Role Of Attributions In Sport Psychology

Attributions are reasons individuals give to explain a particular behaviour or outcome. They are often used to help improve a person’s ability to control a variety of future social and psychological situations (Anderson and Riger, 1991). According to Weiner (1985) a person who experiences success is likely going to try and reintroduce the same causes, whereas Kelley (1973) explains someone who experiences failure is going do attributional search in hopes a better chance of succeeding in the future. Therefore, with the help of attributions individuals can develop a better understanding of events and their outcomes in an effort to repeat or avoid them in the future. Being able to understand and name attributions has a big impact on future performance,
While some studies have demonstrated the benefits of using Weiner´s (1985) three-dimensional attributional model (Orbach, & Singer, 1997) and its resulting measurement instrument (the Causal Dimension Scales), Rees et al. (2005) have suggested research should focus upon controllability alongside the stability, globality, and universality attributions dimensions. Other researchers have echoed this need to examine other attribution dimensions, such as Hanrahan and Cerin (2009) who said “…sport psychology attribution research might need to expand its focus and examine attributional dimensions other than internality, stability, and controllability” (p.511), and Crocker, Eklund and Graham (2002) who called for the development of additional tools to measure
Previous research in this area has focused on basketball players (Orbach et al., 1997; Miserandino, 1998), beginner tennis players (Orbach et al., 1999), gymnasts (McAuley, 1985) and golfers (Bond, Biddle, & Ntoumanis, 2001; Le Foll et al., 2008). While Rudisill (1988) and Orbach, Singer and Price (1999) were unable to identify effects of attributions on subsequent performance, Orbach et al. (1997) found evidence that focusing on controllable and unstable attributions has the potential to enhance future performance. Furthermore, Miserandino (1998) found attribution training can improve shooting scores in