The effect of success and failure upon the attractiveness of activities as a function of experience, expectation, and need.

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Abstract
8 groups of 10 Ss each were employed in a factorially-designed experiment to determine the influence upon the attractiveness of an originally neutral task of 3 variables: Strength of need, experience of, and expectation of success or failure. The results were: "1 . . … experienced success, in general was accompanied by a rise . . . and experienced failure by a fall in attractiveness. 2 . . … expected success, in general, was accompanied by a rise . . . and expected failure by a fall in attractiveness. 3. Average changes in the attractiveness of the task were significantly greater when the expectation and experience were in the same direction . . … 4 . . … experience and expectation both produced significant variation in the mean preference rankings under little need but not under strong need. 5 . . … personal interest was greater and general comments more favorable when success was experienced or expected . . … 6. Ratings of experienced success or failure, expected success or failure, and satisfaction with results appeared to be determined largely by the experimental condition of experience. 7. In general . . . the attractivensss of an activity is determined not only by past experience of success or failure but by expectation of future success and failure as well." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)

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