What happens when explanations externalizing the cause of one's achievement failures are no longer credible? College undergraduates experiencing successive subjective failure in classroom tests gave postdictive explanations for failures, indicated shame, and rated expectancy for future success. Self-worth predictions suggest despair occurs when…

Shame is a global emotion that shares an ability-linked component (humiliation) and an effort-linked component (guilt). Effort was found to increase humiliation via inability ascriptions because a combination of high effort and failure implies low ability. Conversely, high effort was found to decrease the guilt component of shame. (Author/DWH)

This rejoinder to Brown and Weiner (TM 509 074) attempts to resolve areas of apparent conflict and to offer a broad synthesis around the self-worth theory of achievement motivation. The different yet compatible aspects of attribution and self-worth theories in regards to achievement effort are discussed. (BS)

Undergraduates rated their affective reactions to hypothetical test failures under conditions of high or low effort and in the presence or absence of self-servicing excuses. Then, in the role of teachers, they administered punishment to hypothetical students under the same failure conditions. Results were interpreted using self-worth theory.…

Do success-oriented and failure-avoidant students differ in their performance because of differential attributions? Path analysis, which permits the evaluation of causal assumptions in well-specified theories, was employed to test the adequacy of the causal linkages in the attributional model of achievement behavior. Thus, although differences in…

One hundred sixty eight students (grade 1-college) evaluated the achievement behavior of hypothetical students differing in ability, effort expenditure, and test outcome, both from the perspective of student and teacher. Teacher perspectives indicated that effort and outcome were perceived as highly relevant. Student perspectives indicated high…

Undergraduates rated their affective reactions to hypothetical test performances under four success conditions. Then, in the role of teachers, they administered rewards to hypothetical students under identical conditions. Both positive self-evaluation and teacher praise were greatest when success followed effort. Perceptions of ability also…