Kontrollmeinungen, ihre Begründungen und autobiographisches Erinnern

Ten social tasks were described orally to 61 subjects aged 17 to 20. The subjects had to decide whether or not they thought they would be able to complete the tasks. They were also asked about their response certainty and their familiarity with the situation. In addition, the latency time between the end of the description of the problem and the beginning of the utterance of the control belief was measured. We were mainly interested in finding out what arguments (reference to episodes, to dispositional attributes, to the participant's control share, and to rules) the subjects would preferrably use to justify their belief or non-belief in control. In addition, we measured general control belief as further independent variable. The results showed that references to dispositional attributes were the most frequently used arguments, followed by references to episodes, to the participant's control share, and to rules. However, the response certainty was highest in cases when a concrete personal experience was mentioned. Response latencies were also shortest when the control belief utterance was justified by invoking a concrete personal experience, followed by dispositional attributes, participant information, and rules, in this order. Apparently, the subjects preferred episodic justifications of their control belief. The subjects felt more certain about their statement when they claimed to have control over a given situation than when they thought they did not have control. General control belief had no influence on the preference for particular arguments or on the latency times.