Account-Giving and Social Perception

Two experiments examined the effect of communicating a reason or "account"for one's perfomrance. In Study, One, 36 subjects read a post-election speech in which a politician gave external reasons, internal reasons, or no reasons for the outcome of the election. Whether the stated reasons helped or hindered the politician's performance was ambiguous. Politicians attributing the election outcome to external factors were more likely to be judged losers than those not stating a reason or those giving internal reasons. In Study Two, 28 subjects answered a questionnaire in which students explained course grades with reasons varying as to locus, stability, and controllability. Students giving internal accounts, and in particular, internal-controllable accounts (e.g., effort) and internal-stable accounts (e.g., ability), were thought to have received better grades than those giving external accounts, and in particular, those citing external-controllable accounts (e.g., help from others). Thus, it appears that people expect account-givers to present self-enhancing explanations. However, there was a trend in both studies to assume that those who give accounts have negative rather than positive outcomes.