Handout 5

Attributions for success versus failure

We tend to attribute our successes to our personal qualities and our failures to external or situational factors. i.e., Teachers tend to take credit for positive student outcomes and blame failures on the student(s). This is a way we monitor our and help boost our self esteem.

SEM Example

Kelly is a lacrosse player, and lacrosse is a very important, central part of who she is. Kelly comes to college and rooms with her friend Ashley, who also plays lacrosse. They both make the varsity team, but while Ashley becomes a starter, Kelly is relegated to the bench. In this example, Kelly is facing a "self-evaluation maintenance dilemma" of sorts, in that: 1) Lacrosse is a relevant dimension for Kelly, so comparison is the dominant process. 2) Ashley is close to Kelly, so the comparison information is particularly impactful. 3) Kelly's performance is suffering by comparison to Ashley's. According to Tesser's theory, Kelly has a few choices that might help her to protect her self-esteem. She could: 1) Reduce her closeness to Ashley, perhaps by moving out of the room or by emotionally backing out of their friendship. 2) Reduce the relevance of lacrosse to her self-concept by devaluing it or perhaps by quitting the team and joining another team or club. 3) Work to change the performance differential, either by improving her own performance, sabotaging Ashley's, or changing the coach's perceptions. Most experimental tests of Tesser's theory consist of manipulating relevance, closeness, and/or performance dimensions and observing participant's behavioral, cognitive, and emotional responses.

"Everyone is better than average"

On dimensions that are both subjective and socially desirable, most people tend to see themselves as better than average. i.e., French (1968) - 90% of business managers rate their performance as superior to their average peer. This is not statically possible. This is just a way of maintaining self esteem.

Self Handicapping

Setting up obstacles to one's success in order to provide an excuse for failure. i.e., People tend to block their own success so their self esteem does not take a major blow if they don't follow through. If we student is worried about an upcoming exam, they could say "aw, f-- it." This way, if they pass they get a major self esteem boost, but if they fail, they can blame it on the outside source of not studying, not your abilities.

Tester's Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model (SEM)

Tesser starts with the assumption that people are motivated to feel good about themselves (i.e., to protect and/or enhance their self-esteem). He suggests that there are two ways that people use social information to feel good about themselves: 1) Reflection (a la Cialdini) 2) Social comparison Tesser believes that the information that we receive from these two processes is more impactful the closer we are to the "comparison other." Closeness can refer to similarity in personal qualities, proximity in space, or emotional closeness. The interesting thing about the reflection and comparison processes is that they are antagonistic in that, for example, if a close other performs well, one could gain from reflection but suffer by comparison. The opposite would be true if the other performed relatively poorly. Tesser claims that the personal relevance of the dimension in question will determine whether reflection or comparison will emerge as the dominant process.

Self-serving Bias

The self-serving bias refers to our tendency to take personal credit for success while blaming outside sources for our failures. Essentially, we tend to believe that our successes are due to internal traits and talents, while our failures are caused by variables outside of our control. i.e., If you ace an exam, it's because you studied hard. If you failed, on the other hand, it's because the teacher didn't explain the subject properly, or the classroom was too warm, or your roommate kept you up all night before the exam. Speaks to the motive to protect, maintain, and/or enhance one's self-esteem, and the role of the self-esteem motive in both motivating and mediating the interaction between the social context and our behaviors, thoughts, and feelings.

Downward Social Comparison

The tendency to focus on comparisons to others which will be favorable to oneself, particularly following threats to one's self-esteem. i.e., If someone wanted to make themselves feel beautiful, they would compare themselves to someone who they considered an "ugly" person to make them feel beautiful by comparison. They wouldn't compare themselves to a model, because that would have a negative effect on their self esteem.

False Consensus

The tendency to overestimate the commonality of our opinions and/or our undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors. We gave a tendency to overestimate the degree to which other people agree with our beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors. This creates a false consensus, which can influence our decisions and behaviors. The false consensus effect is a type of cognitive bias in which people mistakenly believe that more people agree with them or share the same beliefs than the number of people who agree with them in reality. People generally believe that their own values and ideas are "normal" and that the majority of people share these same opinions.

False Uniqueness

The tendency to underestimate the commonality of our abilities and/or our desirable or successful behaviors. Individuals or groups believe that their own attitudes, beliefs and worldview are negatively correlated with those of a target population IT is the tendency to underestimate the commonality of one's abilities and one's desirable or successful behaviors