tempts to control and predict his outcomes "by referring transient and variable behavior and events to relatively unchanging underlying conditions, the so-called.
Perceptual rrnd Molor Skill.r, 1974, 38, 33-42. @ Perceptual and Motor Skills 1974
PERCEIVED RELATEDNESS O F TRAIT-DISPOSITIONS TO ABILITY A N D EFFORT' LEONARD SAXE, MARTIN S. GREENBERG, AND DANIEL BAR-TAL University of Piltsburgh
Stcrnmary.-The present s t u d y derives from Heider's (1958) "naive analysis of action." The study was designed to determine the extent to which traitdispositions are related to the concepts of ability and effort and to assess the extent to which these attributions are correlated with stability and "likableness." 67 Ss evaluated the degree to which each of 50 trait-disposition words was related to the concepts of ability and effort. The obtained ratings of relevance of both ability and effort were highly correlated with ratings of stability in earlier research. Results reflected a "positivity bias" in that ratings of relevance of ability and effort were highly correlated wirh ratings of "likableness" of the trait. Ratings of relevance of abiliry and effort were positively correlated, indicating a tendency to view trait-dispositions as being related both to ability and effort. According- to Heider's ( 1 9 5 8 ) "naive analysis of action," an individual attempts to control and predict his outcomes "by referring transient and variable behavior and events to relatively unchanging underlying conditions, the so-called dispositional properties of his world" (p. 7 9 ) . Utilizing Heider's naive analysis, Weiner, Frieze, Kukla, Reed, Rest, and Rosenbaum (1971) differentiated dispositions of the person and the environment along a dimension of stability or permanence. They postulated that, with regard to the person, ability dispositions are perceived as being more stable over time than dispositions pertaining to effort. Data consiscenc with this proposition was provided by Jones, Rock, Shaver, Goethals, and Ward (1968). More recent evidence by Bar-Tal and Greenberg (1973) suggests that the situation is more complicaced. Only ability dispositions which were high on "likableness" (Anderson, 1968) were viewed as more stable than disposicions presumably related to effort. Furthermore, ability dispositions low on likableness were viewed as 1e.u stable than effort dispositions. Since ability and effort attributions appear to be related to the dimension .of stability, it would be of critical importance to determine empirically the extent to which individuals identify personal disposicions as referring to abiliry and effort. T h e present study was designed with two purposes: first, to determine empirically the extent to which adjective-trait words commonly used to describe individuals imply dispositions of ability and effort. It was implicitly assumed that assignment of a trait-disposition word to the categories of ability and effort is a matter of degree and therefore degree of relatedness to ability and effort could be assessed on a continuous rather than a dichotomous scale. T h e second purpose of this study was to ascertain the extent to which these empirically de'This research
was
facilitated by NlMH Training Grant 1 TO1 MH12443-01.
40
L. SAXE, ET AL.
termined ratings of relevance of ability and effort relate to the dimension of perceived stability. Ss were 67 male and female students at the University of Pittsburgh, who were enrolled in an evening section of the introductory course in psychology. Ss were given a booklet with the following written insrructions: "The purpose of the present study is to investigate the connotations of various words commonly used to describe individuals. In particular, we are interested in the extent to which words connote ability and efforr. On the following pages is a list of words commonly used to describe individuals. Some words pertain to characteristics which primarily refer ro a person's ability, either mental or physical, such as 'ignorant' or 'powerful.' Other words pertain to characterisrics which primarily refer to a person's effort o r motivation, such as 'unconcerned' or 'persistent.' Alternatively, there are words which refer to characteristics which may imply almost equal degrees of both ability and effort such as 'successful.' In addition, some words may imply neither ability nor effort, such as 'moody' or 'nervous.' W e would like you to give your personal feelings about the extent to which each of the characrerisrics on the following pages is a function of a person's ability and/or effort. Rate each word on the following two scales:'' 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Relates to Does nor relate ability to ability 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Relates to Does not relate to effort effort Following the instructions was a list of 50 trait-disposition words randomly ordered and randomly drawn from a list of 115 words used in previous research (Bar-Tal & Greenberg, 1973). The original list of words was derived from a variety of sources pertaining to stereotypes (Karlins, Coffman, & Walters, 1968), impression formation (Anderson, 1968), and the semantic differential (Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957). Ss evaluated each word on the ability and effort scales before evaluating the next word.
Mean ratings of relevance of ability and effort were calculated for each of the 50 trait-disposition words. Table 1 shows the mean ratings of relevance of ability and effort for each of the 50 traits. Examination strongly suggests a positivity or "likableness" bias for revelance of both ability and effort. Ratings of relevance of ability for the complete list correlated .50 ( p < .01) with likableness ratings obtained by Anderson ( 1968) ."Unintelligent" was the only relatively unlikable trait word that was rated highly relevant to ability. Traits having the highest ratings on perceived ability include, Smart (6.10), Wise (6.00), Clever (5.91), Capable (5.84),Unintelligent (5.02), Tough (4.99), Active (4.49), Practical (4.49), Attentive (4.12), and Healthy (4.03). Effort and likableness correlated .60 ( p < .01), the word "lazy" being the only unlikable trait word rated highly relevant to effort. Traits rated most highly relevant to effort included Attentive (5.96), Neat (5.73), Active (5.30),Honest (5.1 I ) , Serious (4.97), Tolerant (4.91), Capable (4.78), Trustworthy (4.75), Lazy (4.74), and Clever (4.63). Ratings of relevance of ability were signifi'Eleven trait words were omitted as they were not included in Anderson's list.
TRAIT DISPOSITIONS, ABILITY, AND EFFORT
41
TABLE 1 MEANRATINGS O F RELEVANCE OF ABILITY A N D EFFORT OP TRAIT-DISPOSITIONS
TraitDisposition Abusive Active Affectionate Agi ta ted Anxious
Attentive Boastful
Capable Clever Contented Cruel Discontented Easy-going Excited
Fatigued Fearful Foolish Grateful Guilty Healthv ~el~less Honest Hot-headed Irritable Jealous
Ability
Effort
2.55 4.49 2.82 2.06 2.55 4.12 2.66 5.84 5.91 2.78 3.21 2.89 3.52 3.05 3.30 3.14 2.53 1.85 2.28 4.03 3.94 3.34 2.77 2.23 2.55
3.52 5.30 4.15 2.59 3.59 5.96 3.60 4.78 4.63 4.58 3.38 3.65 4.50 3.75 4.05 3.13
3.6
2.86 2.70 3.83 3.74 5.1 1 3.43 2.80 3.39
TraitDisposition Lazy Mean Moralistic Naive Neat Nervous Over-confident Practical Percy Quarrelsome Rash Righteous Selfish Sensitive Serious Sick silly
Ability
Effort
3.32 2.68 2.58 3.5 1 3.93 3.44 3.89 3.42 2.21 2.64 2.45 2.81 3.55 3.27 3.45
4.74 3.46 3.20 2.22 5.73 2.97 4.1 1 4.52 3.39 3.15 3.12 4.43 3.42 3.20 4.97 2.60
3.42 5.02 3.06 2.69 6.00
4.75 3.09 3.15 3.69 4.42
4.49
Smart
Tolerant Tough ~ruGworth~ Unintelligent Unpredictable Untrustworthy Wise
cantly correlated with ratings of relevance of effort ( r = .49, p < .01). To ascertain the relation of relevance of ability and effort, ability and effort scores were obtained for each S by calculating the mean ratings of relevance of ability and effort across all trait words. These mean individual ability and effort scores were correlated ( r = 3 6 , p < .01). Ratings of stability of 115 trait-disposition words collected by Bar-Tal and Greenberg ( 1973) were used to determine the nature of the correlation between relevance of ability, of effort and the stability dimension. As postulated by Weiner, e t al. (1971) the more related a trait-disposition is to the dimension, relevance of ability, the greater its perceived stability ( r = SO, p < .01). But, ratings of relevance of effort were more highly correlated with ratings of stability ( r = .66, p .01) than were ratings of relevance of ability, but the difference between these correlations was not significant. When the mean ratings on each word on relevance of ability and effort were used together to predict stability, a multiple correlation of .69 ( p < .01) was obtained.
