Attribution Theory and Performance: It Was Their Fault—Or Was It?
Reflect on your understanding of attribution theory, as well as apply the concept to your own past behavior(s). As you have learned, attribution theory states that individuals tend to make sense of (logically prescribe) situations by associating them to self, others, thoughts, feelings, or actions. This theory suggests that learners should consider why they do what they do, and what or who they are giving credit for both the victories and the failures. Further, this theory suggests that if a person believes that they are not good at something, they may attribute their unsuccessful outcomes to external factors, rather than to themselves. In contrast, if individuals have success, they more often may attribute their successes to internal factors.
Discuss your understanding, based on our required content, of attribution theory, including the origins and major premises.
Describe stability and controllability and how they affect performance attributions. Include why these matter in the context of learning.
Identify a time where you feel you have failed and blamed someone or something else when it was not actually, in hindsight, their fault (e.g., the teacher, the friend, a loved one). (Failure could be academic, relational, and/or organizational—loss of a job.)
Elaborate on how blaming the external source(s) preserved your self-image and your self-efficacy?
Based on your new understanding of how to identify your own responsibility in the learning or behavioral process, explain whether you might handle failure, in general, differently now. If so how? If not, why not?
