Part 2: Achievement Motivation & Attribution Theory

• Definition of Attribution & Motivation

  • Attributions = reasons individuals gives for their success or failure 
  • What people attribute their performance to is the perceived cause of their performance
  • These attributions affect motivation
  • Most developed in social psych & adapted for sport 
  • Theory that explains motivation as the reasons/excuses that someone good to explain why they won or lose
  • Some excuses are rationalised
• Attributions Affect Motivation 

  • 'I won because ...' 
  • We were better than the other team (ability)
  • Better tactics 
  • Because we have skill 
  • Because we worked hard to win (effort)
  • We worked well as a team (team work)
• Attributions Affect Motivation 

  • 'I lost because ...'
  • I had a bad day 
  • I was unlucky 
  • The other team cheated/bad ref 
  • Injury, or key players unwell
  • Not motivated, lack of effort 
  • Were hungover 
• Attributions Affect Motivation 

  • Not all explanations honest, give excuse/rationalisations to protect self esteem 
  • Don’t wanna say is our fault, or due to our lack of ability (will lower your confidence)
  • Can change effort next time
• Attributions Affect Motivation 

  • Attributions have big influence on what we do next time 
  • May predict what motivated to do in future 
  • Also influence on stress & anxiety
• Attribution Theory - 3 Categories of ‘attributions’ 

  1. Stability - fairly permanent or unstable 
  2. Causality - internal or external factor 
  3. Control - a factor that is or isn't under our control
• Attribution Theory - 3 Categories of ‘attributions’ 

  • Stability - fairly permanent or unstable 
  • Ability short term is reasonably stable which = an example of stability, effort can be a quick fix but stability changing takes time 
  • Causality - internal or external factor 
  • Causality - can come from you (effort) or something else (luck, ref, opponent)
• Attribution Theory - 3 Categories of ‘attributions’ 

  • Control - a factor that is or isn't under our control
  • Control - sometimes you’re only going to be that good
  • Something you can fix or something you can’t fix 
  • Attribution theory has been here for a long time 
  • All these attributions can be in a person’s head & have a powerful impact on our participation
• How Attributions Affect Achievement Behaviour 

  • Influence future performance & achievement behaviour
  • ie future ‘motivation’ for an activity 
  • Attributions can influence emotions (eg state anxiety)
  • High & low achievers have different attributional patterns which account for differences in achievement behaviour