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Achievement Evaluation
Responsibility
judgments
are
most
frequently associated with interpersonal
transgressions, which vary greatly and can
include criminal encounters as well as the
relatively benign act of arriving late for an
appointment. But there are many situations
in which responsibility beliefs are elicited
even though another individual is not
directly victimized (although society may
be regarded as damaged). Achievement
settings provide one such context.
In his classic book, The Protestant Ethic
and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber
(1904) called attention to the association
between achievement strivings and morality.
He argued that it is a moral duty to put forth
effort and to strive for success. In support of
this line of reasoning, a large number of
research studies (see review in Weiner,
1986) have documented the intuitively
evident the person who fails to put forth
effort and performs poorly is held
responsible for that outcome and is
reprimanded or punished. This contrasts
with failure caused by the absence of ability
or aptitude, which is construed as not
controllable by the failing person, thus
abrogating judgments of responsibility and,
in turn, precluding punishment. One
illustrative type of research investigation
that supports these conclusions asks for
evaluative feedback (say, from +5 to 5) to
students described, for example, as follows:
1) Student A: High in ability, low in effort,
failing an exam
2) Student B: Low in ability, high in effort,
failing an exam
3) Student C: High in ability, low in effort,
succeeding at an exam
You might do this now. It is expected
that the reader (just as the participants in this
research) will recommend a harsher
evaluation to Student A than to Student B.
Student A is more responsible for failure
and is less moral than Student B because the
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