Attribution

Question 1

What is attribution?

Answer 1

Reason coaches and sports performers give to explain success or failure

Question 2

What are the 4 attributions of Weiner’s model?

Answer 2

• ability
• effort
• task difficulty
• luck

Question 3

What are the 3 dimensions of Weiner’s model?

Answer 3

• locus of causality
• locus of stability
• locus of control

Question 4

What is an internal stable attribution?

Answer 4

Ability

e.g we were the better team

Question 5

What is an internal unstable attribution?

Answer 5

Effort

e.g we tried harder

Question 6

What is an external stable attribution?

Answer 6

Task difficulty

e.g opposition are world champs

Question 7

What is an external unstable attribution?

Answer 7

Luck

e.g the court was stable

Question 8

What is the locus of causality?

Answer 8

Internal = relates attributions within the individual (effort and ability)

External = relates attributions outside the individual (luck and task difficulty)

Question 9

What is the locus of stability?

Answer 9

Stable = suggests attribution is unchangeable

Unstable = suggests attribution is changeable

Question 10

What is the locus of control?

Answer 10

Controllable attribution = effort

Uncontrollable attribution = luck task difficulty and ability

Question 11

What is self serving bias?

Answer 11

Tendency of performer to attribute success to internal factors (effort + ability) giving them a feeling of satisfaction and increased motivation

failure is attributed to attributed to external influences (luck + task difficulty) to protect an athlete’s self esteem

Question 12

What is learned helplessness?

Answer 12

• belief that failure is inevitable
• why ‘bother’ attitude
• feeling of hopelessness
• shows avoidance behaviours
• believe they will never succeed

Question 13

What is mastery orientation?

Answer 13

• feeling of being in control of outcome
• individual being motivated by learning
• motivated to become an expert
• belief failure is a learning experience (persist when fail)
• shows approach behaviours or motivated to be best they can be

Question 14

What is attribution retraining?

Answer 14

Process by which performer is taught to attribute failure to changeable + unstable factors (effort) rather than internal factors (lack of ability)

change learned helplessness into mastery orientation = optimise performance

Question 15

Why should coaches praise effort?

Answer 15

Effort can be changed by performer