Explain what happens to us by effort or lack of effort is socially valued in school: Implication for the study of the internality norm in school context

Most studies supporting the hypothesis of a norm of internality have used internality questionnaires. They have shown that in positive self-presentation, internal explanations are chosen over external ones, and that the reverse is the case in negative self-presentation. Based on Weiner’s theory (1985), we assumed that, for negative events, internal explanations belong to the causal category of effort rather than that of capacity. The experiment carried out showed that, whereas the effect of the self presentation instructions (positive vs negative) is very marked for explanations in terms of effort (internal, controllable, and unstable), it is less so for explanations in terms of capacity (internal, uncontrollable, and stable). This result raises the question of whether internality questionnaires are guilty of a methodological conflation between locus of causality, controllability, and stability. It suggests that we ought to take all three dimensions into account in the study of the norm of internality.