The role of causal attribution in emotional and motivational reactions of work teams failing an achievement task

Abstract

Teams that perform different tasks often fail in their task. Failure often leads to a series of emotional and other reactions which in part may relate to the team’s future functioning. For example, a failure may affect a team member’s willingness to continue to cooperate with other team members, may change the team's willingness to take risks in future tasks, etc (Argyris, 1982; Jehn, 1995). From here one can see that failure often can have an impact that goes beyond the immediate and apparent consequences of the failure itself. Past research reveals that one of the significant factors that determine the emotions and behavior of a team member who failed is the perceived cause for the failure. Although past studies have emphasized the importance of the perceived cause for failure in this context, these studies were restricted by focusing only on a narrow set of specific causes for the failure or on team members' personality characteristics that affect their perception of the causes for the failure.

The present study set a goal to expand our understanding of the role that the perceived cause of failure has on team members' emotional and motivational reactions by focusing on a wider range of causes that originate from the team itself and its performance. The study examined the role of these causes in teams with superficial familiarity among team members and also between team members who have a personal friendship under the assumption that in many cases team members establish relationships that are beyond the cooperation required for a given task and therefore it is important to explore the extent to which similar mechanisms influence the reactions of teams of both kinds.

As a theoretical framework for understanding the role that causes for failure have on the emotions and behavior of the team, the theory of causal attribution of motivation and emotion proposed by Weiner (Weiner, 1985; 1986) was used. This theory explains the connection between the perceived cause for a given failure and the emotional and behavioral consequences of that failure. Originally, this theory dealt with consequences of causal attributions made by observers who focused on causes that relate to their own or others behavior as individuals. In this study we apply this theory to the team level, that is, by reference of the team as an object of causal attribution. A series of experiments examined the relationship between perceived causes for the failure of the team (a dyad) with regards to how these causes are perceived by the team member and the emotion experienced by the individual team member and the and the implications of these emotions on the future of this team. Specifically, three experiments examined the relationship between different causes of failure inherent at the team level and a series of emotions and assessments regarding the future of the team and the future of its performance in similar contexts. The theory of causal attribution suggests that any given cause is characterized by three dimensions: locus, stability and controllability. Each such dimension has unique psychological implications which determine the relationship between the perceived cause of a given situation and the emotional and behavioral consequences of this situation. As previously stated, this study focused on causes at the team level so that the question of locus addressed the issue of whether the cause is internal or external to the team. The dimension of stability addressed the question of whether the cause is stable in that team or temporary, and the dimension of controllability refers to whether the team itself or someone external to the team controlled the cause, or whether neither the team nor an external factor had controlled the cause of failure. The first experiment was based on a vignette questionnaire in which participants were asked to imagine themselves as members of the team who failed for one of 8 reasons at team level which represented different possible combinations of the three causal dimensions. The two following experiments used a unique paradigm developed specifically for the study and which required pairs of participants to cooperate in constructing a device. The task was designed so that the rate of failure would be high even though in principle the task was feasible and appeared easy. External feedback which was ostensibly based on objective criteria provided the subjects with causes for the failure and which represented one of 4 combinations of the controllability and stability dimensions at team level. In these experiments, only internal causes were used because of the difficulty to manipulate reliably external reasons without evoking revolt on the part of team members. In this second experiment teams were comprised of individuals who were not friends whereas in the third experiment the pairs were comprised of friends by where the goal was an attempt to replicate the findings also in such teams.

Based on the theory of causal attribution, the following research hypotheses were raised regarding the measured variables of the study. With regards to anger, when the cause of the failure was perceived as being both external and controlled, the degree of anger exhibited towards the cause of the failure was expected to be higher than if the cause of failure was due to the other two reasons. Furthermore, the team member was expected to experience a higher degree of anger towards a teammate when the cause of failure was internal. This anger is expected to be further amplified when the cause of failure was perceived to be internal to, and controlled by, the team. Finally, it was hypothesized that the anger of a team member towards his partner will be higher than the anger of the individual towards the self. Regarding guilt and shame it was hypothesized that these emotions would be heightened when the cause for the failure was internal to the team. It was further suggested that the highest level of guilt will be observed when the cause of failure is not only internal but also controllable. Regarding shame, it was hypothesized that a cause of failure that is both internal and stable will lead to the highest level of that emotion as compared to the other causes.

Concerns related the future of an individual in an organization will be highest when the cause of failure was internal and stable. Emotion of helplessness will peak when the cause of failure was internal and uncontrollable. Regarding assessments towards the future, causes of failure perceived as being stable will result in estimations that the chance of future failure will be higher in comparison to the other causes. A failure due to an internal cause that is also stable and uncontrollable will result is a keen desire to leave the team and cooperate with another team partner. In comparison, an external cause of failure will not result in a desire to leave the team. This holds also true with regards to the willingness to cooperate with the same partner and to the perception that future failures will be low in such context.

In principle, it was assumed that the same pattern of responses would be observed in teams consisting of friends, with the exception that the anger towards the self would not be less than that towards a friend and team member, and also the desire to replace a team member will not be affected by the cause of failure when that member is a friend.

Overall, it was found that the emotions and motivation of team members subsequent to failure were largely determined by the perceived cause of the failure as that relates to the role of the team in bringing it about, and more specifically as a function of the dimensions of causality that characterizes these causes. In general, the pattern of the results was consistent with the predictions of the theory of attribution of motivation and emotion (Weiner, 1985; 1986) where in this case the theory relates to causes at the team level. In this context, the pattern of responses was in accordance to the hypothesis and similar to the responses obtained when the causes are at the individuals level, with the understanding that the relation between the perceived causes and the emotional and motivational response is equal in both cases.

As expected, friendship affected of the level of anger towards the partner such that this anger, which was relatively lower than self anger, was highest under conditions of controllability. Throughout the experiment, and in contrast with expectations, there were no signs of a self-serving bias as the degree of self anger was higher than that exhibited towards team members. In more general terms, the first experiment that utilized a scenario questionnaire failed to explain many of the hypotheses and only part of the variability of participants' reactions was related to the dimensions of causality. It appears that the situation which combines team failure and causes for failure at the team level is difficult for the participants to identify with and imagine of, due to lack of experience or ability to deal with its complexity. This possibility is consistent with general arguments found in the literature criticizing this methodology with regards to research of emotion (Parkinson & Manstead, 1993). On the other hand, the paradigm of the team task was founded effective in emotional elicitation and as a good foundation which provided feedback on causes for failure that in turn were perceived by the participants as trustworthy and influential on the response.

In conclusion, this study is the first to extend the applicable realm of attribution theory of emotion and motivation (Weiner, 1985; 1986) to the level of teams or groups. In this context, research shows that this theory can explain the emotions and responses of teams in situations involving achievements and also explain such reactions that were previously not examined, such as the concern of the individual’s future within the organization, or a willingness to continue cooperation with a team member. At a more general level, this research can contribute to an understanding of organizational processes in that it offers an understanding of some factors that affect the responses of teams that fail in their task while also offering the means with which to detect the causes of failures as perceived by team members as well as measures to regulate these reactions.