Attribution Theory

Attributions are the reasons people give for their success or failure.

Weiner (1972) created a model that categorises attributions . There are two main categories that Weiner identified: locus of causality and locus of stability.

Locus of causality refers to factors that were within the individual or not. Internal factors could be their ability, effort, skill level or health. External factors are outside of the individual; for example the weather conditions or the opposing team’s tactics.

Locus of stability refers to how enduring or permanent a factor is. Stable factors are durable and don’t change that much over time. For example skill level is fairly stable. Unstable factors are less consistent and include things like effort and luck.

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Locus of control although not included in Weiner’s original model, factors that are controllable and uncontrollable are also categories that can be used to classify a performer’s attributions. Controllable factors are those that were within the performer’s influence, so includes things like warming up, ensuring a good pre-competition meal is consumed and how much effort they put in. Uncontrollable factors are things that a performer had little or no power over. This could include the weather or luck. An example could be when a golfer hits a ball into the trees that fortunately bounces back onto the fairway or when a tennis player retires hurt or is ill so their opponent has an easy passage into the next round.

Ability is an internal-stable factor because ability is within the performer and it is not likely to change in the short term.

Effort is an internal-unstable factor because only the individual can determine the amount of application they exert and this can vary in each performance.

Task difficulty is an external-stable factor. Although this isn’t always the case, in some sports the challenge is very similar in each event. For example, in ten pin bowling, the closed skill of bowling is very similar in each competition. Initially, the work of Weiner focused on performances in educational settings, for example in exams, and this led to task difficulty placement in the model. However, you should bear in mind that task difficulty can change so may not be as stable as the exams set to test a student’s knowledge. For example, some elite football teams, especially those at the top or bottom of the league, will field a weakened team when playing in the Cup, resting their important players for league matches.

Luck is an external unstable factor it is environmental but changeable. The individual cannot control it and one week you will be lucky, next week you may not be. For example, in golf when a player hits their ball into the trees they will sometimes see it bounce off one of them back onto the fairway.

Importance of Attribution Theory

Attributions are important for future success or even participation in sport. The reasons you give can affect your motivation. For example, if you attributed failure to internal factors, it usually has one of two effects. It can motivate you to improve so you don’t lose again or it can reduce your confidence and motivation and may mean you quit! Attributing outcomes to internal factors create strong emotions such as pride (“The hard work I put in paid off”) and shame (“I have let myself and my coaches down because I lost my temper and got ejected from the game because I hit an opponent”). Clearly, pride is a motivating emotion and shame is something that needs to be avoided. Typically high achieving performers will attribute success to internal stable factors, feeling that they have the potential to perform to high standards repeatedly. Whereas when they lose, they attribute failure to unstable external, like luck or the referee. In these instances moving blame away from themselves protects their confidence and this can maintain motivation. Using luck as an excuse for failure eliminates the feelings of shame and suggests performance can be changed. This approach to success and failure protects self-esteem and is referred to as the self-serving bias. The performer feels better if winning is attributed to their own efforts, whilst losing is outside their control.

Also covered in Confidence and self-efficacy

This is often a result of the performer attributing failure to ability and internal factors. As ability is stable and unchanging failure becomes predicted for the future. This feeling that failure is inevitable leads to the performer perceiving tat they have no control over negative events.

There are two forms of learned helplessness: global and specific:

1. Global learned helplessness is when a person stops playing sport and exercising after leaving school, based upon negative experiences during their school PE lessons.

2. Specific learned helplessness is when a rugby player, whom having missed a number of conversion attempts, refuses to take them in matches (and has learned helplessness specific to that situation); this is reinforced if the performer is compared to other players who are scoring penalties.

Learned helplessness causes a– strong reaction to failure, leading to giving up and avoidance behaviours. This in turn leads to low confidence and low self efficacy.

In a PE setting, learned helplessness can mean reduced motivation, maybe feigning injury or ‘forgetting’ their kit to miss lessons. A lack of participation or reduced work-rate in lessons can mean fitness levels deteriorate. Their class-mates’ skill levels may well improve significantly, whereas theirs does not, which means that when they do participate they get less success, resulting in them focusing much more on the negatives of their performances, confirming their attitude. A coach or PE teacher who is working with such a performer who has learned helplessness may need to use attributional retraining to change their attitude, hopefully improving their confidence and motivation; getting them to realise that failure is not inevitable! It is hoped that a mastery orientated approach will be taken up by the performer. As attributional retraining is in essence the same as changing an attitude (see the information on cognitive dissonance or verbal persuasion in chapter Attitudes for further details). The most important thing for a coach or PE teacher is try to move the performer from the view that failure is due to ability (internal-stable). If they believe they will never be any good, then they will think it is impossible to improve so will not try to do so. Failure needs to be attributed to aspects that are not permanent or enduring (unstable) and they need to be convinced that they have some control in future performances; for example by putting in more effort or developing their skill level.

For those with learned helplessness it is important to attribute failure to the following things (examples are in brackets):

• Controllable factors (“you haven’t developed many skills because you haven’t tried hard in the past few weeks. I know you if you just gave it your all in every lesson you will improve, it may take you a while to catch up your classmates but I know you can do it”).
• External factors (“you think that you will never be any good, but remember those three tries you scored two weeks ago, one would be lucky but three can’t be a fluke, I know if you believe in yourself and stop focusing on every mistake you make, you will have more confidence and if you get more involved in the lessons you will get more success. Even the best players in the group make lots of mistakes each lesson”).
• Unstable factors (“your fitness has deteriorated because you missed lots of lessons due to your injury at the start of the year. However, since then you haven’t pushed yourself hard enough and everyone else is a little bit fitter than you. It is holding you back in lessons so if you just put a bit more in you would improve your stamina, be able to get more work done in lessons and improve at a faster rate. If you concentrated more when I was discussing tactics with the class you would also learn more and this would also help”).

The coach should encourage the performer to attribute success to internal factors such as ability, rather than luck. Other psychological theories can also be used to improve future efforts or participation. Giving success can raise confidence so coaches should structure practices to allow success. For a PE teacher this could mean grouping them with classmates who are of a similar ability as it will mean that if they try hard they should get some success. Another way to give success is to play a friendly match against a weaker opponent or create scenarios in training that are easily achieved (e.g. reducing the number of defenders).

To achieve this, appropriate goal setting must be used. Process and performance goals reduce anxiety and help redefine success. Clear and achievable targets can help increase confidence and motivation.

Use of role models or significant others can improve the performers’ attributions. The use of vicarious experiences and seeing those of similar ability succeed in the task can motivate the performer increasing their confidence. If this is coupled with positive reinforcement, encouragement and verbal persuasion it can be a very effective method of raising self-efficacy.

Learned helplessness is often linked to over arousal; it can be useful to employ stress management techniques to lower this arousal and mental practice or imagery of successful movements may also be beneficial.