CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS AND PERCEIVED CONTROL AS A FUNCTION OF PATTERN OF PERFORMANCE, DEPRESSION, AND SEX OF SUBJECT

The present study explored the effects of improving, deteriorating, and random patterns of success on causal attributions, perceived control, recall of performance, and mood. One major purpose was to specify the attributions associated with feelings of personal control and to examine the mechanism through which such perceptions arise. Because depression may profoundly influence cognitive responses to success and failure, the present research also investigated the effects of level of depression on reactions to patterns of performance. Both males and females were included in the study in order to assess the effects of gender on reactions to performance and to explore possible cognitive sex differences in depression.;University students previously scoring either high (26 men and 25 women) or low (30 men and 30 women) on the Beck Depression Inventory completed a brief pretest measure and then worked at a causally ambiguous game in which they received, according to random assignment, either ascending, descending, or random success feedback. Following 30 trials, they completed a questionnaire assessing recall and evaluations of performance, judgments of personal control, attributions of causality, future expectancies, and mood. Confirming predictions derived from previous research, gradually improving success produced (a) higher ratings of personal ability, (b) greater reported increases in effort, (c) more effort attributions for performance, (d) greater perceived control, and (e) higher expectancies of future performance; while gradually declining success generated (a) higher ratings of luck, (b) greater reported decreases in luck, (c) more luck attributions for outcomes, (d) less perceived control, and (e) greater overestimation of past successes. In discussing these effects, both motivational (self-serving bias) as well as nonmotivational (information-processing) mechanisms are considered, and self-serving bias is proposed as the more parsimonious explanation.;Overall, depressed subjects were found to take less causal credit for improving success, to feel more negative affect with random and deteriorating performance, and to expect less improvement in future performance than were nondepressed subjects. These findings are discussed in terms of errors in the processing and storage of incoming information which may perpetuate depressive symptoms and which should be included as a focus in future cognitive therapies. In addition, men, relative to women, expected to perform better at the game initially, perceived the task as being harder, were more internal in their attributions for success, made fewer luck attributions for performance, and reported feeling more frustrated; men also over-estimated prior successes, whereas women underestimated prior failures. These results are considered in relation to learned sex-role stereotypes which may create differential performance expectancies at sex-linked tasks.;Finally, sex differences in depression were found, involving "egocentric" causal distortions and underestimations of success among women which were especially strong under conditions of randomly fluctuating success. Depressed men, however, showed lower initial expectancies at the task and unexpectedly appeared more "ego-defensive" under random and deteriorating conditions. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for contemporary theories, studies, and treatments of depression.