Problem-Solving Style and Motivational Attributions

Abstract

52 Master's-level female graduate students completed VIEW: An Assessment of Problem Solving Style and provided attributions for their successes and failures according to several categories of reasons. Attributions were in the form of percentages to the categories of skill or ability, effort devoted to the task, task difficulty, chance, or other factors, after Weiner's theory of motivation. Women scoring as more Developer than Explorer on VIEW attributed a greater percentage of their failures to uncontrollable factors (chance and task difficulty). These results are consistent with the theory that individuals with a Developer style are more organized, deliberate, “planful,” and precise in their work efforts. Thus, such individuals would more likely attribute failure to factors they had not foreseen.

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