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Weiner’s model and its application to sporting
settings
The link between attribution and task
persistence
Attribution retraining
General and specific learned helplessness.
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The ‘reasons’ people use to explain behaviour
can be called attributions.
Attributions are the perceived causes of events
from the performer’s perspective. Not
necessarily the actual causes.
Give three reasons why you won/lost your last
competitive engagement.
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Ability
E.g. “I’m not very good at tennis”
Effort
E.g. “ I tried as hard as I possibly could”
Task difficulty
E.g. “ Our team lost because they were league leaders”
Luck
E.g. chance : “I got all the breaks”
Which of these are internal/external?
Locus of causality
Locus of
stability
Internal
External
Stable
Ability
Task
Difficulty
Unstable
Effort
Luck
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Locus of causality refers to whether the
attribution is to something internal or external
to the performer.
Stability refers to whether the attribution is
relatively stable and hence unlikely to change
or unstable and therefore changeable.
Weiner later added a third dimension of
controllability
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This is how the performer is helped to look at
how they explain success and failure. They are
encouraged to focus on explanations which
allow for future success.
Attribute failure to factors over which they
have control.
E.g. You are good enough to play in this team
but you are making the wrong decisions in this
situation. Let’s change that.
Or You don’t lack ability but were possibly
playing in the wrong position.
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Observe and listen to what players are saying
(monitor their attributions).
Draw attention to progressions or change.
Focus on process, task and mastery goals rather
than outcome goals.
Collect and use statistics about a player’s
contribution e.g. passes made, tackles put in
etc). Note changes and set attainable targets.
Try and ensure initial success to avoid learned
helplessness.
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The tendency to attribute failure externally and
success internally.
Will probably feel better about winning if you
attribute it to your own fitness and
determination rather than thinking that you
only won because the other side made
mistakes.
Will feel less down about losing if the reason is
because the ref made the wrong decision (luck).
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Continually attributing failure to low ability
can lead to learned helplessness.
(Dweck 1980)
This is the belief that failure is inevitable and
one cannot do anything about it.
This can be changed by shifting success to
internal attributions and developing selfefficacy.
Strong links between self-efficacy, attributions
and achievement motivation.