3.

Culture differences on attribution of success and failure Fry and Ghosh Error in attribution: Self-serving bias Attribution theories have suggested that we tend to explain what happens to us in ways that are self-serving. In case we are successful we tend to see this as an effect of our own doing, while we have a tendency to blame failure on bad luck or others. Results from many studies have been consistent with this idea. However, there have also been suspicions that the self-serving bias is a cultural effect.

This study was designed to investigate differences in attribution of success and failure between children of Caucasian origins and children with an Asian background. Participants: 50 Asian Indian children, 25 girls and 25 boys, and 50 White Canadian children (25 girls and 25 boys) with English, German, Scandinavian, and East European parents participated in the study. All the children lived near a Canadian university where most of their parents worked. The Indian children came from families that were well integrated in the Canadian society. Method: They used the design 3*2, meaning that it contained three independent variables, each of them having two different conditions. One variable was the cultural background, another performance. To manipulate performance the participants were given two tests. Half of the children were assigned to be in the failure condition when the other half was the success conditions. It didnt matter what they scored for real, all the children in the failure condition received 10 marks out of 60 on both test. When the success group all received 50 mark out of 60. The first test consisted of drawing five characters from a text. The second test they were to draw red circles, yellow squares and green triangles in a specific order on three grid paper for five minuets. For the second test the experimenter claimed that the time was out to the failure group when they only had completed two papers compared to the success group where the experimenter waited till they had done all three papers before saying that the time was over. The third variable was ego involvement. To half the group in the failure condition and half of the children in the success group, was in the high ego involment group, meaning that the experimenter told the participants before the test that the results from the two tests they were to take would show how smart the child was and how well she/he would get along with other people. They were also told that those who did well

on the tests would become very important persons later in life. In the low ego involvement group, other half of the children in failure and success groups, were told that most children thought it was very difficult. The experimenter also told them that their pictures would only be seen by the experimenter and then would be immediately destroyed. To measure the attribution the children got to answer some questions on a five point scale. How difficult did you find the two tests? How accurate do you think the examiner was in marking your tests? How hard did you try to do well on the two tests? How important do you think luck/bad luck was to your results? How good do you think you are in doing most kinds of tests and exams?

Results: Consistent with the researchers expectations the results showed that White children took more personal credit for success and explained failure as an effect of bad luck and inaccuracy of the evaluator. Indian children, however, took more personal responsibility for failure and explain it as a result of low personal ability. Indian children saw success as an effect of good luck.