5.1 (A2) : attribution in sport

definition of attribution

definition of attribution

• perceived causes of a particular outcome

• Attribution is linked to motivation 

  • The reasons, justifications that we give for winning, losing or drawing in sports competitions 

  • The reasons are likely to affect our motivation towards the next task

process of attribution

outcome of event → available info → casual attribution → affective response and expectancy for future results → decision on subsequent participation

weiner’s model of attribution : reasons

4 reasons

• ability

• effort

• task difficulty

• luck

weiner’s model of attribution : dimensions

• 2 dimensions

• Locus of causality 

  • Attributions come from within a person (internal) or from the environment (external) 

  • Affects a person’s feelings of pride, confidence or shame 

• Stability 

  • Whether attribution is changeable or unchangeable 

  • Affects a person's expectations of a future outcome 

problems with wieners model

• not sport specific

  • Task difficulty changes frequently in sport because opposition changes 

  • Applied in a general sense 

  • Can be used to promote reasons for sports outcomes that can be motivating 

if reasons for winning are stable ….

… motivated to achieve again

if failure is attributed to an unstable factor …

• more likely to try again as a factor can be changed

Roberts and Pascuzzi

• modified weiner’s model to be sport specific

• far more attributions names

• 1979

Sports performers who attribute loss to external causes or those that attribute winning to internal factors ….

• Self serving bias is shown 

• Helps to protect a person's confidence 

• May be giving yourself false reasons and will therefore not improve as real reasons for improvement are not addressed 

• Limits sense of shame and highlights personal achievement and success

self serving bias

•  a person’s tendency to attribute their failure to external reasons.

• An excuse to explain their poor performance

• Helps to protect a person's confidence 

controllability dimension

• → whether attributions are under control of the performer or under the control of others , or whether they are uncontrollable 

• E.g Luck - nothing can be done to change this factor 

coaches and attribution

• Coaches tend to praise effort and controllable success 

• Coaches tend to punish or criticise lack of effort and controllable failures 

• Concentrating on external uncontrollable factors if not useful if you want to turn failure to success 

ability

• internal

• stable

• uncontrollable

effort

• internal

• unstable

• controllable

task difficulty

• external

• stable

• can be either controllable or uncontrollable

luck

• external

• unstable

• uncontrollable

learned helplessness

• Belief that failure is inevitable 

• Belief they have no control over factors that lead to failure 

• Feeling of hopelessness when faced with a particular situation or a group of situations 

e.g learned helplessness

• Particular situation → specific learned helplessness 

  • I’m hopeless at football 

• Groups of situations → global learned helplessness 

  • I’m hopeless at sport

learned helplessness and attribution

• Low achievers contribute their failure to uncontrollable factors which can lead to learned helplessness 

• High achievers see failure as a learning experience and will attribute failure to controllable unstable factors 

  • They have a need to achieve 

  • Mastery orientation 

mastery orientation

• Individual is motivated by becoming an expert in skill development or sports performance 

• Strive to become better at a sport or task 

• Develop their competence by acquiring new skills and mastering new situations 

• Do not compare performance to others 

• Further their understanding of the sport, fitness and sport performance 

• Opposite to learned helplessness 

mastery orientation and attribution

• Attributes failure to internal, controllable and unstable factors such as effort 

attribution retraining

• an optimise sports performance 

• Change learned helplessness into mastery orientation 

• Many attributions are subjective and not desirable for future progression 

• Attributions need to relate to lead to success in the future 

• Failure 

  • Should attribute to controllable unstable factors 

• If retrained attribution more likely to lead to mastery orientation

e.g attribution retraining

• E.g A hockey player that used to play for a team that constantly blamed officials for their poor results 

• Helped team to draw together but team had a bad reputation 

• Realistically officials were not attributing to all failures