Let’s play the blame game: The distinct effects of personal standards and self-critical perfectionism on attributions of success and failure during goal pursuit

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Highlights

  • Self-critical (SC) perfectionists use the self-serving bias in a distorted manner.

  • Personal standards (PS) perfectionists use the self-serving bias more adaptively.

  • SC perfectionism was related to attributing goal attainment to external factors.

  • PS perfectionism was related to attributing failure more to external factors.

  • In study 2, PS perfectionists were less willing to reset goals they abandoned.

Abstract

In the present study, we examined whether personal standards and self-critical perfectionism differentially related to how people attributed their success and failures in pursuing their personal goals. In two studies (Ns = 185 and 240), participants set three week-long (Study 1) and semester-long (Study 2) goals, and at the end of the week or semester answered questions about goal status, internal and external attributions, and likelihood to reset the goal. Mulitlevel analyses showed that self-critical perfectionism was related to attributing goal attainment to external sources; this was not the case for failure or abandonment. Conversely, personal standards perfectionism was related to attributing failure more to external sources. Overall, these results highlight differences in how perfectionism influences the use of the self-serving bias.

Introduction

Most people set goals and strive for success in all of their endeavors, but it is not possible to always be successful. Despite our best efforts, we sometimes fail. Whatever the outcome, we often then try to understand the reasons for that failure or success. Sometimes, people may arbitrarily assign blame or take credit for the outcome of an event to rationalize why that outcome has occurred. One of the more common strategies for handling ambiguous situations is the tendency to attribute success to one’s self and to blame failure on other sources. This allows us to feel pride and worthiness in our accomplishments, while at the same time buffering against the negative consequences associated with failure (e.g., feelings of shame, disappointment). While there is certainly variability in the way that success and failure can be understood, could it be the case that some people use this self-serving bias less than others? In particular, when people set very high standards for themselves, would this then influence their use of the self-serving bias? At its core, perfectionism encompasses this tendency to set very high standards, and so the purpose of the present research was to examine the relation between perfectionistic tendencies and individuals’ attributions of success or failure for personally important goals.

People have a tendency to view themselves in a positive manner, especially when they find themselves in ambiguous situations (Heider, 1958). The self-serving bias is composed of three components: stability, globality, and internality (Heider, 1958). Internality describes whether the event is attributed to an internal cause (the self) or to an external one (e.g., other people) (Anderson, Krull, & Weiner, 1996). Stability refers to beliefs about whether an event will continue to happen in the future or if the event was an isolated incident. Finally, globality is the perception that an outcome is domain-specific, or translates across life domains (Heider, 1958). People have a tendency to attribute successes as reoccurring (stable), happening in multiple domains (global), and due to the self (internal), while failures are often thought of as non-recurrent, limited to one domain, and due to others. Although all three aspects of the self-serving bias are important, whether attributions are internal or external appears to be the focus of the self-serving bias literature, and have been termed the self-serving attributional bias (Mezulis, Abramson, Hyde, & Hankin, 2004).

The self-serving attributional bias is a tendency to attribute positive events to oneself while attributing negative events to some other, external cause (Heider, 1958, Miller and Ross, 1975). For example, a student may believe that getting an A on a test was due to their aptitude and effort (internal), whereas if they received a C, they would blame the failure on the difficulty of the course or on the instructor (external). Some previous research has treated internality as a continuum, or as a composite score contrasting internal and external attributions (Stoeber and Becker, 2008, Thompson et al., 1998). Other researchers, however, keep these dimensions separate, examining both attribution to the self and to others as two separate constructs (Arkin et al., 1980, Rizley, 1978). For example, Rizley (1978) examined attributions through participants’ ratings of effort and ability (internal) or luck and task difficulty (external), and found that depressed individuals attributed their failures, but not their successes, to internal causes. Another study asked participants to only rate effort and ability as possible reasons for their success or failure (internal causes). This study found that socially anxious individuals took more credit for success than for failure in non-social situations, but took significantly less credit for their success when there was more social pressure (Arkin et al., 1980). In the present research, we will similarly consider internal attributions as separate from external attributions to better understand the direction of the self-serving attributional bias. For example, do some people attribute success to external factors while minimizing their own contribution, or can they believe that this success is due to both external factors and to themselves?

Generally, using the self-serving attributional bias leads people to believe that they are the cause of their success, and that they are not to blame for their failures. Even though a diffusion of responsibility for negative events may not be desirable, the ability to disentangle oneself from bad outcomes leads people to be optimistic that they can succeed in the future (Taylor & Brown, 1988). The primary utility of the self-serving attributional bias is thus in protecting individuals from the psychological harm that can arise from a negative event (Taylor & Brown, 1988). This is adaptive, as individuals with more self-serving attributions tend to be more positive and happier, and to have increased well-being (McFarland and Ross, 1982, Rizley, 1978, Sweeney et al., 1986). Importantly, a meta-analysis conducted by Mezulis et al. (2004) found that the tendency to use the self-serving bias was attenuated for individuals with various forms of psychopathology. Note, however, that there was no evidence of a reversal of the bias. Although people exhibiting pathological symptoms (as compared to general community samples) are less likely to attribute their success to themselves and failures to external factors, it is not the case that they attribute their success to others and failures to themselves (Mezulis et al., 2004).

While previous research has focused on the attenuation of the self-serving bias for individuals with anxiety, depression, and ADHD (see Mezulis et al., 2004), here we wondered if perfectionism, a non-pathological trait characteristic, could be related to the self-serving attributional bias. A perfectionist’s self-concept is inherently tied to whether or not they succeed, and so it may be the case that different types of perfectionistic tendencies influence the extent to which an individual uses this self-serving bias.

Perfectionism is a multifaceted trait, composed of both positive and negative aspects (Frost, Marten, Lahart, & Rosenblate, 1990). Although previous research has used multiple terms to denote both the maladaptive (i.e. self-critical, concerns over mistakes, socially prescribed perfectionism) and adaptive (personal standards, perfectionist striving) aspects, for the purpose of this research we distinguish between personal standards and self-critical perfectionism (Dunkley, Zuroff, & Blankstein, 2003). Personal standards perfectionism involves striving to achieve the high standards and goals an individual has set for themselves (Blankstein and Dunkley, 2002, Frost et al., 1990). Self-critical perfectionism is composed of high personal striving, as well as harsh self-evaluation, fear of failure and concerns over mistakes (Dunkley & Blankstein, 2000). Self-critical perfectionists have increased levels of negative affect, anxiety, and depression, compared to personal standards perfectionists and non-perfectionists (Harvey et al., 2015, Milyavskaya et al., 2014, Sherry et al., 2014). Self-critical perfectionists are also more likely to use maladaptive coping strategies, such as avoidant coping and self-blame, which leads to less daily satisfaction and more daily stress (Stoeber & Janssen, 2011). Conversely, personal standards perfectionists use more adaptive coping strategies, such as problem solving or seeking social support (Mofield, Peters, & Chakraborti-Ghosh, 2016). Overall, personal standards perfectionism appears to be more adaptive, while self-critical perfectionism is more maladaptive and consistently linked to poor mental health.

Perfectionism at its core is a trait related to the setting of high standards and lofty goals (Hanchon, 2010). If perfectionism is so highly entangled in positive achievement, then it can be reasoned that perfectionists take success and failure more seriously. For example, both personal standards and self-critical facets of perfectionism are related to increased negative affect and shame after failure (Besser et al., 2004, Stoeber et al., 2008). Self-critical perfectionists also report significantly more psychological distress when recalling past failure (Sagar & Stoeber, 2009). This increased negative affectivity may provide evidence that perfectionists take even past failures more personally, or that perhaps an inability to diffuse responsibility leads self-critical perfectionists to associate this failure as part of their identity (Sagar & Stoeber, 2009). Although it can be expected that one would be upset after failure, it appears that perfectionists are hypervigilant to negative performance feedback. Additionally, although self-critical perfectionists feel that they will only be accepted if they succeed, they do not feel pride even when they do succeed (Stoeber et al., 2008). The inability to feel accomplished suggests that self-critical perfectionists may feel that they are not the reason for their success – that is, they may not demonstrate a self-serving attributional bias.

Compared to self-critical perfectionists, those high on personal standards perfectionism react to success and failure more adaptively (Besser et al., 2004). Those high in personal standards perfectionism experience more pride after success, whereas self-critical perfectionists do not (Stoeber et al., 2008). This illustrates that personal standards perfectionists can appreciate what they have accomplished, and perhaps their role in achieving that accomplishment. For example, it was found that students who exhibited greater tendencies for personal standards perfectionism experienced greater satisfaction with their GPA, even though their GPA was no better than that of self-critical perfectionists. This shows that personal standards perfectionists might be able to appreciate and realize their accomplishments more than self-critical perfectionists (Grzegorek, Slaney, Franze, & Rice, 2004). However, even personal standards perfectionists experience more psychological distress when they fail to achieve the exacting standards that they have placed upon themselves (Accordino, Accordino, & Slaney, 2000). It is important to consider if personal standards perfectionists are more adaptive when dealing with success and failure, and if that is partially due to how they utilize the self-serving bias.

Stoeber and Becker (2008) provide preliminary evidence that self-critical perfectionists have an abnormal self-serving attributional bias. In a study on student athletes, when self-critical perfectionists were asked to think about a game that they had won or lost, they attributed success to external sources and failure to the self, whereas personal standards perfectionists were able to use the self-serving bias (Stoeber & Becker, 2008). This lack of a self-serving bias among self-critical perfectionists may create a sense of ambivalence toward success and a hyperawareness of failure, which would subsequently impact well-being. However, in that study (Stoeber & Becker, 2008), the recall of success or failure was restricted to one domain (sports), rather than to one’s general pursuits. Nevertheless, that study provides initial evidence that self-critical perfectionism may be inversely related to the self-serving bias. Given that self-critical perfectionists are more prone to depression and anxiety (Sherry et al., 2014), and that those with depression or anxiety are less likely to utilize a self-serving bias, we sought to directly examine the effects of self-critical (and personal standards) perfectionism on self-serving attributional bias. We propose that self-critical perfectionists will attribute successful goal attainment to external sources and failure or abandonment of a goal to the self (internal source). However, we expect that personal standards perfectionists will be able to use the self-serving bias to attribute success internally and failure externally. Although previous research has not found any evidence for a negative or reversed self-serving bias among anxious or depressed individuals (Mezulis et al., 2004), we wanted to examine directly whether such a reversal was possible among personal standards and self-critical perfectionists by looking at their attributions for their successes and failures.

The objective of the present research is to examine whether people with personal standards and self-critical perfectionistic tendencies differentially attribute success and failures for their personal goals. This research is unique in that we examine goal status (success, progress, achievement and abandonment) longitudinally instead of examining perceived or imagined success and failure (Stoeber and Becker, 2008, Stoeber et al., 2008). Perfectionists are highly motivated and it is important to understand how success and failure in commonly pursued short and medium-term goals may impact perfectionists. In addition to assessing goal standing, we assessed satisfaction, attribution to self, to external factors, and to the goal itself, along with whether they would reset the goal again. We generally expected self-critical perfectionism to be related to a less self-serving attributional style, and personal standards perfectionism to be related to higher levels of self-serving attributional bias. As we were unsure about the exact way that this would look like in our analyses (e.g., when failing at a goal would self-critical perfectionism relate to greater attribution to self, lower attribution to external factors, or both), we conducted a first exploratory study, and then used a second dataset to see whether the results from the first dataset would replicate.

Section snippets

Study 1

This first study examined how people attribute their successes and failures in pursuing short-term goals. Participants were asked to set multiple week-long goals, and then one week later, they were asked about goal progress, satisfaction, attribution and likelihood to set the goal again. We generally expected self-critical perfectionism to be related to less self-serving bias, and higher levels of personal standards perfectionism to be related to higher levels of self-serving bias. However, as

Study 2

The objective of Study 2 was to determine if the unique pattern of external attributions of self-critical perfectionists could be replicated. While the general procedure was the same as Study 1, there are three notable exceptions. First, in this study we examined semester-long goals, whereas Study 1 focused on week-long goals. This extension is particularly interesting because there is opportunity for individuals to become more invested in their goals, which may affect their attributions of

General discussion

The present studies provide further evidence that perfectionists may use the self-serving attributional bias in a distorted manner, while fine-tuning the direction of this distortion. Both studies provide evidence that individuals that are high in self-critical perfectionism are more likely to attribute their successes to external factors, compared to those lower on self-critical perfectionism. This suggests that self-critical perfectionists believe that their successes are due to external

Author note

This research was supported by grants to M. Milyavskaya from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant # 435-2016-0991) and from the Ontario Mental Health Foundation. The authors would like to acknowledge Richard Koestner and Nora Hope (McGill University) for their role in data collection for Study 2 of the manuscript.

Statement of contributions

KW and SL came up with the research questions; MM and JC were also present in the meeting where the initial ideas where elaborated on. MM analyzed the data. SL wrote the paper with feedback from MM and KW. JC wrote a paragraph that was later removed from the introduction. KW collected the data for Study 1. MM and SL handled all revisions requested by the reviewers and editor.

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