Section B: Psychology of sport performance 5. Consequences of sport performance

Syllabus Attribution theory – Reasons for success and failure – Weiner’s model – The use of attributional retraining – Strategies for the promotion of mastery orientation and avoidance of learned helplessness

Attribution The perceived reasons for the success or failure of an event or pattern of behaviour A team may infer they lost because of a lucky goal The correct use of attributions are vital to ensure performers’ motivation levels are maintained

Attribution theory Suggests that the reasons perceived by an individual or team for the outcome of their actions can affect their levels of motivation in future performances Weiner proposed four categories of attribution: – Ability – Effort – Task difficulty – Luck

Generally, to gain feelings of satisfaction, success is attributed to internal factors (self- serving bias) and failure to external factors To maintain motivation using the ‘locus of stability’, success is based on stable factors and failure on unstable factors

Attribution retraining Involves the coach or teacher developing and changing an individual’s perception of failure, allowing them to deal with it effectively and improve future performances, avoiding learned helplessness Goal setting is vital in this process, especially the use of outcome or task goals rather than performance goals

Overcoming learned helplessness When it comes to learned helplessness, the most important factor seems to be control Since feelings and behaviours associated with learned helplessness are the result of negative perceptions, they can be changed Changing perceptions involves changing thinking