Attribution Theory, Self-Efficacy and Self Confidence, and Leadership
Attribution Theory
Attribution – A perception of the reason for an outcome of an event.
The perceived reasons we give for our success or failure as a performer.
Self-esteem – Respect for oneself.
Self-efficacy – A belief in one’s ability to master a specific sporting situation.
Self-confidence – A belief in one’s ability across all situations.
The theory tells us how individuals explain their behaviour. In a sporting
context, performers use attributions to offer reasons for winning/playing
well, or reasons for losing/playing badly.
The reasons are vital to maintain motivation and effort, attribution in
sport is one of the most important factors in task persistence.
Correct attributions increase task persistence, motivation, and
confidence.
The reasons given for winning and losing were classified by Weiner’s
model of attribution (1974)
Classification of sporting attributes –
1) The locus of causality
This describes where the performer places the reason for the win/loss.
This contains internal and external reasons.
Internal attribute – Within the performer’s control
External attribute – Outside the performer’s control
2) Locus of stability / Stability dimension
The stability dimension describes how fixed the attributions are. The
reasons for winning can be changeable in a short time, or relatively
permanent.
Stable attribute – Unlikely to change in the short term.
Unstable attribute – Can change in a short amount of time. This could
change could be from week to week, or even within minutes in a fixture.
Internal Stable attribute – Ability
Internal Unstable attribute – Effort, amount of practice
External Stable attribute – Played against a good team.
External Unstable attribute – Luck, referee’s decisions.
Attribution and Effort
Coaches and players can use attribution theory to make sure their players keep
on trying, even after a defeat. Attribution can be used to promote task
persistence.
Self-serving bias
When players win games, they like to think that it was down to them, so
internal and stable reasons are often given for sporting success, while losing is
attributed to unstable and external reasons.
The self-serving bias helps to promote self-esteem, as well as help
maintain motivation.
For example, blame losing on external stable reasons (e.g. good team),
external unstable reasons (e.g., luck) or internal unstable reasons (e.g.
more effort).
This will raise self-efficacy and esteem and increase the likelihood of an
individual continuing to participate.
Never give reasons for losing to internal and stable reasons, such as
ability, since this might cause the player to lose motivation. The problem
of learned helplessness could occur.
Learned Helplessness
This is where players attribute failure to internal and stable reasons such as
ability.
Learned helplessness can be general or specific.
The performer is so lacking in confidence that they think failure is
inevitable and success is unlikely; they have no belief in their ability.
The player may actually give up even if success is possible and they could
have actually won the game.
They believe that no matter what they do or how hard they try, they are
destined to fail and therefore are not persistent.
Learned helplessness can be so bad it becomes general, when the player
begins to feel they are no good at sport overall or a type of sport. E.g I
am not very good at racket sports such as tennis and badminton, or I
cannot play any sports.
This can be because they experienced little success when playing these
sports.
It can also be specific to one skill/sporting event, such as I cannot take
penalties in football.
It can also be to a single sport, such as someone who doesn’t think they
are good at squash because they always make mistakes when trying to
read the bounce of the ball from the walls of the court.
As mentioned earlier, learned helplessness can be developed by
attributing success to internal and stable factors such as ability.
It can be developed by negative feedback and criticisms from coaches
and others.
It can be developed by negative experiences.
It can be developed by a lack of success.
Learned helplessness performers share similar characteristics with NAF
performers.
If their attributions remain unchanged, it is likely that they will not
participate in sporting activity, as they have such low self-esteem
relating to sport.
Performance will be negatively affected
Strategies to avoid learned helplessness, leading to improvements in
performance – attribution retraining.
Attribution retraining – changing the reasons given for winning and losing.
The performer’s perception of why they have failed should be altered –
they should now attribute success to external factors such as luck, or to
controllable factors such as effort, which they know they can improve
on.
Success should now be attributed internally to ability; the performer
knows that they have what is necessary to repeat victory in the future.
The coach can use the Weiner model, changing internal stable reasons
for failure into external unstable ones.
For example, don’t blame the player’s ability, but rather luck or task
difficulty.
The coach can also provide motivation via reinforcement,
As well as allow early success so that confidence in ability is achieved,
The coach can set achievable goals
Stress any personal improvement during the game, even if the game was
lost
All of this will help promote self esteem.
The coach can set realistic/achievable process and or performance goals.
Raise self-efficacy using Bandura’s model.
Highlight previous successful performances,
Give positive reinforcement and encouragement.
Learned helplessness is linked to confidence, so using some of the
strategies that affect confidence will help to overcome learned
helplessness,
This includes setting achievable goals
Pointing out past success
Giving demonstrations that are within the player’s capabilities
Using cognitive and somatic stress management techniques e.g.
imagery,
Use of encouragement and praise will increase confidence.
Mastery orientation – the opposite of learned helplessness, a state of mind
when the performer is high in confidence, has belief in their ability and thinks
that success can be repeated whilst failure is both temporary and
changeable.
It is giving internal and stable reasons for success, showing confidence
and thinking success can be repeated.
Sports performers with mastery orientation will show approach
behaviour in competition and will continue to try even if at first they do
not succeed.
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Self-Efficacy and Self Confidence
Self-efficacy is a belief in one’s ability to master a specific sporting situation -
state
Self-confidence is a belief in one’s self across all situations – trait
Self-esteem is respect for one’s self.
Trait confidence – a consistent level of confidence shown in most situations
when the player is happy to take part and anxiety is low. Trait sports
confidence is concerned with how an athlete rates their ability to perform
across a wide range of sports.
A belief in the ability to do well in a range of sports.
State confidence – Refers to a specific situation, such as penalty kick.
Confidence in specific tasks, sports, situatiions. (self-efficacy)
A belief in the ability to master a specific sporting movement.
Self-efficacy is important as it increases positive attitudes, increases
motivation, reduces fear of failure, reduces anxiety and helps to reach
optimal arousal levels.
Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory
Bandura suggests that self-efficacy is affected by four factors.
By addressing these factors, coaches/teachers can raise the performer’s
self-esteem, resulting in a more positive and successful performance,
and increased task persistence.
1) Performance Accomplishments
This is what you have achieved already.
These have the strongest influence on self-confidence.
If success has been experienced in the past, then feelings of self-
confidence are likely to be high.
Performance accomplishments can be enhanced if the players enjoyed
the win.
For example, a high jumper at an athletics meet where the bar is 1 m 20
would be confident of clearing it if she did 1 m 30 in training the week
before.
Another example would be beating a rival 6-0 in the league, if you were
to play this team in the cup you would feel confident.
2) Vicarious Experience
This is where you see others do the task. It is concerned with watching
others do the same task and being successful. Watching others achieve
helps us to think that we can also achieve
This is more effective if the ‘model’ is perceived to have similar ability to
the performer.
For example, in gymnastics watching a fellow gymnast do a vault that
has been practiced in training may give the watching gymnast the
confidence to go and do the vault themselves.
3) Verbal Persuasion
This is encouragement from others. It refers to the power of
reinforcement and encouragement.
Praise from spectators, coaches, and fellow players gives a player a real
incentive and confidence to repeat the successful attempt.
This can be even more effective if from a significant other such as family
or a coach. If we are encouraged to take part by a significant other, self
confidence in that situation may increase
For young players, comments such as ‘well done’ help build confidence
and future effort.
4) Emotional arousal
This is a perception of the effects of anxiety on performance. It refers to
our perception of how aroused we are and how it can affect our
confidence in a particular situation.
Dealing with emotion in sport, such as keeping calm, maintaining control
and game strategy when you are close to a big win is important.
A big game will cause in increase in anxiety and arousal.
The key to emotional arousal is how the performer perceives the
increased arousal before and during the activity.
Instead of thinking, ‘What. If we lose it now? We are so close!’, you
should think ‘We’ve got this, only a minute to go!’
Teams and players that deal with arousal better get the best results.
Improving Confidence
1) Control arousal with relaxation or stress management techniques such
as visualistation. - the lower the anxiety, the higher the confidence
2) Give an accurate demonstration – Can be done by a role model who
demonstrates accurately and is equal in ability to the performer.
3) Point out past successful performances – If a team is about to play in a
major tournament, the coach can point out winning a similar
tournament and stating that there is no reason as to why they should
not do well again.
4) Give support and encouragement – ‘I know you can do it.’
5) Allow success during training by setting tasks within the capability of the
performer – Lower the bar height in high jumping training
6) Set attainable goals – Once they have been met, a further more
challenging goal can be set. Should not be always be about winning, but
rather performance goals that concern imporvements in technique and
getting a better personal result. It is important that these personal goals
hould not have social comparisons with other players
7) Attribute any success achieved to the athlete – e.g. ability
8) Mental practice – going over a routine or sequence in the mind. The
coach can also offer a one to one session, whter ethe performer is given
specific attention and help with weaknesses in their own individual
performance.
Vealey’s Model of Self Confidence
Athletes who have high sports confidence in one sporting situation will feel
more confident in their ability to succeed in others.
Vealey created a model of self-confidence that includes four factors:
Trait Confidence – A belief that you can succeed in all situations/sport.
State Confidence – A belief that you can succeed in a specific sporting
situation.
The Sport Situation – The situation presented to a performer (e.g., taking a
penalty)
Competitive Orientation – The degree to which a performer is drawn to
challenging situations.
The athlete approaches the sporting situation with a degree of trait confidence
and a level of competitiveness related to the goal they wish to achieve. These
two influences produce a level of state confidence related to the current
sporting situation. Performance will be affected by the level of state
confdiecne and then the performer, internallt in terms of how the outcome
was perceived and the causes of the result, can make an evaluation of the
result. The evaluations made by the performer can then influence future
competitiveness and the amount of future trait confidence.
Vealey suggested that confidence gained in one area of sport could be used to
improve confidence in a different sporting activity.
She used the idea of trait and state confidence, suggesting that these two
influences combine to produce a level of confidence in an objective sporting
situation.
The result or outcome of the performance of the skill in that situation is then
evaluated by the player. The result of that judgement may then lead to
improved confidence in future activities and the player may go on to develop a
competitive orientation. This can help develop approach behaviour.
The judgement of the athlete is called the subjective outcome and if this
judgement is good, then trait confidence and competitive orientation increase.
If the subjective outcome is abd, then. Both trait confidence and competitive
orientation decrease.
E.g a player scores a pen in front of. Acrowd, outcome is good and player is
confident of taking pens in future. Trait confidence will also go up, and player
will rate their chances of doing well in other sports.
A negative outcome will lower trati and state confidence along with
competitiveness and may lead to future avoidance behaviour and an inactive
lifestyle.
The Home Field Advantage
Suggests that performers usually perform better when playing at home
This is due to a large number of supporters present and are familiar with the
venue.
Keeps arousal and uncertainty low.
Home crowd and familiar venue can increase confidence.
Closer the audience to pitch, more important home field advantage
Can potentially reduce confidence as they expect a win. If the team is losing,
the home crowd can become hostile. The pressure may be extremely high and
can cause social inhibition.
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Leadership
Leader – someone who has influence in helping others to achieve their goals
The leader plays a role in maintaining effort and motivatiom by inspiring the
team and setting targets.
TYPES OF LEADER
1) Prescribed leader – appointed from outside the group, from a higher
authority. This is order to take on new ideas and learn new methods.
2) Emergent leader – Appointed from within the group.
LEADER QUALITIES
1) Charisma – Certain demanour and presence, which makes others follow
2) Communication – get the message across
3) Interpersonal skills – interact with team and sometimes outsid ethe
group
4) Empathy – listen to others and take their views into account
5) Experience –
6) Inspirational – encourage others
7) Confidence – Can be gained and spread to other playters
8) Organisational skills
Styles of leadership
1) Autocratic – Dictatorial, sole decision maker, only interested in ensuring
the task is fulfilled
In dangerous situations
Large groups
Limited time
Hostile groups
Cognitive performers
Preffered by male performers
2) Democratic – Decisions are made by group consoltation. Interested in
ensuring relationships are developed within group. Usually consult
senior players.
Small groups
Lots of time available
Friendlt froups
Advanced performers
Female performers
3) Laissez-faire – Hands off approach – Group members make all of the
decisions
Problem solving approach required
Advanced performers
Fiedlers contingency model
