Internality and the internalisation of failure: Evidence from a novel task

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Behavioral Economics
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Attributing outcomes to internal factors (self) or external factors (chance) influences behavior adjustment.
• The interplay between performance, attributional style, and decision-making remains incompletely understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how internal (self) versus chance attributions affect behavioral adjustments following task success or failure.
• To explore the relationship between perceived control, performance feedback, and decision-making strategies.

Main Methods:

• Developed a novel task requiring participants to learn goal achievement likelihood and effort dependence.
• Employed computational analyses to model decision-making patterns and attributional biases.
• Measured trait and state tendencies in internal and chance attributions.

Main Results:

• High internality (internal locus of control) correlated with decision-making less vulnerable to failure.
• Adjustments in perceived achievability of risky goals post-failure were key to this resilience.
• Beliefs about chance did not explain choice behavior; beliefs about powerful others influenced decisions when self-influence was low.

Conclusions:

• Internal attributions enhance resilience to failure by modulating goal achievability perceptions.
• Self-efficacy and control expectations are shaped by learning processes and cognitive heuristics.
• Understanding attributional styles is crucial for explaining adaptive and maladaptive decision-making.