A critical facet of adjusting one's behaviour after succeeding or failing at a task is assigning responsibility for the ultimate outcome. Humans have trait- and state-like tendencies to implicate aspects of their own behaviour (called 'internal' ascriptions) or facets of the particular task or Lady Luck ('chance'). However, how these tendencies interact with actual performance is unclear. We designed a novel task in which subjects had to learn the likelihood of achieving their goals, and the extent to which this depended on their efforts. High internality (Levenson I-score) was associated with decision making patterns that are less vulnerable to failure, and at the same time less oriented to more rewarding achievements. Our computational analyses suggested that this depended heavily on the adjustment in the perceived achievability of riskier goals following failure. We found beliefs about chance not to be explanatory of choice behaviour in our task. Beliefs about powerful others were strong predictors of behaviour, but only when subjects lacked substantial influence over the outcome. Our results provide an evidentiary basis for heuristics and learning differences that underlie the formation, and maintenance, of control expectations by the self.

中文翻译：

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主观信念的内向，外向和关于控制的定量分析

在一项任务成功或失败之后调整行为的一个关键方面是为最终结果分配责任。人类具有特质和状态的倾向，暗示着自己行为的某些方面（称为“内部”称呼）或特定任务或幸运女神的各个方面（“机会”）。但是，这些趋势如何与实际性能相互作用尚不清楚。我们设计了一项新颖的任务，受试者必须学习实现目标的可能性，以及这在多大程度上取决于他们的努力。较高的内在性（Levenson I评分）与决策模式相关联，这些决策模式不易遭受失败的影响，同时也不太注重获得更多有意义的成就。我们的计算分析表明，这在很大程度上取决于失败后风险目标的可感知性的调整。我们发现有关机会的信念不能解释我们任务中的选择行为。关于有能力的他人的信念是行为的强有力的预测指标，但前提是受试者对结果缺乏实质性影响。我们的结果为启发式和学习差异提供了证据基础，这些启发式是自我形成和维持控制期望的基础。