The Literature Review of Attribution Theory

◆Abstract：This research paper conducts the studies of attribution theory these years. The attribution theory is combined with learning achievement， self-efficacy， motivation， automatic study， learning strategies and so on. It has been researched a lot in the English education field a lot. This literature review can help people have a good understanding of the development of the attribution theory these years.

1 Conceptual definition of attribution

1.1Attribution theory

Attribution theory is simply about the ideas， theories and models of attribution. It is a psychology theory about how people explain their own or others behavior， and how this explanation affects their mood， motivation and behavior. Attribution theory contains two aspects.  hey are theories of cognitive process of attribution and theories effect of attribution. The former， from the perspective of cognition， studies how people make attributions and what the cognitive process is. Whats more， it also studies what factors would affect the cognitive process. The latter， from the perspective of application of attribution theory， focuses on the effect and function of attribution. It mainly concerns about the variations of peoples mood， motivation and behavior aroused by different attributions. It is a theory about how attribution affects peoples thoughts， feelings and behavior （Liu， 2010， pp. 4-7）.

1.2 English attribution theory

English attribution theory was proposed by Heider， a sociopsychologist. As this term created， it has been commonly applied to psychological and educational field. During this empirical study of English attribution for elementary and middle school teachers， we pay more attention to the attribution tendency of English teachers. They are good and excellent English learners. Some of them just begin to teach while some of them are experienced teachers. There are many researches conducting the attribution tendency of students from elementary education as well as university students from English majors or non-English majors.

There are four aspects of attribution proposed by Weiner， and they are efforts， ability， luck and situation. Generally speaking， attributing ones failure or success to the controllable and stable factor ability， can make people upset and do less efforts and lead them to more failure. Attributing ones failure or success to the external factors such as luck， situation makes people more comfortable and lets them make less efforts. Only attributing their failure or success to efforts can make them be successful.

Attribution theory is applied to psychological therapy these days. Education is related to psychology intimately. Positive attribution can lead students to make great learning achievement as well as healthy psychological status.

There are lots of discussion talking about the students attribution tendency， but this research is about teachers attribution tendency. As we know， teacher can influence students a lot. If the teacher holds negative attribution tendency， it must influence their students and he can not realize the students have negative attribution and will not correct it. So it is of significance to study the teachers attribution tendency.

2The development of attribution theory

Attribution is a sociopsychological concept. Attribution is that people attribute their failure or success to certain factors including internal factors and external factors （Heider， 1958）. The internal factors are need， emotion， interest， effort， attitude and belief， and the external factors are the influences in the environment such as others expectation， reward， punishment， instruction， good or bad weather. Heider is regarded as the “father of attribution”. He proposed the attribution theory and provided a way of how people view the reason behind their failure and success. Later， Bernard Weiner developed it into educational field， and other scholars such as Davis， Jones and Harold Kelley try to develop it and propose some new perspectives about it.

Davis and Jones （1956） developed Heiders theory and proposed the correspondent inference theory. It explains why people make attribution and their behavior can be predicted through their attribution.

According to locus of control， Rotter （1966） classified there are two kinds of people： internal control and external control. As Rotter indicated， people of internal control always attribute their failure or success to their efforts or ability while those of external control often attribute their failure or success to the external factors such as the expectation， reward， punishment or luck.

Kelley （1967） proposed the covariation model. It emphasizes the observation of multiple behaviors across time， place， different actors and examines how the perceiver chooses the internal and external factors. It is a logical model for judging whether a particular action should be attributed to individuals personality or to surroundings. Weiner proposed that attributions are classified along three causal dimensions： locus of control， stability， and controllability.

2.1Attribution tendency in terms of demographic variables

2.1.1 Gender

There is no obvious difference between male students and female students in the mean of the four elements： ability， effort， context and luck. Male students and female students both have a tendency of taking “effort” as the most important factor which has an effect on their academic achievement and they both tend to regard “luck” as the least important factor related to their failure. （Xiao Rong， 2017）

Differences in gender and attribution tendency also have been found in international study. From Wu Juan （2011）， the findings show that both male and female students attribution preferences are relatively correct and reasonable. Both of them regard some stable， internal and controllable factors as the reasons for their success of English learning， and both of them regard some unstable， external and uncontrollable factors as the reasons for their failures of English learning.

2.1.2High achiever and low achiever

According to Qin Xiaoqing （2002）， the difference between high achievers and low achievers in attribution is that low achievers always attribute their failure to some uncontrollable factors such as bad studying environment. Higher achievers always attribute their success to the internal factor—effort while low achievers always attribute their failure to the external factor—luck （Chen Huiyuan， 2014）

2.1.3Attribution and learning factors

2.1.3.1Attribution， self-efficacy and motivation

Empirical study conducted by Xiao Rong （2017） shows there are relationship between attribution and achievement attribution. Effort is positively correlated to motivation attribution while luck， ability and context are negatively correlated to achievement attribution. However， these correlations is not significant. For female students， attribution has significant correlation to achievement motivation while for male students， there is not significant correlation between attribution and achievement attribution. The self-efficacy of the primary school students in rural places is significantly and  positively correlated to ability， efforts， mood and teacher in success attribution while negatively correlated to luck. The self-efficacy is negatively correlated to all the factors in failure attribution and significantly and negatively correlated to ability， the difficulty of task and teacher factor. There are still differences in attributions in failure and success between students with different levels of self-efficacy. （Tong Shasha， 2015）

2.1.3.2Attribution and automatic study

Attribution success to efforts is significantly and positively correlated to automatic study while attributing success to luck is negatively and significantly correlated to automatic study （Chen Huiyuan， 2014）.

2.1.3.3Attribution and anxiety

Anxiety is related to attribution in some degree （Bian Tangying， 2016）. The attribution of success to effort is negatively correlated to anxiety. The attribution to context and luck of success has insignificantly positive correlation to anxiety. The attribution of failure to effort and the difficulty is positively correlated to anxiety.

3 Conclusion

The development of attribution theory is so quick. This literature review can make us have a glance at the development of attribution theory.

Reference

[1] Kelley， H.H. The Process of Causal Attribution [J]. American Psychologists，1973（28）： 107-128.

[2] Weiner， B. Achievement Motivation and Attribution Theory [M]. New Jersey： Germanal Learning Press. 1974.

[3] Weiner， B. An Attributional Theory of Achievement Motivation and Emotion [J]. Psychology Review， 1985（92）： 548-573.

[4] Weiner， B. 1986. An Attribution Theory of Motivation and Emotion. [M]. New York： Spnger-Verlag. Weiner， B. Human Motivation [M]. New Jersey： Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.1989.

[5] Weiner， B. History of Motivational Research in Education [J]. Journal of Educational Psychology， 1990（04）： 16-22.

[6] Wu，Juan. An Investigation and Analysis of Attribution Preference and Gender Difference of Non-English Majors' English Learning--Based on Investigation of Non-English Majors in Tianjin Polytechnic University[J]. Joural of Language Teaching and Research， 2（2）， 332-337.

[7] Liu， Y. F. Attribution Theory & Its Application. Shanghai： Shanghai Education Publishing House.2010.

作者簡介

张茜（1997.10.17—），性别：女，民族：汉族，籍贯：云南泸西县，学历：本科，职称：无，研究方向：无。