Performance Feedback Processing Is Positively Biased As Predicted by Attribution Theory.

ABSTRACT: A considerable literature on attribution theory has shown that healthy individuals exhibit a positivity bias when inferring the causes of evaluative feedback on their performance. They tend to attribute positive feedback internally (e.g., to their own abilities) but negative feedback externally (e.g., to environmental factors). However, all empirical demonstrations of this bias suffer from at least one of the three following drawbacks: First, participants directly judge explicit causes for their performance. Second, participants have to imagine events instead of experiencing them. Third, participants assess their performance only after receiving feedback and thus differences in baseline assessments cannot be excluded. It is therefore unclear whether the classically reported positivity bias

SUBMITTER: Korn CW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4743912 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature