Can you remember a big win in your past? Take a second and recall a particular accomplishment, it could be in a sport, in the office, at home, etc… Now see if you can remember why it was that you succeeded. Its likely that if you’re genuinely recalling a “big win,” you attributed that win to something within you, to your own efficacy.

“Big win” usually draws on memory of those wins that we feel good about and believe were brought about by our own potentials (IE: not the result of random chance).

The process of evaluating outcomes and their reasons ties in directly with another motivation model in sport psychology:

Attribution Thoery

Attribution Theory has to do with what we attribute to be the cause of the event or result, and how these attributions affect our decisions and actions… our motivation.

Luckily for those of you with only a few minutes to spare, this theory is a bit easier to draw out than the Atkinson’s Model :}.

 

1 and 2) Event —> Outcome

      These two factors have to do with reality outside ourselves (for simplicity’s sake I’m not going to get Philosophical on that issue now). There is some kind of occurrence or phenomena, and it results in another occurrence, situation or effect. For instance; you set a goal to organize your house and despite your efforts, your living space still seems to be in shambles. 

3 and 4) Past Event Analysis —> Reason Why

      After the event itself occurs, we of course must make sense of it. We reference our prior experiences and come to determine a reason why the event occurred. For instance, we might come to remember hearing that habits related to organization are nearly impossible to change. Or we might recall another instance where we weren’t able to follow through on our plans and it was because of poor planning and information gathering.

5 and 6) Emotional Response —> Motivation

 

 

 

 

 

      Once we have started to evaluate our situation (which begins happening in an instant), we develop emotional responses to it. These emotional responses driven by our evaluation will weigh heavily on our motivation to approach or avoid the particular event or activity. For instance, realizing that we did not gather enough information to become organized might bring us to become excited about making better plans and taking more effective action. This excited emotional response will probably make us more likely to approach this activity in the future.

So, in the Attribution Model we have an event and a result > followed by a sifting through memories and an eventual “reason why,” determined by our mind > which gives rise to an emotional response that bears heavily on our future motivation to approach or avoid something.

 

Understanding Attributions:

      In Attribution Theory, attributions are either internal or external, stable or unstable, controllable or uncontrollable.

Stable – Increased expectancy of the same.

Controllable – Increased motivation.

Internal – Increased sense of pride (in success) or shame (in failure).

      These are the four attributions that are said to show up more than any others.

Ability – If you succeed, its because you’re talented, if you fail, its because you’re not endowed enough.

Task Difficulty – If you win, the task was too easy, if you loose, the task was too hard.

Effort - Success implies that you tried hard, failure implied that you did not try hard enough.

Luck – Both success and failure are entirely determined by chance, your control is limited or non-existent. 

Understanding these four attributions in the context of controllability, stability, and internality/externality, we can begin to imagine the vast consequences of the evaluations we make on the actions we take in the present and future.

Lets explore some ideas for applying this motivational understanding to our own lives.

 

Applications:

Understanding Evaluation – One massively important lesson to be learned from this model of motivation is the relevance of our evaluations. It should come as no surprise that we are constantly seeking to make sense of our experience of reality. We are making conscious and subconscious evaluations almost every second of our lives. 

It might be helpful to consciously follow these thoughts as the come about – especially those which attribute our “success” or “failure” to different factors. Are these factors generating enthusiasm for future action and the realization of our dreams? Are they bringing us to experience emotional pain and cease action? It might be useful to see what purpose these evaluations actually serve.

Taking on Adaptive Perspectives – Since we are constantly evaluating, and since these evaluations drastically impact our emotional experience and motivation, is it not logical to strive for an understanding of what attributions would be best for us?

We might be wary of attributing our win to factors of luck – as this likely doesn’t motivate us to achieve anything more, or even to prepare ourselves more thoroughly since it is randomness that brought us victory.

We might also be wary of attributing our loss to an uncontrollable level of ability, for example. This might bring us to believe that it is our innate qualities that led to the failure – and hence effort is wasted on even striving for success.

It seems most adaptive, here, for us to focus on those factors which are under our own control. Certainly there are factors outside our control, and understanding them is likely important as well, but focusing on them will not bring about our proactive betterment. We can only take action on those factors which we can affect and exert a degree of control over.

Controllable factors seem inherently to be internal and unstable. A focus on factors outside our own faculties (other than a rational understanding, or a “taking into account”) isn’t likely to be productive. For instance, if I fail at my first attempt at organizing my room, mentally “honing in” on the fact that my parents weren’t organized (and so I could never be) probably isn’t ideal for my own productivity. 

It is worthwhile to note that these controllable factors are usually associated with being unstable. If they were stable, they would not be able to be altered by our behavior. If we believe our skills are stable, then there is little rationale to train. If we believe our capacity for organization is fixed, than we don’t even believe we could become more organized through honed effort. If we believe that the immense initial difficulty of organizing old files is fixed, then we will never attempt to break the task down and process it differently – to consider the challenge differently.

Many common evaluations / attribution seems to actually be further from reality than this positive view which I’ve been espousing. It is clear that to a great degree, our abilities are pliable – and that a belief otherwise may be farther from the truth, and have detrimental consequences to our development.

There should be a clear distinction between this view and blind optimism. With this view we can aim to take account of all the factors involved in our objectives, and focus consciously on those that we are able to actually implement action in accordance with. With our minds honed in this regard, we see possibility and not limitation – and so are brought to realize our initial objectives and realize our dreams and goals.

Attribution and Belief - Another important lesson to be learned through attribution theory is the importance of belief in our evaluations. For instance, if we believe that our levels of skill, or happiness – or even effort – are predetermined, then we have no impetus to attempt self-improvement. 

Hence, we might bring ourselves to come to adopt new empowering beliefs – to dig deeper for evidence and support them. 

 

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Keep an eye out for my ebook on Sport Psychology. In it I’m going to apply the ideas of Sport Psychology to life off the court – where many of the ideas have MORE relevance (IE: managing anxiety, understanding motivation, goal setting, and much more)