Joint Influence of Prior Beliefs and Current Situational Information on Stable and Unstable Attributions

The present study was designed to assess the joint effects of situational information and the individual's attributional style on the choice and consequences of a stable or unstable attribution for failure. Israeli undergraduates were divided according to their attributional style for negative events into stable, undefined, and unstable attributors and were exposed to no-feedback or failure conditions in which they received instructions encouraging them to attribute failure to stable or unstable causes. Results indicate that the choice of a stable or unstable attribution for failure was influenced mainly by situational cues and that the individual's attributional style contributed to subsequent expectancies and the quality of performance following failure.