Excuse Theory: A Test of the Self-Protective Role of Attributions

We tested the hypothesis that individuals use consensus-raising, distinctiveness-raising, and consistency-lowering attributional explanations as strategies to excuse their poor performance on an ego-involving task. Furthermore, we predicted that such excuse-making tactics after failure feedback, in comparison with those after success feedback, would lead to (a) decreased negative emotions when individuals anticipate that their excuse attempts will not be closely scrutinized by an informed or all-knowing audience, and (b) increased negative emotions when individuals anticipate that an evaluative audience has access to their private cognitions and feelings about their poor performance. As hypothesized, results supported the use of distinctiveness-raising and consistency-lowering, but not consensus-raising, attributional explanations. In addition, the predicted effects of excuse making on emotional state were generally obtained; that is, without the scrutiny of the all-knowing audience, the excuse making lessened negative affect after failure, whereas under the scrutiny of an all-knowing audience, excuse making served to increase negative affect. These results are discussed in terms of the circumstances under which excuse behaviors are construed as self-protective or self-defeating.