Attribution Theory in Sports Psychology: Success and Failure

Introduction to Attribution Theory in Sports

Attribution theory is defined as a "cognitive approach to motivation that focuses on how individuals interpret the causes of success and failure" (Grove et al., 1995, 92). Studies that Grove and colleagues reference show that high-achieving athletes tend to use internal attributions more readily after success than after failure. This is reasonable: a successful baseball pitcher knows when he has his best "stuff," and when he wins a game, the attribution is rightly aimed at his own skill. When that same pitcher loses, he can attribute the result to the fact that he faced outstanding hitters. Conversely, an athlete with less ability tends to use internal attributions "more after failure than success" (Grove, 92). Such an athlete might say, "I just didn't come up with the right pitches at the right time."

This paper delves into attribution and sports — a subject that has not seen a great deal of scholarship in recent years — and reviews the literature related to sports attributions.

Why Attributions Matter for Athletes

According to a peer-reviewed article in Psychology of Sport and Exercise, there has been a "decline" in the number of published research articles on attributions, notwithstanding that attribution theory was a very "hot topic" two decades ago (Rees et al., 2005, 190). The authors view this decline as unfortunate, because attributions are essentially explanations for the causes of various events. When people understand what caused an event — when there is an attribution they can relate to — they carry that understanding into "future situations" (Rees, 190).

When an athlete or a recreational participant engages in activities — whether in competition or for general fitness — discovering how and why a particular performance went the way it did is important. When an athlete's performance turns out to be a failure (for example, a basketball player in a city recreation league becomes exhausted and cannot continue the game), pinpointing the cause of that outcome is an attribution. The player may conclude that no matter how hard he tries, he cannot get in good enough shape for a grueling one-hour basketball game. This is a chance for him to find a cause for his lack of conditioning; he needs to attribute his failed conditioning to something, and therein lies the issue that Rees and colleagues are addressing.

Rees draws on theories presented by Anderson (1983) and Anderson with colleagues Deuser (1993) and Riger (1991) to examine the psychology of attribution in depth. Rees explains that people "engage in attributional activity to increase their control of the environment"; they attribute a certain event to a "controllable cause," which can lead to expectations of having greater control over similar events in the future (Rees, 194). In other words, the player who ran out of breath during the basketball game could use attribution theory to understand first why he ran out of energy, and second to develop more control over his conditioning going forward.

Self-Serving Attributions in Individual and Team Sports

Stephen Zaccaro and colleagues presented an article in 1987 comparing how individuals and groups differ in their use of attributions. In their research analyzing 549 statements made by professional athletes, they found that lone performers made more "self-serving attributions" after an athletic event than team performers did (Zaccaro, 1987, 257). Interestingly, the studies the authors reference reveal that as group size increases, individual athletes "diffuse the responsibility for group action"; hence, individuals in large groups — such as a football team — are less likely to accept personal responsibility for failure (Zaccaro, 257).

When it comes to group athletic behaviors, Zaccaro (referencing Miller and Schlenker, 1985) identifies four characteristics that can result. First, a quarterback after a winning performance can attribute the success to his own play ("I threw the ball well"). Even though ten players around him contributed to the outcome, the quarterback can take individual credit — the attribution in this case is aimed at a single player. Second, the winning game can be attributed to "factors of the group-including-the-self," which Zaccaro calls "group-internal" (258). The quarterback might use the familiar cliché, "It was a team effort, and I couldn't have done it without the team behind me" — suggesting cohesiveness between the offensive line and the backfield while still claiming partial credit. The third characteristic is what Zaccaro labels "group-excluding-the-self" or "group other": a situation in which the quarterback or team captain says, "This team worked hard all week for this game, and we showed what we can do when every unit is alert and well prepared." The fourth characteristic involves environmentally favorable conditions ("environment attributions") — for example, a rainy day when the team has historically performed well in muddy conditions.

A key point in this research is that "attributions which enhance the group can raise self-esteem" (Zaccaro, 258). This makes practical sense: in team sports, jealousy and resentment can arise when individuals claim too much personal credit for a shared outcome.

Conclusion

It is important for sports teams and individual players to understand why and how attributions matter vis-à-vis performance. The scholarship reviewed in this paper — spanning individual versus group attribution patterns, self-serving biases, and the differential treatment of ability and effort in physical compared to intellectual domains — demonstrates that attribution theory remains a practically relevant framework in sports psychology, despite the noted decline in published research on the topic.

Works Cited

Grove, J.R., and Prapavessis, H. (1995). The Effect of Skill Level and Sport Outcomes on Dimensional Aspects of Causal Attributions. Australian Psychologist, 30(2), 92–95.

Rees, T., Ingledew, D.K., and Hardy, L. (2005). Attribution in sport psychology: Seeking congruence between theory, research, and practice. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, Vol. 6, 189–204.

Rejeski, W.J., and Lowe, C.A. (1980). The role of ability and effort in attributions for sport achievement. Journal of Personality, 48(2), 233–242.

Zaccaro, S.J., Peterson, C., and Walker, S. (1987). Self-serving attributions for individual and group performance. Social Psychology Quarterly, 50(3), 257–263.