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Internality and the internalisation of failure: Evidence from a novel task
{A critical facet of adjusting one\textquotesingles behaviour after succeeding or failing at a task is assigning responsibility for the ultimate outcome. Humans have trait- and state-like tendencies to implicate aspects of their own behaviour (called \textquotesingleinternal\textquotesingle ascriptions) or facets of the particular task or Lady Luck (\textquotesinglechance\textquotesingle). However, how these tendencies interact with actual performance is unclear. We designed a novel task in which subjects had to learn the likelihood of achieving their goals, and the extent to which this depended on their efforts. High internality (Levenson I-score) was associated with decision making patterns that are less vulnerable to failure. Our computational analyses suggested that this depended heavily on the adjustment in the perceived achievability of riskier goals following failure. We found beliefs about chance not to be explanatory of choice behaviour in our task. Beliefs about powerful others were strong predictors of behaviour, but only when subjects lacked substantial influence over the outcome. Our results provide an evidentiary basis for heuristics and learning differences that underlie the formation and maintenance of control expectations by the self.}
@article{item_3329540, title = {{Internality and the internalisation of failure: Evidence from a novel task}}, journal = {{PLoS Computational Biology}}, abstract = {{A critical facet of adjusting one\textquotesingles behaviour after succeeding or failing at a task is assigning responsibility for the ultimate outcome. Humans have trait- and state-like tendencies to implicate aspects of their own behaviour (called \textquotesingleinternal\textquotesingle ascriptions) or facets of the particular task or Lady Luck (\textquotesinglechance\textquotesingle). However, how these tendencies interact with actual performance is unclear. We designed a novel task in which subjects had to learn the likelihood of achieving their goals, and the extent to which this depended on their efforts. High internality (Levenson I-score) was associated with decision making patterns that are less vulnerable to failure. Our computational analyses suggested that this depended heavily on the adjustment in the perceived achievability of riskier goals following failure. We found beliefs about chance not to be explanatory of choice behaviour in our task. Beliefs about powerful others were strong predictors of behaviour, but only when subjects lacked substantial influence over the outcome. Our results provide an evidentiary basis for heuristics and learning differences that underlie the formation and maintenance of control expectations by the self.}}, volume = {17}, number = {7}, pages = {1--25}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, address = {San Francisco, CA}, year = {2021}, slug = {item_3329540}, author = {Mancinelli, F and Roiser, J and Dayan, P} }