2) 5.1 attribution in sport

• attribution - the reasons a performer gives for the cause of their success or failure
• Weiner's model
• locus of causality - whether factors come from within a performer (internal) or the environment (external) to the performer
• stability - the relative permanence of the factor, stable and unstable. whether the attribution is changeable or unchangeable and affects the persons expectations of future outcomes
• stable - permanent factors which cannot easily be changed
• unstable - temporary factors which can be changed
• Internal, stable attributions:

  • Ability
  • e.g 'we were too strong for the opposition'
• External, stable attributions:

  • Task difficulty
  • e.g ' they were the team at the bottom of the league'
• Internal, unstable attributions:

  • Effort
  • e.g 'we had prepared well and gave it everything'
• external, unstable attributions:

  • Luck
  • e.g ' a lot of marginal decisions went our way'
• self serving bias - a persons tendency to attribute failure to external reasons e.g an excuse
• controllability - whether attributions are under the control of the performer or under the control of others or whether they are uncontrollable e.g nothing can be done by anyone, luck or weather
• Stable, internal = ability

  Stable, external = task difficulty

  Unstable, internal = effort

  Unstable, external = luck
• learned helplessness - belief that failure is inevitable and that no control can be had over the cause of failure
• learned helplessness

  • normally low achievers often attribute failure to uncontrollable factors
  • attribute success to external factors
  • low self confidence and easily gives up
  • can use self-serving bias to prevent learned helplessness
• mastery orientation - a higher achiever who has a strong desire to succeed and expects to succeed
• mastery orientation

  • high self confidence
  • attributes success to internal factors and failure to unstable factors
• attribution retraining

  • optimises sport performance
  • seeking to change learned helplessness to mastery orientation
• controllability (locus of control)

  • 3rd dimension of weiners attribution model
  • controllable or uncontrollable