Attribution.

Attribution.

The term attribution has different meaning in different context.
In this write-out, it means a concept of psychology whereby one attributes traits and causes to
different things.
The approach to achievement motivation rejects the expectancy-value formulation and analyzes instead the attributions that people make about achievement situations.
In general, attribution theory concerns how people make judgments about one’s behavior, that is, the causes to which they attribute behaviour. Considerable research has found that people typically attribute behaviour either to stable personality characteristics, termed dispositions, or to the situations that were present at the time the behaviour occurred.
In regard to achievement behaviour, the attributions of ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck are argued to be especially important in determining future achievement motivation.
For example, when a person is successful at a task and attributes that success to ability, that person is likely to approach new achievement situations in the future.
Similarly, if the success was attributed to an intense effort, future achievement behaviour would depend upon a willingness to expend such effort in the future.
Task difficulty appears to be judged from social norms.
If most people are unsuccessful at a task, it is judged to be difficult, and, if most people are successful, the task is judged to be easy.
The attribution of success to task difficulty therefore, would be expected to modify future achievement behaviour.
If success was judged to be due to the fact that the task was very easy, future achievement behaviour would not be expected to change much.
However, success in a task judged to be very difficult might prompt a person to expand the range of tasks he or she is willing to attempt.
Ascriptions of luck in an achievement task would also influence future achievement behaviour.
Basically, luck is assumed when a person expects to have no control over the outcome in the task.
Success attributed to luck is not expected to increase future achievement behaviour much, nor would failure attributed to bad luck be expected to decrease it much.
Research on the attributions people make in achievement-related situations suggests that the four causal ascriptions mentioned above and perhaps other ascriptions as well can best be understood as falling along three dimensions: locus, stability, and controllability.
Locus refers to the location, internal or external, of the perceived cause of a success or failure.
Ability and effort, for example, are seen as internal dispositions of a person, while task difficulty and luck are situational factors external to the person.
Stability refers to how much a given reason for success or failure could be expected to change.
Ability and task difficulty are stable and therefore not expected to change much, while effort and luck are unstable and could therefore change dramatically over time.
Controllability refers to how much control the individual has over the events of the situation.
Causes such as effort are considered to be controllable, whereas luck is uncontrollable.