Attribution Theory
Attribution theory seeks to explain how individuals and
teams evaluate their levels of success and failure.
It also seeks to show how the reasons given by an
individual or team for their success or failure may affect
future motivation in similar situations.
Attributions are seen as being what an individual or team
interprets or perceives as being causes of theirs or others
particular behaviour, outcomes or events.
The reasons given for their success or failure can affect
 Immediate emotional reactions
 Actual behaviour
The different attributions a performer gives to explain
success or failure are important.
If a performer taking part in a new activity eg. basketball is
not getting on very well the reasons they perceive for their
failure can affect their future behaviour on court.
Weiner’s model is not sport specific in explaining
attribution but is a good starting point. He placed the 4
categories below of causal attributions into 2 dimensions.
 Ability
 Effort
 Task difficulty
 Luck
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Locus of Causality Dimension
Weiner’s Model
Internal
Attributions
External
Attributions
Stable attributions
ability
task difficulty
Unstable attributions effort
Stability
Dimension
luck
**Copy example on page 592 and place the attributions in activity
11 into the various categories.**
The stability dimension is referring to whether the
reasons/causes were relatively permanent (stable) or
changeable (unstable) in relation to time.
Ability and task difficulty are seen as being stable factors
in relation to time. Effort and luck are changeable. If you
attribute success to ability then you would expect success at
similar activities in the future and vice versa.
The locus of causality dimension is mainly linked to
whether the attributions are internal (within performers) or
external factors eg. environmental.
Ability and effort are seen as internal with task difficulty
and luck seen as external to the performer.
Weiner then added another dimension called the locus of
control, this helped to explain the effective consequences of
attributions that appear to be in a persons control or not.
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The locus of control dimension has been shown to relate to
the intensity of a performer’s personal feeling of pride and
satisfaction, shame and guilt.
Motivation, pride etc. will increase if a performer relates
their success to internal causes such as ability and effort
than external uncontrollable factors.
The opposite effect will generally occur if failure is also
attributed to internal and controllable factors. Shame,
dissatisfaction and loss of motivation are likely.
Below is Weiner’s adapted model of attribution
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The application of attribution theory in sport
Self-serving bias ‘A bad workman always blames his
tools.’ The traditional Weinerian view was that winners
attribute success to internal factors and losers to external
factors.
It has been shown that successful performers do tend to
attribute their success to internal factors (ability/effort) (a
self-serving bias) to make them or the team feel better
about themselves.
However unsuccessful performers, do not always protect
their self esteem by always attributing failure to external
factors in order to reduce shame.
The performers perception of the causes in relation to
perceived success/failure are seen as being more important.
High achievers would attribute success to internal factors
and attribute failure to unstable factors, therefore more
motivated in achievement situations.
Low achievers tend to attribute success to external factors
eg. task, luck etc. with failure attributed to stable factors eg.
‘I am too small or not good enough.’ Therefore find
achievement situations less satisfying/ less motivated.
A performers attribution will also be affected by whether
they view success in terms of outcome goals or
task/mastery goals.
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If a tennis player judges their performance on previously
set targets (mastery goals) eg. more first serves in etc. then
their feelings of pride will be greater even though they lost
the match compared to the performer who based
themselves on outcome goals.
High Achiever
Motivational -High motivation to achieve
Orientation
success
-Low motivation to achieve
failure
-Focuses on pride of success
Attributions
Goals
adopted
Task choice
performance
-Ascribes success to
stable/internal factors
-Ascribes failure to
unstable/external factors
-Usually adopts task goals
-Seeks out challenges and
able competitors/tasks
-Performs well in evaluative
conditions
Low Achiever
-Low motivation to achieve
success
-High motivation to achieve
failure
-Focuses on shame/worry
that may result from failure
-Ascribes success to
unstable/external factors
-Ascribes failure to
stable/internal factors
-Usually adopts outcome
goals
-Avoids challenges; seeks
out very difficult or very
easy tasks/competitors
-Performs poorly in
evaluative conditions
Learned helplessness
It was Dweck who first categorized performers as
‘helpless’ or mastery orientated.’ Helpless performers
attribute failure to themselves seeing the task as
insurmountable.
It is an acquired state related to the performers perceptions
that they have no control over the situation, with failure
inevitable
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Characteristics of self helplessness
 It can be specific to one activity or general to all
 Performer is usually outcome orientated
 It usually results from previous bad experiences
 Attributions to uncontrollable stable factors
 Perceptions of low ability (feels incompetent)
 Rarely tries new skills
 Experience initial failure in new skills confirms
perceptions
 Feelings of embarrassment
 Future effort is limited (why bother? I’m no good)
Teachers/coaches and performers often attribute success or
failure to different reasons.
When attributing reasons for our own behaviour we tend to
relate it to external factors and when attributing reasons for
others’ behaviour we tend to relate it to internal factors.
This difference in the application of attributions between an
observer and performer are known as fundamental
attribution errors. Important for teachers and coaches to be
aware that attribution conflict can happen.
The teacher when giving feedback must not negatively
influence the performer by implying that they will never
achieve the task, as this could lead to even greater levels of
‘learned helplessness.’
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To help with motivation lack of success should be
attributed to things that are within their control such as
inconsistent technique, lack of experience, bad tactical
decisions etc.
Getting performers to realize that failure is not inevitable
and teaching them how to make appropriate attributions
with regard to their performance, especially when they are
possibly already experiencing ‘learned helplessness’ is
called ‘attribution retraining’ and is a very important
responsibility of the teacher/coach.
Strategies for attribution re-training
 Individual attention
 Emphasise task goals
 Monitor performer’s attributions
 Ensure teacher/coach’s attributions are not negative
Diagram of attribution re-training process
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Important for teachers/coaches not to subconsciously infer
gender inequalities when dealing with attributions.
Also important for coaches/teachers to be relatively honest
in their approach to performers, setting realistic goals or
indeed re-defining them if need be.
Self efficacy
Bandura (1977) put forward the concept of self-efficacy
claiming it to be very important in explaining success or
failure.
He stated that self confidence can be viewed as a global
disposition but is often specific to certain situations.
Eg. Team captain very confident during match but not so
when asked to speak in front of TV cameras, or the child
confident swimming in shallow end but not so in the deep
end of the pool.
Bandura suggests that a performer makes judgements with
regard to their capabilities to perform a specific task. A
performer’s perceptions of the situation relate to their
expected level of self efficacy will affect their:
 Choice of activity (direct)
 Degree of effort (energise)
 Level of persistence (sustain).
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Later research has shown that high self efficacy alone is not
enough. A performer must also want to succeed and have
the capability (skills and ability) to succeed.
Diagram showing information that affects self efficacy
Past performance
Accomplishments
Vicarious experience
(modeling)
Verbal persuasion
Efficacy
Expectations
Sporting
Performance
Emotional and
Physiological arousal
Past performance accomplishments
Previous successful experience is a very reliable predictor
of self confidence. Eg. Beckham’s free kicks/corners
Practising a specific skill successfully has more effect than
being told you will be able to do it by the teacher.
Important in teaching to built self confidence early on
maybe by making the skill easier, i.e. lowering the baskets.
Obviously previous failure could result in low levels of self
confidence.
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Vicarious experience
Less effective as previous success has been found to be a
reliable source of self efficacy. When a performer observes
a successful demo, particularly by someone of the same
ability then they are likely to feel more confident.
Verbal persuasion
Teachers/coaches try to persuade performers that they are
capable of carrying out certain tasks. In the majority of
situations it can work however it depends on who is doing
the persuading.
Occasionally teachers/coaches my distort results or levels
of truth in order to persuade performers that they are better
than they are, however care must be taken when doing this.
Emotional arousal
Very often performers perceive their ‘natural’ physiological
arousal effects as being something negative. Why am I
sweating/heart beating fast/breathing quickly? When they
are naturally occurring effects of exercise.
They think they are not prepared and this has a negative
effect on their self efficacy. Research has shown that
psychological preparation via goal setting, relaxation/stress
management techniques can help to change a performers
perceptions of arousal effect promoting positive self
efficacy.
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