ATTRIBUTIONAL STYLE, COMPARISON FOCUS OF PRAISE, AND INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

The present experiment examined the extent to which attributional style moderates the effects of social comparison versus mastery-focused praise on intrinsic motivation. The possible moderating role of type of involvement was also examined. College student subjects were introduced to hidden-figure puzzles in either an ego-involving (i.e., test-like) or task-involving (i.e., game-like) manner and then received either social comparison or mastery-focused praise. The results showed that subjects who typically attribute successful outcomes to internal causes displayed relatively more free choice intrinsic motivation and a greater increase in feelings of interest and enjoyment after receiving praise which emphasized their performance relative to others rather than praise which focused on their developing mastery. On the other hand, subjects who customarily tend to attribute successful outcomes to external factors evidenced higher levels of intrinsic motivation and greater gains in interest-enjoyment after receiving mastery-focused than social comparison praise. A parallel set of effects were found for performance attributions: Internals made more internal attribution (i.e., ability and effort) after receiving social comparison than mastery praise, whereas externals showed the reverse pattern. © 1990.