Affect as a determinant of egotism: Residual excitation and performance attributions

Investigated the influence of outcome-related affect on subsequent causal attributions. After working on a social skills test, 66 male college students engaged in physical exercise. Ss were given success or failure feedback on the test 1, 5, or 9 min after the exercise. Excitation transfer theory suggests that the residual arousal from the exercise in the 5-min condition would elevate the positive and negative affective states elicited by success-failure feedback. Thus, increased attributional egotism in the 5-min condition was predicted. Findings show that Ss preferred internal factors to explain success, whereas external factors were blamed for failure. Ego-defensive attributions following failure and ego-enhancing attributions following success were more pronounced in the 5-min condition than in the other conditions. Results support the idea that outcome-related affect mediates egotistical performance attributions. (42 ref)