The Self-worth Theory of Achievement Motivation

The Self-Worth Theory of Achievement Motivation: Findings and ImplicationsAuthor(s): Martin V. CovingtonReviewed work(s):Source: The Elementary School Journal, Vol. 85, No. 1, Special Issue: Motivation (Sep., 1984),pp. 4-20Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1001615 .Accessed: 06/02/2012 00:26

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The Self-Worth Theory of Achievement Motivation: Findings and Implications

Martin V. Covington University of California, Berkeley

The Elementary School Journal Volume 85, Number 1 o 1984 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0013-5984/85/850 1 -0001 $0 1.00

The purpose of this article is to describe the self-worth theory of achievement motivation, to summarize the research gen- erated under this model, and to consider the implications of research for classroom teaching and learning. The self-worth theory assumes that a central part of all classroom achievement is the need for students to protect their sense of worth or personal value. Perceptions of ability are critical to this self-protective process, since for many students the mere possession of high ability signifies worthiness. Moreover, ability is widely perceived as a major cause of success, and success in turn reflects well on the individual. For these reasons, I will focus on the topic of ability perceptions and on developmental changes in these perceptions. A second main theme of this article concerns the various strategies that students employ to maintain a sense of worthiness in the face of failure, an outcome that would otherwise lead to suspi- cions of inability. A third theme concerns a potential conflict of values between teachers and students. Specifically, the failure-avoiding strategies that students often use to maintain a sense of competency involve various subterfuge such as procrastination, not trying, and excuses. These tactics come in direct conflict with the prevailing work-ethic value of teachers. Finally, I shall consider what research suggests for resolving this conflict of classroom values, one value involving the maintenance of ability, and the other espousing effort.

Theories of achievement motivation The paper begins with a brief summary of several contemporary views of achieve-

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6 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL

ment motivation and their relationship to self-worth theory.

Learned-drive theories All contemporary theories of achieve-

ment motivation have evolved from earlier drive theories that emphasized the satisfaction of basic tissue needs such as hunger and thirst as among the most powerful or-

ganizers of behavior. However, because of the obvious limitations of a strictly phys- iological approach to a general theory of human behavior, researchers eventually broadened their focus to include learned drives or psychological motives such as the need for approval, belongingness, and achievement. The most sophisticated of these early theories of achievement motivation as a learned drive is still influential

today and was developed in the 1950s and

early 1960s by David McClelland (1965) and John Atkinson (1957, 1964; Atkinson & Raynor 1977). According to this model, the need for achievement results from a conflict between striving for success, on the one hand, and a disposition to avoid failure, on the other. Atkinson argued that individuals show marked differences in the ways they resolve this conflict and that the choice and quality of resolution depend in large part on one's childhood experiences.

Thus, a major focus of the research in- spired by this model has been to demon- strate the critical importance of child- rearing practices in cultivating or inhibit- ing the positive self-regard necessary to the pursuit of success (e.g., Rosen & D'An- drade 1959; Winterbottom 1953). This research generally indicates that a positive achievement orientation (i.e., a willingness to attempt success) is associated with pa- rental efforts to accept their children in their own right, to establish clear and en- forcible rules of conduct, and to permit the children a wide latitude of exploration within these boundaries (Coopersmith 1967). The pattern ofparental-and by ex- tension, teacher-rewards and punish- ments is critical to this process. The par-

ents of success-oriented youngsters tend to reward performance that is praiseworthy yet ignore or at least remain neutral toward the performance that falls short of adult expectations. The opposite pattern appears characteristic of the parents of failure-avoiding children: punishing their children's failures while being noncom- mittal in the event of success (Teevan & Fischer 1967).

It is primarily because these antecedents are established so early in life that researchers often view the need for achievement (and its two antagonistic components) as a stable, personality characteristic. However, immediate situational factors also play an important part in determining whether or not, and to what degree, one achievement tendency will transcend the other. For example, at times even the most reluctant and self-doubting child will strive for success if the task is important enough or if the chances of succeeding are judged high. Moreover, success-oriented individuals appear especially adept at selecting achievement strategies to fit prevailing circumstances. For instance, these persons prefer to work on tasks for which the prob- ability of success is approximately equal to the likelihood of failure. This assures them of sufficient successes to sustain further effort and to maintain interest, yet without

cheapening the rewards of success by too easy a victory. In contrast, failure-avoiding persons often select achievement tasks that are either too easy or too difficult, thereby creating the very failures and poor record of achievement that they are attempting to avoid. The question of why these individuals act in such self-defeating ways is complex and is a special province of self- worth theory.

In summary, the learned-drive theory of achievement motivation emphasizes a fundamental conflict between attempting success and avoiding failure, and the ways that individuals of different achievement orientations resolve this conflict. Research in this tradition demonstrates a clear as-

SEPTEMBER 1984

THEORY OF ACHIEVEMENT 7

sociation between one's early childhood

experiences and the quality of subsequent achievements, thus raising the question of whether or not changes in achievement motivation are possible through relearn-

ing and instruction.

Cognitive attribution theories In the early 1970s, cognitive theorists,

led by Bernard Weiner and his colleagues, posed a radical reinterpretation of Atkin- son's learned-drive theory (Weiner 1972, 1974; Weiner, Frieze, Kukla, Reed, Rest, & Rosenbaum 1971). These formulations were guided by the principles of attribution theory, which assume that people's perceptions of the causes of their successes and failures influence the quality of their future achievement. The basic emotional

anticipation of hope for success and fear of failure (stressed in drive-theory formulations) was subordinated to cognitive attributions as the major determinants of achievement behavior. Weiner proposed ability, effort, luck, and task ease/difficulty as the major perceived causes of achievement performance. Research in the cognitive tradition indicates that success- oriented and failure-avoiding individuals harbor different explanations about the causes of their successes and failures (Wei- ner et al. 1971; Weiner & Kukla 1970). It is precisely these different perceptions that are considered the essence of individual differences in achievement motivation. Generally, people motivated to approach success tend to attribute their successes to ability and their failures to a lack of effort. In contrast, failure-avoiding people tend to ascribe success to external factors such as luck and to attribute failure to inability. Thus, individuals who ascribe their successes to sufficient ability will undertake similar tasks in the future because they an- ticipate doing well. On the other hand, individuals will be less likely to strive if they believe their successes are caused by external factors or if they believe that they

are powerless to succeed again owing to insufficient ability.

Cognitive theory and research have fo- cused primarily on the role of effort in achievement dynamics. This theory pos- tulates that perception of one's effort is the most important cause of future achievement behavior. This emphasis on effort perceptions is not misplaced. For example, research indicates that the degree of effort expended on a task influences a person's subjective estimates of succeeding in the future (Fontaine 1974; Valle & Frieze 1976). If individuals do not try hard and fail, they are more likely to remain optimistic about succeeding later. Moreover, high effort increases pride in success (Brown & Weiner 1984; Covington & Omelich 1979c, 1981a; Weiner et al. 1971) and mitigates feelings of guilt that otherwise accompany not trying (Brown & Wei- ner 1984; Covington & Omelich 1984). But perhaps most important, student effort is considered central because of the wide- spread belief that it is modifiable through the actions of teachers. Whether this premise is true or not, at least teachers act on it: students whom teachers perceive as having tried hard are rewarded more in success and punished less in failure than are students who do not try hard (Omelich & Covington 1979; Rest, Nierenberg, Weiner, & Heckhausen 1973; Weiner & Kukla 1970). Moreover, these teacher reactions are the same whether the student is seen as bright or not so bright. From these teacher reinforcement patterns, cognitive theorists have concluded that students should value effort as a main source of personal worth, and, to the extent that students do not comply with this work-ethic value, they will experience guilt and remorse.

Self-worth theory The self-worth theory of achievement

motivation (Covington & Beery 1976) de- rives from the basic cognitive position and shares with it the view that achievement


behavior can be most meaningfully con- ceptualized in terms of self-perceptions of causality. However, unlike attribution theory, it also incorporates a motivational component, and for this reason it forms the basis for a conceptual rapprochement between cognitive and learned-drive theories. Specifically, self-worth theory fo- cuses attention on the pervasive need im- plied in the drive-theory model to approach success and to avoid failure, which causes a sense of worthlessness and social disapproval. It is widely recognized in our society that personal worth depends largely on one's accomplishments. Moreover, because ability is seen as a critical component of success, and inability a prime cause of failure, self-perceptions of ability become a significant part of one's self-definition. Thus, self-worth theory stresses ability perceptions as a primary activator of achievement behavior. Individuals are dri- ven to succeed not only to reap the personal and social benefits of success, but also because success aggrandizes a reputation for one's ability to achieve; and if success becomes unlikely, one's first priority is to act in ways that minimize the implications of failure-namely, that one lacks ability.

Assuming the validity of this position, several questions are relevant. The first concerns the nature of the various sources of threat to one's sense of worth. As we have seen, the cognitive model stresses those aspects of worthlessness that occur primarily through noncompliance to a cul- tural work ethic (guilt and remorse), while the self-worth model emphasizes feelings of worthlessness arising out of the disclo- sure of incompetency (shame and humiliation). Naturally, both effort-linked and ability-linked aspects of worth are likely to operate simultaneously in a given achievement situation. Thus, the most important questions are, Under what circumstances does one source of worth dominate over the other? and Do effort and ability cognitions interact in establishing a sense of

worth? I shall now discuss some tentative answers to these questions.

The main elements of the self-worth model are presented in figure 1. The basic assumption is that several factors influence one's sense of worth and adequacy, including performance level, self-estimates of ability, and degree of effort expenditure. In all cases the arrows in figure 1 imply causality. First, the fundamental premise that a sense of worth depends heavily on one's accomplishments is rep- resented by the performance --, worth linkage. This direct, and presumably powerful, causal relationship implies that un- less people can become successful at some valued activity, they will be cut off from a major source of self-esteem. Indeed, the fact that the model portrays this linkage as not necessarily influenced by the causes of one's achievement, either through diligence or brilliance, suggests that human beings tend to embrace success no matter how it occurs. Naturally, there are important exceptions to this general observa- tion. We have already noted that some individuals reject credit for their successes because they feel inadequate to repeat them. Moreover, successes perceived as resulting primarily from remedial assistance are sometimes less valued than successes achieved solely by one's own efforts (Covington & Omelich 1981 a). Nonethe- less, despite these exceptions, humans do typically discount factors that might qual- ify or discredit their successes and cast their failures in the best possible light (Baumeister & Jones 1978; Covington & Omelich 1979c; Sigall & Gould 1977).

ABILITY

S- EL7F PERFORMANCE

EFFORT

FIG. 1.-Schematic diagram of the self-worth model

SEPTEMBER 1984


Second, figure 1 portrays self-perceptions of ability as influencing worth in two ways: directly and indirectly. The direct ability --- worth linkage demonstrates that the mere perception of high ability can sometimes come to imply worthiness, even in the absence of solid accomplishments. Self-perceptions of ability can also influence worth indirectly via the perceived value of ability for enhancing performance (ability --- performance --- worth). It is within this instrumental linkage that the value of ability ultimately resides, since typically an individual's sense of worth cannot long rest solely on a reputation for intelligence. In effect, achievement is what counts, and ability is valued as its chief causal agent.

Third, most individuals, especially younger children, view trying hard as a key factor in successful performance. More- over, effort is highly valued in its own right as a source of worth (effort --, worth), given the teacher reinforcement patterns described earlier.

Some recent research conducted by my colleague, Carol Omelich, and me ex- plores the relative effects of effort and ability attributions on feelings of self-worth, through the pathways shown in figure 1 (Covington & Omelich 1982c). We asked college freshmen to analyze any one of the several lower-division courses they had completed the term before. Students rated their ability to deal with the subject matter and the degree of effort they expended in the course. They also recorded the grade they received and rated how much self- regard (worth) they experienced as students in the course. These data were analyzed by means of path analysis (Anderson & Evans 1974; Duncan 1966), which per- mits an estimate of the relative contributions (both direct and indirect) of each an- tecedent factor to the predicted outcomes of interest, which in this case were feelings of worth. The grades that students received (performance --, worth) accounted for approximately one-fourth of the vari-

ation in feelings of worthiness. This result confirms the self-worth expectation, that feelings of self-regard depend on one's achievements, irrespective of how they are attained. Second, perceived ability, independent of its effect on grades, accounted for approximately half of the variation in feelings of worth (ability -- worth). This suggests that by the time individuals (especially college students) reach young adulthood, they base concepts of their worth on self-perceptions of competency. The indirect effect of perceived ability on worth via its value for attaining high grades (ability - performance -- worth) accounted for an additional 6% of the variation in feelings of worth. Trying hard per se, irrespective of the grade attained (effort -- worth), accounted for the remain- ing variance (approximately 20%). Finally, the effect of effort on worth via grades (effort -- performance -- worth) was neg- ligible.

Thus it seems clear that ability, at least as college students perceive it, is central to the process of self-definition. The mere perception of high ability is tantamount to positive a self-identity in school. More- over, the perceived value of ability as a major cause of success further enhances its importance. The centrality of ability perceptions is corroborated in a number of other studies using a variety of methodo- logical approaches. For example, after re- viewing the relevant literature, Brown and Weiner (1984) conclude that college students prefer to achieve because of ability rather than effort. Moreover, among role- playing studies that permit separate estimates of ability and effort contributions, ability cognitions account for most of the variation in shame (Covington & Omelich 1984; Weiner & Kukla 1970). Finally, path analyses of actual college test-taking experiences indicate that ability cognitions are the dominant factor affecting pride and shame reactions as well as actual achievement (Covington & Omelich 1979a, 1981b, 1982a).


But why should students value ability at all, considering the pervasiveness of teacher reinforcement patterns that favor a work ethic? The answer is that these teacher values seem to result largely from the instructional process itself; that is, when students' primary task is to learn, teachers

recognize hard work and reward persis- tence, presumably because effort is under the learner's control. However, when the emphasis shifts to predicting who will learn the most-and most effectively-teachers view ability as the central factor. For example, teachers' selections of students who are suited for highly prestigious jobs depend mainly on perceived ability (Kaplan & Swant 1973). This distinction between effort as a valued agent in school learning and ability as a predictor of future occu- pational success is not lost on students.

The relative importance of ability and effort also depends on the age of the learner. For a variety of reasons, younger students perceive effort as the supreme vir- tue. It is only after students enter junior high that effort is progressively devalued and becomes a source of threat to one's worth. We will shortly consider the complex set of events that causes this developmental shift in values and its conse- quences for learning. Meanwhile, it is now clear why I started this presentation at the end, so to speak, with an exposition of achievement dynamics among older students coming first. It was to establish the longer perspective that all too often eludes us as educators. By the adult years, competency is the transcendant condition that determines a sense of worth, and it is this value system toward which all young students move as they grow older. Teachers must keep this in mind if they are to teach effectively at any grade level. But before turning to a description of the protracted developmental history of ability and effort valuation, it is important to consider why effort is a threat to older students.

Effort: the double-edged sword As we have seen, effort is an important source of worthiness as well as an impor-

tant perceived causal factor in achievement. Ironically, however, trying hard also

puts the student at risk. Specifically, al-

though effort reduces the guilt associated with noncompliance to a work ethic (Cov- ington & Omelich 1984), a combination of

high effort and failure also leads to sus-

picions of low ability (Kun & Weiner 1973). It is this self-revelation of incompetency that triggers humiliation and shame (Cov- ington & Omelich 1979b). Thus, effort becomes a double-edged sword; students must exert some effort to avoid teacher punishment and personal feelings of guilt, but not so much effort as to risk incompetency- linked humiliation should they try hard and fail anyway. This set of relationships between effort and ability cognitions and their role in causing various kinds of failure affect is presented in figure 2. A recent ex-

periment from my laboratory confirms these linkages. Covington and Omelich (1982b) asked college students to infer their

ability levels and to rate the degree of humiliation (an ability-linked affect) and guilt (an effort-linked affect) that they would ex-

perience at failing a test, depending on whether they studied a lot or very little. The results indicated that degree of effort, either high or low, accounted for all the variation in guilt reactions (effort -- guilt), with guilt being reduced by trying hard. In contrast, perceptions of inability accounted for most of the variation in humiliation (inability -- humiliation). More- over, as expected, trying hard led to

COGNITIONS AFFECT

INABILITY IHUMILIATION

HIGH GUILT EFFORT REACTION

FIG. 2.-Causal relations between effort and ability cognitions and various failure affect.

SEPTEMBER 1984


increased perceptions of inability, which in turn elevated humiliation even more (high effort -- inability --, humiliation). Thus we concluded that, although high effort reduces guilt, it simultaneously causes humiliation via decreases in perceived ability.

Because of the perceived importance of ability, both to achievement and to one's self-definition (see figure 1), students are likely to choose-if choose they must-to endure the pangs of guilt rather than the humiliation of incompetency. This intrapersonal conflict is documented in a study by Covington, Spratt, and Omelich (1980). College students made a series of self- ratings on personality characteristics and judged the kinds of emotional reactions they would experience following various types of failure. Not surprisingly, after failure resulting from low effort, students described themselves negatively as being lazy and unmotivated. Yet, these same students felt less anxious and dissatisfied with their failures, because their self-perceptions of ability remained relatively intact. Consid- ering the importance of maintaining a positive image of self (e.g., Schlenker 1975), the willingness of individuals to endure these negative self-labels indicates the importance of ability perceptions and the extent of the conflict caused by the dual nature of effort.

Not only does effort represent a potential threat to self-worth but it is also the means for deflecting this threat, at least temporarily. By expending little or no effort, estimates of one's ability tend to remain uncertain, since low effort alone is a sufficient explanation for failure (Kelley 1971) and therefore should minimize shame. Several additional studies using role-playing procedures similar to those described above test this supposition. Col- lege students who reported their affective reactions to hypothetical test failures experienced the greatest shame after having studied hard and the least shame after studying very little (Covington & Omelich 1979b). In the same experiment, students

were also asked to adopt the role of teachers and to administer punishment (negative feedback) to hypothetical other students under the same failure conditions. Results showed that conditions of failure that held the least implication for inability (low effort), and thereby evoked less shame, were the circumstances most punished by the "teachers." Conversely, the most positive circumstance from the teacher's view-

point (high effort) led to the greatest student shame and distress because of the

implications for low ability. These data clearly indicate the dual yet

incompatible nature of effort expenditure and the conflict of values between ability and effort as sources of worth. They also suggest that simply not trying is a poor self- protective strategy because of the severe teacher censorship that accompanies low effort. In this connection, excuses are an important factor in minimizing both teacher punishment for low effort and the shame that results from trying and failing anyway. More specifically, as part of this same study (Covington & Omelich 1979b), we provided half of the students in both the high-effort and low-effort conditions with excuses. The excuse for low effort was that the individual had been ill, a reason likely to deflect teacher ire yet maintain uncertainty about the student's abil-

ity. The excuse in the high-effort condition involved a mismatch between what the student had studied and what was stressed on the test, thereby avoiding teacher punishment and forestalling ability demotion despite having tried hard. As expected, these excuses moderated the extremes of both self-derogation and teacher negativity. In fact, not trying by reason of illness proved to be the optimal circumstance for minimizing both teacher disapproval and student shame.

In summary, self-worth theory assumes that much of student achievement behavior is best understood in terms of attempts to sustain a reputation of competency, and hence worth. A variety of such self-


protective techniques are available and

represent degrees of subtleness that go far

beyond the rather crude tactic of simply not trying.

Failure-avoiding tactics

Self-serving strategies such as the use of excuses work primarily by shifting the presumed causes of failure from personal, in- ternal (ability) factors to external causes

beyond the individual's control or respon- sibility. For example, one tactic is to set

unrealistically high achievement goals for oneself. When failure occurs, as it inevit-

ably will, it cannot be for lack of trying nor for eschewing socially valued goals. Yet, the fact that so few students could have succeeded against such long odds creates an ambiguity about one's ability. The same

self-protective goal is served by procrastination. By studying only belatedly, pro- crastinators neatly create an excuse should

they fail. Moreover, if they should succeed despite little effort, they will appear highly able (Beery 1975). Ironically, such strategies lead to the very failures that these students are attempting to avoid, but at least they are "failures with honor" since they can now blame factors other than themselves and, in effect, argue that failure does not necessarily imply low academic potential and hence is not a true measure of their worth.

Students use other related strategies in an attempt to avoid failure by assuring success. For example, a person may set standards for success at such a modest level that the likelihood of falling below these aspirations is low (Birney, Burdick, & Tee- van 1969). Obviously, however, these eas- ily won successes involve so little challenge that there cannot be much pride in achievement. A variation on this theme, avoiding failure by succeeding, is sometimes favored by bright students who set high personal goals and actually achieve them through a combination of brilliance and hard work. But, because this is basi- cally a defensive strategy, these students

often remain doubtful of their abilities de-

spite an enviable record of accomplishments. Moreover, when failure does occur-as it will eventually-it can be particularly devastating since it occurs despite high effort. These "overstrivers," as we call them (Beery 1975; Covington &

Beery 1976), appear to share much in com- mon with those students identified by Phil- lips (1981) as high achievers with low academic self-concepts.

The temporary relief afforded by these

failure-avoiding tactics is illusory, since their repeated use will finally destroy the will to learn. This self-defeating process involves a shift from being failure avoiding to becoming failure accepting. When used

frequently, self-serving excuses become less and less plausible and, as a consequence, eventually the evidence for low ability becomes undeniable. This painful process and the progressive sense of demoralization that results are illustrated in a study by Covington and Omelich (1981a). College students had several opportunities to improve their test performance by taking parallel forms of the same examination, with additional study time interspersed between the tests. Students who repeatedly failed to attain their grade goals slowly lost confidence in their ability ever to succeed, and hence experienced increasing shame. This negative process was hastened by the

increasing implausibility of students' excuses, such as not having enough time to study.

The degree of certainty about one's ability status, as well as level of ability perceptions, appears to be a critical factor in re- siliency to failure. For example, individuals who remain uncertain about their ability often seek out successes in order to resolve conflicting information about their competency in a positive direction (Cooper- smith 1967; Maracek & Mettee 1972; Swann 1982). By contrast, individuals who are convinced of their incompetency give up the struggle for self-regard and public approval via high achievement and be-

SEPTEMBER 1984


come failure accepting; that is, they blame failure on a lack of ability and dismiss their occasional successes as due to an easy task, to luck, or to the humanitarian impulses of the teacher. These students must search for alternative ways to preserve a sense of worth, such as becoming very diligent, punctual, and hard-working (e.g., effort -, worth). In this connection, low-ability people appear to value effort more than do high-ability people (Nicholls 1976). Also, Weiner and his colleagues have conducted studies that illustrate the importance of effort in reducing shame when ability is presumed to be low (Brown & Weiner 1984; Weiner & Kukla 1970).

Development of ability and efort perceptions As already mentioned, advocates of the cognitive theory of achievement motivation originally presumed that, because teachers value and encourage effort, students should come to internalize a work ethic and punish themselves for not trying (Weiner 1972, 1974). From a strictly reinforcement point of view, this prediction makes sense. However, we now know that, at least among older students, self-esteem factors can interfere with and override this otherwise straightforward reinforcement mechanism. These motivational processes have an important developmental history that has profound implications for classroom practice. It is now clear that cognitive predictions regarding the internaliz- ing of work-ethic values is essentially correct for young children. Evidence suggests that a direct effort --, affect (worth) linkage dominates the self-esteem of pre- school and primary-grade children. These children equate trying hard and being diligent with worthiness. This work-ethic value encompasses a number of related behaviors, including good conduct, comply- ing with authority, and generally staying out of trouble. In short, young children perceive well-behaved pupils as worthy of praise and admiration. At the same time,

young children also value ability (e.g., Ni- cholls 1975, 1976), and in some research the evidence even suggests this valuation is equal to that accorded ability by adults (Harari & Covington 1981). This occurs largely because even the youngest students perceive ability as a major source of pres- tige and an important basis for classroom privilege. For example, less-able readers are known to defer to the judgments of good readers, whether or not the issues under discussion are related to competency in reading (Morris 1977; Stulac 1975).

Initially, such a joint valuation of effort and ability is puzzling. It seems that if young students value ability so highly, then they should, like their adult counterparts, experience conflict regarding the threatening nature of effort. However, young children do not necessarily experience this conflict, because they view ability, effort, and the achievement outcomes that follow as indistinguishable. This psychological equivalency occurs for several reasons. First, kindergartners and preschoolers typically believe that children who try hard are smarter than those who do not try (Ni- cholls 1978; Stipek 1981), or, as one first grader stated, "Smart students try, dumb ones don't" (Harari & Covington 1981). Here, young students perceive ability as synonymous with effort. Thus, although children's subjective estimates of ability depend on effort cues, as do adults' estimates, the direction of this relationship is reversed: children view high rather than low effort as an indicator of ability. Sec- ond, in addition to perceiving effort as synonymous with ability, young children also believe that increases in effort can actually cause increases in ability! In effect, these pupils hold an "incremental" theory of intelligence (Dweck 1983), in which they perceive ability as a process that is infi- nitely expandable through instruction and experience. As a result, they view ability as subject to personal control in the same sense as is effort or one's intentions to be-


have properly. By trying hard, then, young students perceive themselves as both able because of effort and virtuous in the eyes of others. For this reason, there is no conflict of values between students and teachers in the early years of school.

One of the major reasons for these

youthful perceptions of the causes of success and failure is the immaturity of children's information-processing skills. Re- search conducted by Blumenfeld and her

colleagues provides information about the nature of the developmental course of these cognitive factors (Blumenfeld, Pin- trich, Meece, & Wessels 1981). Their study shows that it is not clear that children ac-

tually search spontaneously for the causal

implications of their behavior. As Blumen- feld points out, such self-awareness re-

quires the concept of personal control as a prerequisite, and research indicates that the child's sense of control over events is slow to develop (Bialer 1961; Crandall, Katkovsky, & Crandall 1965; Veroff 1969) and is likely a far more complex process than once supposed (see Weisz & Stipek 1982). Nor is it likely that children will make such causal attributions with much accuracy, even if they are directed to do so. Accuracy and reliability of judgments require perceiving ability as a stable, traitlike disposition, a view that does not evolve until at least late childhood (Bromley 1979; Livesley & Bromley 1973). Another cognitive limitation involves the difficulty that children experience in weighing the multiple causes of their past successes and failures in order to predict future performance (Parsons & Ruble 1977; Shaklee 1976). Moreover, research in science education suggests that children have difficulty understanding the relationship between two independent factors-for example, weight and the distance from a fulcrum as they may covary to influence the movement of a balance beam (Karplus 1977). A parallel limitation likely exists in the case of perceptions of effort and ability as independent, yet interactive, contribu-

tors to achievement outcomes. These deficiencies manifest themselves in the ina-

bility of young students to recognize that the harder the task, the more effort required (Karabenick & Heller 1976; Kun, Parsons, & Ruble 1974) and that smarter individuals need not try as hard as less bright people to achieve the same outcome (Harari & Covington 1981).

With this developmental perspective, I can now return to the earlier discussion of adult achievement values and perceived causes of worth (figure 1). The evidence just reviewed suggests that children accord a far greater role to effort as a direct cause of feelings of worth than do adults. More- over, the causal perceptions that children use to link ability and effort cast the entire task of maintaining a sense of approval in a far more positive light than for adults, since children believe that they can improve their performance (and by implication, their ability) through diligence. Thus, young children do not necessarily view poor performance as threatening or indic- ative of their future promise. By contrast, older children and adults are increasingly influenced by an "entity" theory of intel-

ligence (Dweck 1983) that involves perceptions of intelligence as a stable, un- changing factor. As a result, they view

ability as the dominant, necessary condition for success. Moreover, without ability, they perceive the benefits of effort as min- imal. As one high school student expressed it, "If someone is not smart, they can do only so well" (Harari & Covington 1981).

Having established developmental an- chor points among young children and among adults, we can now consider the processes that account for the progressive shift from an early effort/ability equivalency to a value system that emphasizes ability. Two general factors are likely involved in this progression: a rapidly developing capacity for adultlike reasoning among early adolescents, and the introduction of competition into classroom life. I shall briefly consider each factor.

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Information processing By the junior high school years, stu-

dents are able to entertain compensatory, interactive relationships among several variables reasonably well. Using a role- playing paradigm, Schnur (1981) confirms this point. Junior high school students judged the likelihood of success on an up- coming test under differing circumstances, including degree of test difficulty, ability level of the student, and amount of time spent studying. Schnur found that these students recognized that low ability can be offset in part by additional effort and that increased effort is needed to preserve a constant performance level as task difficulty increases. Also, junior high school students understand well the reciprocal nature of ability and effort (Harari & Cov- ington 1981). As the amount of effort needed to attain a given achievement increases, the less able the individual is perceived to be. The capacity to recognize effort level as a major cue for judging inability is an important turning point in the quality of achieving for many children. Effort no longer represents an unambig- uous positive source of worth. Effort can also lead to perceptions of inability in the case of having failed after trying hard. The deceptively simple reasoning behind this inverse effort/ability linkage presumes that the child has differentiated sufficiently between effort and ability as independent factors in order to exercise the logic im- plied in Kelley's (1971, 1973) notion of "multiple-sufficient schema." Simply put, this means that a person's performance can be explained by any one of several factors, each of which alone is sufficient to produce the outcome. Thus, high effort that pre- cedes failure leaves low ability as a sufficient explanation.

Competition

Younger students tend to judge themselves and their performances against their own records of progress (Ruble, Parsons, 8& Ross 1976). If children's achievement

improves over time, then they are likely to be pleased with the results. This tendency is congruent with the view of ability as a changing, expandable process in which one becomes smarter by trying and by pro- gressing through school. However, as children mature, self-comparisons begin to give way to the use of normative and group standards for judging the adequacy of one's performance. As a result, one's sense of worth comes to depend on doing better than someone else. Although the emergence of this social-comparison dynamic appears to be part of the normal developmental process, its negative effect on many students' self-concepts is undoubt- edly accelerated and intensified by competitive school environments. This occurs because competitive evaluation systems re- duce the number of psychological rewards available to students in a class. Such practices as grading on a curve or singling out a winner based on the best performance create a condition of fewer rewards than there are players and establishes what Al- schuler (1973) calls a "zero-sum game." In effect, for every winner there must be one or more losers. This condition forces many students to abandon the positive, coping strategies associated with striving for success and to adopt tactics designed to avoid failure.

A series of studies by Ames and Ames (1981) provides important insights about the motivational outcomes associated with competitive learning structures. These in- vestigators induced competition among pairs of upper elementary school children ("Let's see which one of you can solve the most puzzles") and then compared the reactions of these children to those of other children operating in either a cooperative mode or working alone. These researchers found that students perceived ability as a more salient cause of their successes and failures under competitive conditions, and also that failing students were more self- punishing and perceived themselves as less capable in competition (Ames 1978, 1981;


Ames, Ames, & Felker 1977). Competition also contributed to unrealistic goal setting in which children often overestimated what

they could do in an apparent bid to outdo their peers. Such a tactic simply ensured the likelihood of further failure. These

goal-setting deficiencies appeared to be caused in part by students' disregard for information about their past performance (Ames & Ames 1981). Finally, competition tended to magnify the positive affect associated with success (pride) and the negative affect associated with failure (shame, guilt) (Ames & Felker 1979; Crockenberg, Bryant, & Wilce 1976). This causes the reinforcement of a false linkage between pride and ability-not pride in one's ac-

complishments-so that a willingness to try will continue only so long as the individual is successful.

Conclusions The foregoing evidence indicates that older students and young adults perceive ability as the dominant causal factor in achievement. They value ability not only because of its perceived importance to success but also because eventually they equate ability with worth, irrespective of a person's immediate record of accomplishments. Ability valuation is also important in the classroom as a major, if not the primary, predictor of who will learn the fast- est and hence who will be selected to learn more. Effort supplants ability as a main source of reward and satisfaction only in contexts where learning for its own sake is the goal. Not surprisingly, then, children value ability highly beginning at an early age. Fortunately for the young student who perceives effort and ability as psychologi- cally equivalent, effort yields a double ben- efit for a sense of worth; effort promotes ability, and in ways that maximize approval from adults. However, for older students the blessings of being motivated are mixed with the threat of humiliation should they try hard and still fail. All too often, students settle this conflict between two

sources of worth-one due to intelligence and the other owing to diligence-in favor of ability maintenance through the use of failure-avoiding strategies. This analysis of classroom learning dynamics suggests that the most important task facing the teacher is to instruct students in ways that keep a

growing preoccupation with ability from

interfering with students' willingness to learn. Although this goal is far easier expressed than accomplished, several broad recommendations may facilitate this ob- jective.

First, teachers should use noncompetitive learning structures whenever possible. Such structures increase the number of rewards available to students, thereby promoting the pursuit of success rather than forcing an avoidance of failure. Ex- perimental and field research has tested a number of noncompetitive techniques in recent years. For example, mastery learning provides students with multiple test/study opportunities so that they can master

subject-matter content to a required level of competency (Block 1977; Bloom 1976). The standard for final performance is held constant while the amount of study time is allowed to vary, a procedure that promotes judgments of adequacy based on self- comparisons and emphasizes skilled effort. This approach also tends to diminish the causal importance of perceived ability in achievement (Covington 1984a; Coving- ton & Omelich 1981b).

Other noncompetitive strategies involve cooperative learning, in which, for example, individual team members take re- sponsibility for some aspect of a total assignment, master it, and then teach it to other team members (Aronson, Stephan, Sikes, Blaney, & Snapp 1978; Martin 1976). Students thus learn that the rewards of contributing to the well-being of others may surpass the dubious benefits of triumphing over them.

Another popular noncompetitive achievement strategy involves individual goal setting and contract learning, in which

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students establish work agreements with teachers and jointly develop plans to over- come learning obstacles (Covington & Beery 1976). As a group, these learning strategies are likely to strengthen the perceived utility of an effort -, performance linkage (Ames & Felker 1979; Crocken- berg, Bryant, & Wilce 1976), to promote realistic goal setting and to allow more constructive interpretations of failure experiences. In this latter connection, explanations of failure other than low ability are now possible, including the likelihood that one's aspirations may have been too high or that the task was not properly analyzed (Covington 1983, 1984b).

Second, of equal importance to how one learns is what one learns. This point is especially critical for encouraging a contin- uing belief among students that the ability to learn is an ever-improving capacity. For example, the rote learning of facts and information emphasizes speed and effi- ciency, which inevitably favor the traitlike aspects of ability. In contrast, teaching students broad learning-to-learn skills such as question-asking and problem-solving strategies enhances their view of acquired knowledge as a tool that provides an ever- greater capacity to learn. For example, Gagn6 (1983) found that, when junior high students discovered that they could dra- matically improve their recall performance by employing various mnemonic devices, they applied these techniques spontaneously and enthusiastically outside the classroom. Similar increases in motivational involvement among children have also been found following instruction in complex problem-solving skills such as for- mulating old tasks in new ways (Covington, Crutchfield, Davies, & Olton 1974; Olton & Crutchfield 1969). Although the acquisition of facts is an indispensible element of the educational process, it is what the learner does with factual knowledge that promotes the intrinsic motivation to learn more; and when one wants to learn, concerns about ability recede in importance.

In conclusion, teachers must recognize that the emergence of an ability valuation among students is an inevitable, even normal, process, and that it is to a great extent unavoidable. Because of this, these devel- opmentally conditioned processes cannot long be denied or postponed, and to try to do so would be a mistake. The greatest disservice would be to encourage students to adopt a falsely optimistic view of their capacities in order to gain a short-term ad- vantage. From this perspective, then, the most reasonable strategy would be to encourage additional sources of worth beyond the mere possession of ability. These alternative sources of satisfaction come from a job well done or from the pride that results in self-improvement. How- ever, teachers cannot expect to neutralize society's reliance on competitive achievement as a major criterion of success simply by restructuring the classroom. Neverthe- less, the promotion of motivational goals does suggest something about the true mission of schools. Schools must value ideas and the productive use of the mind, not because doing so will automatically guar- antee social justice or eradicate competition but for the sake of enriching individual lives.

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The Self-worth Theory of Achievement Motivation

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