Effects of gender and athletic involvement on attributions following a sport task

Includes bibliographical references (pages 58-60)Past research has indicated that attributing outcome to internal factors (e.g. ability and effort) results in greater affect than attributing outcome to external elements (e.g. luck and task difficulty). Further, attribution research has found that ascribing outcome to stable factors (e.g. ability) results in lesser expectancy change than ascribing outcomes to unstable factors (e.g. luck and effort). Previous investigations have also found that females generally attribute to external and unstable factors more than males.\ud This study attempted to determine if these differences between high school males and females still exist and if the degree of athletic involvement affects the attributions. High school age subjects (N = 108) completed five questionnaires each to determine how they attributed outcome following competition in a badminton match. The subjects' questionnaires were divided into 12 groups based on gender (male, female), athletic involvement (3-4 year athlete, 1-2 year athlete, and non-athlete), and outcome (win, loss). (See more in text.