Medicamentos coadyuvantes para el tratamiento del dolor

Causal attributions have considerable potential for building an improved theoretical understanding of differential career success. Although there has been very little research examining intrapersonal attributions and career success, there is now a substantial body of literature documenting the importance of attributional style for a range of work-related outcomes, including motivation (e.g. Struthers, Weiner, & Allred, 1998; Weiner, 1995, 2005), and vocational behaviour in student populations (e.g. Albert & Luzzo, 1999; Chudzikowski et al., 2009; Judge & Kammeyer- Mueller, 2004; Luzzo & Jenkins-Smith, 1998). Importantly, researchers have also suggested that demographic group differences in attributional style might contribute towards differential career success (Major et al., 1994; Silvester & Chapman, 1996).

Socio-Cognitive Model of Unfair Discrimination

The utility of attributions for research on diversity and careers has been highlighted by Silvester and Chapman (1996) in their socio-cognitive model of unfair discrimination. This model outlines two ways that attributions may impede minority individuals’ career success. According to this framework, differential career success may be due to:

1) _How managers explain the causes of minority- and majority-ethnic performance differently

2) _{Differences in the way minority- and majority-ethnic employees explain their} own performance and experiences.

The first relates to interpersonal attributions (discussed in section 2.6.1), and in support of the model, existing research has found that minority-ethnic employees

66

receive differential attributions compared to majority-ethnic individuals. These attributions have also been linked to less favourable career advancement prospects for minority-ethnic employees (Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1993).

The second explanation refers to intrapersonal attributions and suggests that differential career success may be caused by the way minority-ethnic employees explain their own career experiences. This may occur because attributional style can influence individuals’ motivation and effort to overcome career barriers (Albert & Luzzo, 1999; Hirschy & Morris, 2002; Weiner, 1995). Importantly though, there has been no comparative study of causal attributions made by minority- and majority- ethnic managers for career experiences to date. The next sections discuss how intrapersonal attributions can affect individuals’ motivation to persevere in their career, and also the effect of these attributions when spoken, or made public to others.

Causal Attributions and Motivation

Attribution research has not just focused on explanations for behaviours and events, but also the implications these explanations have for motivation and future behaviour. For example, within his model of achievement motivation, Weiner (1979, 1985, 1986), suggests that patterns of attributions can lead to outcomes such as guilt, anger, pride and changes in levels of self-esteem. Other research has also linked attributions to learned helplessness and changes in self-efficacy (Hirschy & Morris, 2002; Peterson, Seligman, & Vaillant, 1988). Causal attributions are therefore relevant for career success because they allow researchers to understand how individuals perceive key events and importantly, how they may respond to them. The way an employee explains their career experiences may have important consequences for the way they respond and their subsequent motivation to persevere and overcome future career challenges (Luzzo & Hutcheson, 1996).

Albert and Luzzo (1999), for example, suggest that individuals who attribute negative career events to more external, uncontrollable and stable causes, like an unfair corporate culture (a pessimistic attributional style), are less likely to make an

67

effort to overcome or change these career barriers, because they see them as permanent or beyond their control. In contrast, individuals who typically attribute negative career outcomes to internal, controllable or unstable factors like insufficient effort (an optimistic attributional style) are more likely to strive to overcome these by changing their behaviour, or the situation.

Spoken Attributions

Whilst early research considered attributions as internal, private cognitions (Edwards & Potter, 1993), it is now recognised that attributions occur spontaneously in natural discourse (Wong & Weiner, 1981). They are used by individuals to explain and justify actions to others, and to negotiate a shared understanding of events and the environment (Bies & Sitkin, 1992; Silvester, Anderson-Gough, Anderson, & Mohamed, 2002). From listening to spoken attributions, others can learn about the causes of key events, so public attributions have the potential to shape the perceptions of others (Silvester & Chapman, 1996). The way intrapersonal attributions are communicated to others therefore has important implications for career success.

Silvester et al (2002) for example, found that applicants who used more internal- controllable attributions to explain negative outcomes during selection interviews were rated more favourably by interviewers than candidates who preferred internal- uncontrollable or external-uncontrollable attributions as the former were seen as accepting responsibility. If an employee can influence their manager to perceive that they are responsible for successes and unaccountable for failures, then this may lead to positive career outcomes such as pay increases, higher performance and promotion ratings (Judge & Bretz, 1994). However, an attributional style where individuals attribute difficulties to external causes may result in an individual being perceived as unable or unwilling to take responsibility for previous actions (Silvester, 1997; Silvester et al., 2002) This highlights the importance of intrapersonal attributions for understanding differential career success. The next section discusses research that has been conducted on intrapersonal attributions in wider career (but not career success) literature.

68

Attributions in Wider Career Research

Research into the attributions and career decisions of high school and college students has found that individuals who make more internal and controllable attributions for career decisions show greater career commitment and decisiveness, take more responsibility for career decisions, and are more likely to be in a job of their choice (Colarelli & Bishop, 1990; Fuqua, Blum, & Hartman, 1988; Taylor, 1982). Studies of student career aspirations have also found that students who make internal, controllable attributions for learning outcomes achieve more at school (Janeiro, 2010; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002; Skinner, Zimmer-Gembeck, Connell, Eccles, & Wellborn, 1998), and demonstrate higher levels of career maturity when they anticipate career barriers (Luzzo & Hutcheson, 1996).

These findings have led researchers to argue that attributions for actual career events may contribute to career success via their impact on career self-efficacy and subsequent career expectations and career choices (Luzzo & Funk, 1996; Silver, Mitchell, & Gist, 1995; Zimmerman, 1997). Individuals who typically attribute successful career events to internal, stable causes (e.g. ability) and unsuccessful events to external, unstable causes (e.g. bad luck), are more likely to have higher levels of career self-efficacy. However, career self-efficacy will decrease over time if individuals typically attribute negative events (e.g., a failed application for promotion) to stable, global, uncontrollable causes, such as lack of ability or unfair discrimination, and positive outcomes to unstable causes such as luck (Hirschy & Morris, 2002; McAuley & Blissmer, 2002; Schunk, 1994; Shields, Brawley, & Lindover, 2006; Silver et al., 1995).

This is important considering career self-efficacy has been found to be positively associated with salary, career satisfaction and performance and to predict these outcomes longitudinally (Abele & Spurk, 2009a; Day & Allen, 2004). On the basis of existing research it appears that attributing negative events to external, uncontrollable, or stable causes and positive events to external, uncontrollable causes will result in lower self-efficacy, lower motivation to advance, which may ultimately result in differential career success (Day & Allen, 2004; Hirschy & Morris, 2002; Houston, 1995).

69