Personal and Interpersonal Motivation for Group Projects: Replications of an Attributional Analysis

We report the results of two replication studies using attribution theory to analyze personal and interpersonal motivation for collaborative projects. Undergraduate students responded to questionnaires containing hypothetical vignettes depicting success or failure outcomes due to ability or effort for dyads working on a group project. Dependent measures included emotions of shame, anger, pity, guilt, pride, and gratitude, as well as expectations for future success. Following the same procedures as the original study, we used doubly multivariate analyses to test 21 theoretical predictions from attribution theory for emotions and expectations for success. We replicated 17 of 21 results across all three studies and 20 of 21 results in the two replication studies. Results are discussed within the context of attribution theory.