ATTRIBUTION THEORY: MAKING SENSE OF SUCCESSES AND FAILURES

1
ATTRIBUTION THEORY MAKING SENSE OF SUCCESSES
AND FAILURES

• Damon Burton
• University of Idaho

2
WHAT IS AN ATTRIBUTION?

• Attributions are reasons given to explain
  successes and failures.
• Weiner (1985) suggests that we each act as naïve
  psychologists trying to understand the reasons
  for why a particular outcome occurs.
• For example, a girl may try to figure out why she
  lost a tennis match or did poorly on an exam.

3
UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS

• Understanding human behavior requires first
  understanding how we perceive the social
  environment.
• People seek a stable and predictable environment
  in order to control their surroundings and
  predict others behavior.
• To understand behavior, people look for
  dispositional qualities in others.

4
ATTRIBUTIONAL PROPOSITIONS

• Outcomes generate positive or negative emotions
  and a search for the reasons for the outcome.
• Attributions are organized into key dimensions
  that influence psychological consequences such as
  expectancy change or emotional feelings.
• Attributional consequences impact behaviors such
  as achievement motivation.

5
WEINERS (1972) ORIGINAL MODEL
External
Internal
Task Difficulty Coaching
Ability
Stable
Effort Strategy Preparation Performance
Luck Officiating
Unstable
6
WEINERS (1986) REVISED MODEL
7
CAUSAL ANTECEDENTS OF ATTRIBUTIONS

• states versus traits
• causal rules
• actor versus observer bias
• hedonic bias

8
ASSESSING ATTRIBUTIONS

• A persons perceptions of success and failure are
  not the same as winning and losing. Success is a
  subjective concept.
• Most attributions have been categorized by
  researchers rather than participants.
• Weiner uses dimensions of locus of causality,
  stability and controllability
• Globality and intentionality dimensions have also
  been proposed

9
ATTRIBUTION INSTRUMENTS

• Causal Dimension Scale 2 (CDS-2) measures
  attributions in specific situations (state
  measure).
• Attributional style is predisposition to make
  particular attributions across different
  situations (trait measure)
• Sport Attributional Style Scale (SASS)
• Wingate Sport Achievement Responsibility Scale
  (WSARS)

10
SELF-SERVING BIAS

• Self-serving bias (SSB) states that
  attributions are used to enhance and protect
  self-esteem.
• According to the SSB, people tend to take credit
  for success but not the blame for failure.
• People perceive themselves as more responsible
  for successful or positive than negative
  outcomes.
• Reasons for failure are externalized (i.e.,
  blamed on outside factors)

11
ACTOR-OBSERVER BIAS

• Actor-observer bias actors and observers view
  the same situation differently, thus making
  different attributions
• Actors use situation-based attributions to
  explain their behavior.
• Observers base attributions on traits of the
  actor.
• Actors know their behavioral history, whereas
  observers have only the one situation to base
  their evaluation on.

12
SPONTANEOUS ATTRIBUTIONS

• Do athletes normally engage in causal thought
  (i.e., attributions) following competition?
• Attributions are made naturally, but they are
  more likely when (a) a goal is not attained or
  (b) the outcome was unexpected.
• For example, the Patriots probably have been
  making attributions for their unexpected
  Superbowl loss.

13
ATTRIBUTIONAL CONSEQUENCES

• future expectancies
• emotional reactions
• learned helplessness

14
FUTURE EXPECTANCIES

• Attributional stability is the most important
  factor determining future expectancies.
• Outcomes ascribed to stable causes increase
  future expectancy.
• Outcomes ascribed to unstable causes reduce
  future expectancy
• Outcomes ascribed to stable causes will be
  repeated more frequently than those ascribed to
  unstable causes

15
EMOTIONAL REACTIONS

• Outcome-dependent emotions are emotional
  responses to the outcome itself, whereas
  attribution-dependent emotions relate to the
  causes or reasons identified for the outcome.
• Self-esteem emotions such as pride are
  associated with internal causality.
• Expectancy emotions such as hope are related to
  stability.
• Social emotions such as pity or guilt are
  related to controllability.

16

• The
• End