THEORIES OF ABILITY AND THE PURSUIT OF CHALLENGE AMONG ADOLESCENTS WITH MILD MENTAL-RETARDATION

Dweck (I99I) distinguishes two different ways children can view their abilities. Children who have an 'incremental theory' of their ability believe that it is a changeable, increasable and controllable quantity . Those who have an 'entity theory' believe their ability represents a fixed, unchangeable trait. Children with an 'incremental theory' tend to display adaptive achievement behaviours such as pursuing challengi ng activities, whereas children with an 'entity theory' tend to avoid challenges. The present study examined the usefulness of this distinct ion in understanding the behaviour and affect of children with mental retardation in an achievement situation. Results from an attributional questionnaire showed that children with mental retardation were signi ficantly less likely to possess an incremental theory of their abiliti es than children without retardation However, experimental results sho wed that when the context highlighted an incremental theory of ability , children with mental retardation showed the same positive motivation al response as children without retardation (i.e, they chose high leve ls of challenge and reported greater interest-enjoyment). One unexpect ed finding emerged: children with mental retardation showed a tendency to choose lower challenge levels after receiving verbally administere d success feedback relative to neutral feedback.