PSY 3109 Chapter Notes - Chapter 16: Controllability
15 May 2018
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Chapter 16: An attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion
According to Weiner, there are at least two stages to the experience of many emotions—
especially those emotions that are uniquely human such as guilt or pride.
Step 1: the mind generates a primitive, primary appraisal of the event that has just
occurred, a labelling of the event in a relatively coarse manner. Was that good or bad?
Step 2: the mind begins to ask, What kind of good? or What kind of bad?
To answer that question, according to Weiner, requires a form of causal analysis.
That is, people ask What was the cause of the event that brought about this feeling?
Weiners remarkable insight was that it is possible to boil down the myriad of possible
answers to this question to only three dimensions:
1. locus
2. stability
3. Controllability
That is, any cause that someone may name is internal or external to the person, stable or
unstable, and controllable or uncontrollable (resulting in a 2 × 2 × 2 matrix)
• External or Internal: blame it on the environment you tested in or on how you
studied
• stable or unstable: one-time thing or consistent?
• Controllable or Uncontrollable: I can do something to exert change or not
When we try to come up with an explanation for why something happen we focus on the
three listed in bold above to understand why it happen
• Thus, virtually any cause that a person may generate may be fit into one of the
resulting eight types of explanations
• Different cognitive explanations for the event actually bring out different emotional
experiences
• The way you attribute the event is related to how you will feel
find more resources at oneclass.com
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Document Summary
Chapter 16: an attributional theory of achievement motivation and emotion especially those emotions that are uniquely human such as guilt or pride. Step 1: the mind generates a primitive, primary appraisal of the event that has just. According to weiner, there are at least two stages to the experience of many emotions occurred, a labelling of the event in a relatively coarse manner. (cid:523)(cid:494)was that good or bad? (cid:495)(cid:524) Step 2: the mind begins to ask, (cid:494)what kind of good? (cid:495) or (cid:494)what kind of bad? (cid:495) That is, people ask (cid:494)what was the cause of the event that brought about this feeling? (cid:495) Weiner(cid:495)s remarkable insight was that it is possible to boil down the myriad of possible. To answer that question, according to weiner, requires a form of causal analysis. answers to this question to only three dimensions:
