A literature review of causality orientations

The Causality Orientations Theory (COT) describes individual differences in people’s tendencies to orient toward environments and regulate behaviour in various ways. It suggests three types of causality orientations: autonomy, controlled, and impersonal orientation. The General Causality Orientations Scale (GCOS) was developed to assess the strength of the three motivational orientations. This study aims to highlight the gaps present in various studies that future researches may address, with particular focus on the GCOS. Three topics were selected for the literature review – causality orientation and gender differences, causality orientation and risk-related behaviours, and the GCOS. The controlled orientation is particularly of interest in majority of the studies. Research findings were consistent with the COT but more research is needed to expand and build on limited existing researches. It was found that men were higher in controlled orientation and women in autonomy orientation. However, few explained and investigated how being high in the various causality orientations affected the regulation of behaviours in different genders. Studies found individuals who are higher in controlled orientation to be associated with higher occurrence of risk-related behaviours. However, few addresses how the findings can help improve interventions and find appropriate approaches to reduce risk-related behaviours to attack individuals higher in the various causality orientations. Most samples of researches involves only Western college students, hence results may not be generalisable to other population. Future studies need to consider a wider representation of ethnicities and age groups.Bachelor of Science (Sport Science and Management