ability & effort in exam performance

10-minute videotape !

Encourages controllable causal attributions for bad

performance !

Two students talking about how poor performance can be

changed & how their performance can improve with

hard work & effort, with a professor agreeing at the end

GRE-type aptitude test; intentionally difficult.

!Rated own perceptions of

success/performance on test. !

Discussion of the videotape, highlighting adaptive &

maladaptive attributions. !

1-page handout summarizing good attributions; encouraged to keep it close as a reference.


Students who got Attributional Retraining performed better on second exam, got better final grades, and had higher overall GPAs at the end of the semester!

These benefits happened only in the low- and average-performance groups, not the high-performance groups

Attributional retraining has the most potential benefit for the students who need the most help.



Discussion Questions!

If children are praised just for effort and how hard they are trying, does that remove motivation to actually complete a task/succeed/do well?

How can teachers & parents “train” good attributions?

What are other ways that teachers communicate ability/effort inferences in the classroom & through feedback?

This Week

Attributions

Attribution Theory



Implicit Theories

Consequences

Beliefs About Intelligence

What is Intelligence?

Scientific Study of Intelligence

What is it?

Where does it come from?

How stable/flexible is it?

How measurable is it?

The Origin Story of IntelligenceAlfred Binet

Creator of the Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

Divide “intelligence age” by actual age

Devised tests for identifying weak students

Remedial instruction

Why?

Advances in statistical techniques

Need for classification in the US Army during WWI

Issues

How can we really measure “intelligence”?

What does “intelligence” look like?

One global intelligence? (Spearman, g)

Multiple intelligences? (Gardner)

Genetic vs. Environmental bases?

Cultural influences?

Wisconsin Model RevisitedSES of Origin

Family Structure

Ability

Educational Attainment

Academic Performance

Influence of significant others

Educational Ambition

Wisconsin Model RevisitedSES of Origin

Family Structure

Ability

Educational Attainment

Academic Performance

Influence of significant others

Educational Ambition

Intelligence

Predictive Power of Intelligence

Life Outcomes

Intelligence

Socioeconomic Status

Parenting Style

What Kinds of Beliefs?

Naïve Theories of IntelligenceCarol Dweck: Implicit Naïve Theories

Entity vs. Incremental Theories

Intelligence is fixed

Intelligence is malleable

Why are they important?

Shape inferences/attributions about own ability

Shape inferences/attributions about others

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTXrV0_3UjY&feature=related

Implicit TheoriesCore assumptions about the malleability of personal qualities

Incremental or Malleable

Entity or Fixed

Things like intelligence, personality traits, or abilities are fixed, unchangeable, and innate.

Things like intelligence, personality traits, or abilities can be grown or

developed over time.

Implicit Theories

Entity (Stable)

Your personality/abilities are fixed No matter what you do, they pretty much stay the same.

!Incremental (Unstable)

Your personality/abilities are malleable If you want to change them, you can do so with enough effort.

Implicit Theories

The entity theory world is about measuring your ability, and everything (challenging tasks, effort, setbacks) measures your ability.

It is a world of threats and defenses. !

The incremental world is about learning and growth, and everything (challenges, effort, setbacks) is seen as being helpful to learn and grow.

It is a world of opportunities to improve.

Why Do Beliefs Matter?

ResilienceGood outcomes in spite of

serious threats to adaptation or development (Masten, 2001)

Any behavioral, attributional, or emotional response to an academic or social challenge that is

positive and beneficial for development, such as seeking new strategies, putting forth greater effort,

or solving conflicts peacefully (Yeager & Dweck, 2012)


Your response to failure greatly depends on these mindsets.

!

Entity theorists see failure as a threat.

If “you are who you are,” failing means that you are a failure.

Incremental theorists see failure as a cue to work harder.

If you can change, failing just means you need to put in more effort.

Implicit Theories of IntelligenceFixed Malleable

Student Goal Look smart (even if you sacrifice learning)

Learn new things (even if it’s hard or risky)

Failure Implications Low Intelligence Low Effort/Poor Strategy

Effort Implications Low Intelligence Activate & Grow Intelligence

Post-Difficulty Strategy Less Effort More Effort

Self-Defeating Behavior High Low

Post-Difficulty Performance Impaired Equal or Improved

Implicit Theories & IQ Performance

Cury, Da Fonseca, Zahn & Elliot (2008) JESP

Entity Theory

High Worry

Lower IQ Test Performance

Low Willingness to Practice

Incremental Theory

Low Worry

Higher IQ Test Performance

High Willingness to Practice

Snyder et al., 2014 Giftedness Beliefs & Self-Handicapping

110 participants at a private, elite university

Performed problem-solving sets & received feedback

Manipulated…

(1) Theory of Intelligence (Entity vs. Incremental)

(2) Problem-Solving Experience (Success vs. Failure)

Performed second pattern-completion task

Would they self-handicap?


Entity Message

A lot of research suggests that giftedness is strongly fixed through genetics. It’s either something you have or you don’t have. So as expected, we’ve found in our own research that high ability, like what we’ve identified in you, results in fairly stable

performance. It’s the kind of thing that results in really consistent performance across our different study tasks.


Incremental Message

We’ve found that achieving at such a high level, like you have, requires not just high ability but also hard

work and persistence. Things like effort, really sticking it out during a difficult task — those things are really important so that you can continually improve even from your high skill level. We’re actually pretty excited about these findings. It means that effort is

still important, even for gifted students like you.


Success

I can see you’ve done really well on these problems and you got [#] correct. That’s really great and right in line with the other

participants we’ve had in the gifted study.

Failure

It looks like you had some trouble with these problems. You didn’t get any correct…usually our gifted participants get at least three of

these questions right. I don’t really know if the gifted label actually applies now but let’s just move on to the next gifted task.


Claimed Self-Handicapping on Task #2

14 factors like test anxiety, illness, fatigue, etc.

“How likely is ___ to negatively impact your performance?”

Behavioral Self-Handicapping on Task #2

Allowed to choose the level of light on a dimmer

Told that bright light would help, low light would hurt


Claimed Self-Handicapping: Women


Claimed Self-Handicapping: Men



How Are Beliefs Formed… And Can They Be Changed?

The Role of PraiseAbility Praise

(“You’re so smart!”)Effort Praise

(“You worked so hard!”)Promoted Theory of

Intelligence Entity/Fixed Incremental/Malleable

Student Goal Look smart (even if you sacrifice learning)

Learn new things (even if it’s hard or risky)

Failure Implications Low Intelligence Low Effort/Poor Strategy

Post-Difficulty Enjoyment & Persistence Low High

Defensiveness (Denial, Lying, etc.) High Low

Post-Difficulty Performance Impaired Improved

Interventions!

Aronson et al., 2002: Intervention group increased GPA by ≈ 0.23 grade points

!

Good et al., 2003: Intervention group had significantly higher math & verbal achievement scores

Blackwell et al., 2007 Implicit Theories & Adolescence

40% of respondents in 1 study rated adolescence as the worst time of life - more than any other stage

Core beliefs can set up different patterns of response to challenge & setbacks

Longitudinal study of students in junior high school

373 students in 4 consecutive 7th-grade classes


Time 1: Motivational Questionnaire

Intelligence theories, goals, effort beliefs, responses to failure


Mastery vs. Performance Goals

Beliefs that effort leads to positive outcomes (or is ineffective)

Responses to Failure

Helpless: Ability-Based, Uncontrollable

Positive: Effort-Based

Subsequent Measures

Math Grades


Incremental Theory Correlates With…

Positive effort beliefs (r = 0.54)

Learning goals (r = 0.34)

Fewer helpless attributions (r = 0.44)

More positive response strategies (r = 0.45)

Higher math achievement scores



99 low-achieving 7th-graders in NYC

Time 1: Achievement, motivational questionnaire

Intervention

Time 2: Achievement, motivational questionnaire


Both Groups

Sessions 1 & 2 !

The Brain - Structure & Function

Sessions 5 & 6 !

Anti-Stereotyping Lesson Study Skills & Time Management Lesson

Eight 25-minute periods 1 period each week



Control

Sessions 3 & 4 !

Memory Lesson Activity: “Grocery Store Tricks”

Sessions 7 & 8 !

Discussion on how learning makes you smarter & smart/dumb labels

should be avoided

Sessions 3 & 4 !

Incremental Theory Intervention Activity: “Neural Network Maze”

Sessions 7 & 8 !

Discussion on academic difficulties & successes, memory, and the brain


4

4.25

4.5

4.75

5

Control Group Intervention Group

Pre-InterventionPost-Intervention

Endorse Incremental Theory


0

10

20

30

40

50

Control Group Intervention Group

Teachers Spontaneously Citing Positive Change


Teachers Spontaneously Citing Positive Change

“L., who never puts in any extra effort and doesn’t turn in homework on time, actually stayed up late working for hours to finish an assignment early so I could review it and give him a chance to revise it. He earned a B+ on the assignment (he had

been getting C’s and lower).”


Is It Just About Intelligence?

Peer ExclusionAdolescents increasingly seem to believe that social labels,

once acquired, are fixed entities that cannot change. (Birnbaum et al., 2010; Diesendruck & haLevi, 2006; Killen et al, 2010)

Peer Exclusion

!

People with entity theories of personality are more likely to see their own & others’ negative behaviors as

stemming from fixed, personal deficienies. (Chiu et al., 1997; Erdley et al., 1997)

Yeager et al., 2011 Implicit Theories & Peer Conflicts

High school students

Entity vs. Incremental Theories of Personality

“Bullies and victims are types of people that really can’t be changed.”

Write about a time a peer upset or hurt you

Rate your desire for vengeance

Teens with higher entity theories reported significantly higher desires for revenge & a reduced desire to forgive the peer.


High school students

Read a story about a student who was bullied

1/2 of students learned that people’s characteristics can be developed and are not fixed (intervention)

Students in the intervention group were significantly less likely to endorse aggressive, vengeful responses to the bullies


Entity Shame after Exclusion

Revenge & Punishment

Incremental Less Shame Less Need for Revenge

Incremental intervention = less aggressive retaliation, more prosocial action towards the excluder/aggressor


We have found that what students need the most is not self-esteem boosting or trait labeling; instead, they need mindsets that represent challenges as things that they can take on and overcome over time with

effort, new strategies, learning, help from others, and patience. !

When we emphasize people’s potential to change, we prepare our students to face life’s challenges resiliently.

MotivationsMotivations to hold different theories of intelligence?

!

Theories

Conflict Theory

Human Capital Theory

Policies

Tracking/Ability Grouping

Open Access Policy

DiscussionIf people aren’t “vengeful” towards aggressors, how does that motivate change? Is it always best to be forgiving?

Do you have more of an entity or incremental mindset? Why do you think this is the case?

Do you think that there are any benefits of entity mindsets or disadvantages of incremental mindsets?

What does it mean to “underachieve” as discussed in the Snyder article? Is “underachieving” more about objective standards, other-perceptions, or self-perceptions?

Do you think gender plays a role in mindset/belief development? Race/ethnicity? SES? If so, how and why?