Attribution Theory and Learning

Figuring out the “why”

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In the 18th century, Hume (1739) argued that assuming there are causes for everything that happens is an inherent part of observing the world, because it makes the world more meaningful. Later, Heider (1958) was the first to propose naïve psychology, a systematic explanation of how individuals make sense of the physical and social environment. Heider found it useful to group our attributions into two major categories: personal and situational.

For example, in the case of 9/11, it was natural to wonder: Was the attack caused by characteristics of the hijackers (a personal attribution), or were these individuals somehow coerced or, as some suggested, induced by the promise of a better afterlife (a situational attribution)? For attribution theorists, the goal is not to determine the true causes of this even but rather, to understand our perceptions of the causes. Building on these assumptions, Weiner (1986) developed the theoretical framework for attribution theory and causality that has become a major research paradigm of social psychology.

Attribution theory is founded on the notion that individuals are motivated to determine the underlying causes of actions and reactions in order to more fully understand and interpret human behavior, specifically in relation to their perceived success and failures. As such, it attempts to describe how individuals’ explanations, justifications, and excuses influence their motivation. Attributions, according to motivational theorists, refer to those specific beliefs and explanations about the consequences of behavior (Ormrod, 2004; Pintrich & Schrunk, 2002). In effect, attributions answer the proverbial “why?” for a sequence of events.

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According to Weiner (1986, 1992) attributions of success or failure can be characterized in terms of three distinguishing dimensions, including: locus – location of the cause as internal or external to the person; stability – whether the cause stays the same or can change; and responsibility – whether the person can control the cause. A student who has performed poorly on an exam or assignment, for example, may characterize this failure in various ways, each of which will effect how he/she approaches subsequent challenges. (See Table 1 for an example of how a student’s explanations relate to the abovementioned attributional dimensions). Furthermore, according to Weiner’s research (1992, 1994), the locus dimension appears to be closely related to issues of self-esteem, the stability dimension to expectations about the future and the responsibility dimension to emotional reactions such as anger, guilt, pride and shame.

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Clearly, beliefs about what causes successes and failures have profound impact on one’s expectations of the future as well as on motivation.

References

Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York, NY: Wiley.

Hume, D. (1739). A treatise of human nature. London: Clarendon Press, 1888.

Kelley, H. H. (1967). Attribution theory in social psychology. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 15, 192–238.

Ormrod, J. E. (2004). Human learning, 4e. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill Prentice Hall.

Pintrich, P. R. & Schrunk, D. H. (2002). Motivation in education, 2e. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Weiner, B. (1986). An attributional theory of motivation and emotion. New York: Springer-Verlag.

Weiner, B. (1992). Human motivation: Metaphors, theories and research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Weiner, B. (1994). Integrating social and persons theories of achievement striving. Review of Educational Research, 64, 557-575.

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