THE EFFECT OF OTHERS INFLUENCE, EFFORT, AND ABILITY ATTRIBUTIONS ON EMOTIONS IN ACHIEVEMENT AND AFFILIATIVE SITUATIONS

In this examination of how attributions and types of situation influence emotions, 46 American undergraduates completed a questionnaire consisting of 12 vignettes that varied according to content, outcome, and attribution. After reading each vignette, they indicated how they would feel in the situation described. In a second experiment, 27 Finnish undergraduates participated in an identical procedure. In both experiments, subjects felt more pride and happiness after they attributed a successful achievement to effort or ability rather than to others' influence. Attributions of affiliative success did not influence emotions. Subjects felt the most shame and guilt after they attributed achievement failure to lack of effort, and they felt the least negative emotions after they attributed affiliative failure to lack of effort.