Attributions

Attributions  Summary

Weiner's Attribution Theory

Attributions "the process of ascribing reasons for, or causes to events and behaviours".

Two main dimensions:
Locus of Causality

• Internal 
• External

Locus of Stability

• stable
• unstable 

4 catergories 

Internal stable                  ability

Internal unstable              effort

external stable                 luck

external unstable             task difficulty

Learned Helplessness

a vicious circle

failure attributed to ability/success attributed to luck

lowers confidence

leeds to poor performance 

more likely to fail again 

can be specific or global

Attribution Retraining

2 methods:

1. make controllable (internal/unstable) attributions towards success, eg you control your own success, if you fail there is something you can do about it.
2. Self serving bias the use of attributions to protect self- confidence: success to internal and failure to external.

Self serving bias should be used rarely as it can lead to excuses.