Sports & Causal Attribution Theory

Leith (1989) defines a "causal attribution" as the perceived cause of a given event or situation. Attribution theory, according to Sears, Freedman and Peplau (1991) consists of a set of basic principles delineating the entire process involved in the formulation of causal attributions; this includes such processes as what motivates people to generate causal attributions, how they decide which a particular cause is most important, the biases that obstruct accurate causal attributions, and so forth.

The purpose of the review of literature presented here is to examine theory and research regarding the general application of attribution theory in sport and to explore the measurement of the causal attribution process as measured by the Causal Dimension Scale II developed by McAuley, Duncan and Russell (1992), which is a revised edition of the Causal Dimension Scale originally developed by Russell (1982). The review begins with a history of the development of causal attribution theory, followed by a brief delineation of the importance of attribution theory for the field of sport.

This delineation is followed by a review of some of the well-established findings in research examining causal attributions in sport. Implications of these findings for coaches and sport practioners are then listed.

The last section of the review examines the measurement of causal attribution. In particular, t

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n attributed their success to more controllable and stable causes than did subjects who lost at the dart tossing competition. Conversely, sex differences were found for perceived competence, persistence and performance. In this regard, it was observed that males, regardless of the win/lose outcome, had higher perceived competence, longer persistence, and better performance than the females. Additionally, a significant gender by win/loss outcome interaction was found for expectations. Males who lost at the dart tossing task had higher expectations for future performance than females generally; moreover, they had higher expectations than did either the males or females who had won the contest. In summary then, there appeared to be no differences between males and females in selecting causal dimensions when placed in an actual competitive situation. Interestingly, this appeared to be true even when the task was one that was typically considered a male appropriate task. However, gender differences did continued to exist for perceived competence, persistence, and performance. Implications of General Findings According to Leith (1989), each of the established findings for causal attribution theory in sport have a number
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Approximate Word count = 7283
Approximate Pages = 29 (250 words per page)

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