THE EFFECTS OF INDIVIDUAL AND SITUATIONAL VARIABLES ON CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION FOR GROUP SUCCESS

ON COGNITIVE COMPLEXITY, INTERPERSONAL ORIENTATION AND AREA OF GROUP SUCCESS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of some individual traits and a situational factor on causal attribution processes for group success. One hundred and three undergraduates read a story about either interpersonal or task success which resulted from group activities of a university tennis team. And then subjects were devided into either a high or a low cognitive complexity group and a high or a low interpersonal orientation group, on the basis of their scores on two questionnaires. Therefore, factorial design was 2×2×2. Results indicated that (1) cognitively simple individuals tended to attribute success more to a leader's ability, especially for task success, than cognitively complex individuals, (2) cognitively complex and highly interpersonaloriented individuals, when attributing for task success, tended to attribute success more to a subordinate's ability than cognitively simple and low interpersonal-oriented individuals attributing for interpersonal success. Furthermore, cognitively simple individuals were found to attribute cause more differently from leader to subordinate for interperspnal success than for task success. Causal attribution processes of cognitivly complex individuals were found to be even more complex than those of cognitively simple ones.