Brockner J, Gardner M, Bierman J, Mahan T, Thomas B, Weiss W, Winters L, Mitchell A
J Pers Soc Psychol. 1983 Jul;45(1):199-209. doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.45.1.199.
The present experiments were designed to study the conditions under which failure would enhance or inhibit subsequent task performance. Based on the theory of Wortman and Brehm (1975), it was expected that small amounts of failure would produce reactance (manifested by improved performance at a subsequent task), whereas large amounts would lead to learned helplessness (i.e., impaired later performance). It was further expected that individual differences in self-esteem and private self-consciousness would serve as moderator variables for the above effects. In Experiment 1, subjects were exposed to either a small amount of failure or no failure before working on an anagrams task. As predicted, subjects high in self-consciousness, who have shown greater reactance arousal in attitude change studies, performed better on the anagrams task than subjects low in self-consciousness in the small-failure condition, but not in the no-failure condition. Further analyses revealed that this Self-Consciousness X Small Failure interaction was attributable to the performance data of the low, but not the high self-esteem subjects. Experiment 2 was designed to replicate and extend these results. Subjects were pretreated with either a small amount of failure, an extended amount of failure, or no failure before working on the anagrams task. A significant Self-Esteem X Helplessness Training interaction emerged. Relative to the no-failure condition, in which the two self-esteem groups did not differ, low self-esteem participants (low SEs) performed marginally better than did high self-esteem individuals (high SEs) in the small-failure condition but significantly worse than high SEs in the extended-failure condition. The effect of private self-consciousness was considerably weaker in this study, possibly because the sample included few low SEs (who are especially influenced by self-focused attention) who were also relatively low in self-consciousness. Questionnaire data from Experiment 2 were consistent with the notion that enhanced performance reflected reactance, whereas impaired performance signified helplessness.
本实验旨在研究失败会在何种条件下增强或抑制后续任务表现。基于沃特曼和布雷姆（1975）的理论，预计少量失败会产生反抗（表现为后续任务表现的改善），而大量失败则会导致习得性无助（即后续表现受损）。进一步预计，自尊和私我意识的个体差异将作为上述效应的调节变量。在实验1中，被试在进行字谜任务前，要么经历少量失败，要么不经历失败。正如预测的那样，在态度改变研究中表现出更强反抗唤醒的高自我意识被试，在少量失败条件下的字谜任务中比低自我意识被试表现更好，但在无失败条件下并非如此。进一步分析表明，这种自我意识×少量失败的交互作用归因于低自尊而非高自尊被试的表现数据。实验2旨在重复并扩展这些结果。被试在进行字谜任务前，要么接受少量失败预处理，要么接受大量失败预处理，要么不接受失败预处理。出现了显著的自尊×无助训练交互作用。相对于无失败条件（此时两个自尊组没有差异），在少量失败条件下，低自尊参与者（低SEs）的表现略好于高自尊个体（高SEs），但在大量失败条件下明显比高SEs差。在本研究中，私我意识的影响要弱得多，可能是因为样本中低SEs（他们特别受自我关注的影响）且自我意识相对较低的个体较少。实验2的问卷数据与以下观点一致，即表现增强反映了反抗，而表现受损则意味着无助。
