Abstract
This study aims at the investigation of the effects of self-esteem on attribution of one's own success or failure. Subjects were seventy 8th grade pupils, whose self-esteem scores measured by the questionnaire were high or low. Success-failure condition was manipulated by telling Ss a false score (9 or 24) as the average. After Ss performed the task of anagrams, they filled out the questionnaire about attribution of their performance and expectancy for success in next trial. Attribution was measured by method of paired comparisons of five factors: ability, effort, task difficulty, luck, and physical and mental conditions. Three trials were replicated.
Major findings were as follows.
1. As was expected, Ss with high self-esteem (H-SEs) attributed failure to effort and Ss with low self-esteem (L-SEs) attributed success to the task and luck. As to ability, the hypotheses that H-SEs would attribute success to it and L-SEs would attribute failure to it were not supported, But success was attributed more strongly to it by H-SEs than L-SEs, on the other hand in attribution of failure the inverse relationship was found.
2. L-SEs attributed failure to effort as strongly as H-SEs. This result was interpreted that H-SEs wanted their expectancy for success to be at a high level by attributing failure to effort as the unstable and intentional factor, and that L-SEs paid attention to the internality of effort and made selfconsistent attribution.
3. Generally, success was attributed to external factors and failure to internal factors. It was supposed that Ss in early adolescence avoided evaluating their own ability high.
4. The relationship between attribution and expectancy for success was not clearly found.
