Psychology: Attributions

Definition

“the process of ascribing reasons for, or causes to events & behaviours”

Weiner’s (1972) model

Dimensions

• Locus of causality (internal-----external)
• Stability (stable-----unstable)

Model

Ability: internal-stable, “we were the better team”

Effort: internal-unstable, “I gave it all I had”

Task difficulty: external-stable, “my opponent was too good for me”

Luck: external-unstable, “they had the ref on their side”

Learned helplessness

Failure

Failure is attributed to a lack of ability>>>lower confidence>>>poor performance>>>more likely to fail again>>>failure attributed to a lack of ability...

Success

Success attributed to luck>>>no increase in confidence>>>poor performance>>>more likely to fail>>>success attributed to luck...

Feeling that:

• failure is inevitable
• even when success is possible
• this leads to the performer giving up easily

Learned helplessness is typically associated with low achievers who are outcome orientated.
Can be specific - one sport/one aspect of a sport.
Or can be global - all sports.

Attribution retraining
Coaches can help performers who are in a state of learned helplessness by using attribution retraining. This involves ascribing suitable attributions for failure and success in order to improve performance in the future.

1. Make controllable (internal/unstable) attributions. If you can control the reasons for success/failure you can do something about it. You will also improve performance. This is because the performer is more likely to behave the same following success and differently following failure.
2. Self serving bias. Protect self-confidence by attributing success to internal factors (ability) and failure to external factors (luck).