0000000000042504
AUTHOR
Stephan Lau
Disentangling the effects of optimism and attributions on feelings of success
Two experiments examined the effects of dispositional optimism and attributions on feelings of success in a performance setting. In Experiment 1, participants successfully solved three cognitive tasks and attributed the success either internally (i.e., to themselves) or externally (i.e., to a teammate). We found no effect of optimism, but a significant effect of the attribution: Internal attribution predicted an increase in feelings of success. In Experiment 2, we replicated the design and adopted an extreme groups approach in order to include the extremes of the optimism dimension. Only optimism affected feelings of success in this sample: Pessimistic participants showed higher increases i…
Affective consequences of optimism and pessimism in the face of failure: Evidence of a moderation by attribution
Abstract The present experiment set out to investigate the affective consequences of dispositional optimism and attribution in performance settings. Optimistic and pessimistic participants ( N = 42 each) experienced failure at solving two cognitive tasks in an alleged team setting. The failure could either be attributed to themselves (internal condition) or a teammate (external condition). We found disordinal interactions of optimism and attribution on the feelings of success and feelings of failure. While the affective state of optimists deteriorated significantly if they attributed the failure internally compared to externally, pessimists were emotionally unaffected by the locus of attri…