Effect of Implicit Theory on Effort Allocation Strategies in Multiple Task-Choice Situations: An Investigation From a Socio-Ecological Perspective

Implicit theories refer to two assumptions that people make about the malleability of one’s ability. Previous studies have argued that incremental theorists (who believe that ability is malleable) are more adaptive than entity theorists (who believe that ability is fixed) when facing achievement setbacks. In the present research, we assumed that the adaptive implicit theory would be different when people could choose from a wider range of tasks. It was hypothesized that incremental theorists would sustain their efforts in the first task even when it was difficult, whereas entity theorists would try to find the most appropriate task. In a pair of laboratory experiments, participants had to maximize their outcomes when allowed to choose a task to engage in, from two options. When participants were allowed to practice the two tasks (Study 1), incremental theorists tended to allocate their effort solely to the first task, whereas entity theorists tended to put equal effort into both. When participants were informed that they could switch from the assigned task (Study 2), incremental theorists tended to persist in the first task regardless of its difficulty, whereas entity theorists tended to switch more quickly if the task was difficult. These results supported our hypothesis of two effort allocation strategies and implied that, in certain situations, entity theorists could be more adaptive than incremental theorists. Based on these findings, we conducted a social survey on the difficulty of switching tasks with a real-life setting as an environmental factor that determines the adaptive implicit theory (Study 3). It was revealed that the academic performance of incremental and entity theorists was moderated by the difficulty of switching tasks in their learning environment at school. Cultural differences in implicit theories may be explained by differences in the difficulty of switching tasks in education and career choices in each society.