Self‐perceptions moderate the effect of implicit theories on preadolescent's attributions of their positive and negative social experiences

Abstract Associations between implicit theories of personality, perceived social competence, and attributions to explain positive and negative outcomes in social tasks were examined in a study of 103 fifth‐ and sixth‐grade girls and boys. Consistent with the basic model formulated by Dweck and Leggett (1988), it was hypothesized that having an entity, rather than an incremental, perspective would vary as a function of the degree to which children had a positive view of their social competence. The results showed that an entity theory of personality was associated with emphasis on the importance of personal characteristics and task difficulty following social failure, whereas an incremental theory was associated with emphasis on the importance of task ease following social success. High scores on the positive perceived social competence measure were associated with emphasis on the importance of personal characteristics, effort and task ease following social success and the importance of personal characteristics, luck and task difficulty following social failure. Preadolescents with an entity theory of personality were less likely to make attributions of personal characteristics and task difficulty to social failure if they had a positive view of their social competence. Preadolescents with an incremental theory of personality were not likely to make these attributions about social failure regardless of whether they viewed their social competencies as positive. These findings indicate that the association between entity and incremental views and social attributions needs to be considered in conjunction with perceptions of the self. They provided support for Deck and Leggett's (1988) model.