 Individuals act on their beliefs.

 Beliefs are general understanding or generalizations about the world,

they are what individuals hold to be true.
 Beliefs play a pivotal role in motivating individuals to act.
 Individual beliefs about causality, fairness, intelligence, the
consequences of our actions, and our ability to control our own destiny
are few of the pivotal beliefs that influence behavior.
 Examples: why did I fail the final examination? Was it because of lack of
effort? Or am I not smart enough to understand the material?
 Based on such observations and questions, Bernard Weiner (uses the notion
of attribution to create a model of motivation.
 Attribution theory deals with causal explanations that individuals make about past
behaviors, especially in regard to achievement efforts and expectancies.

Attribution theorists assume that individuals naturally search for

understanding about why events happen, especially when the outcome
is important or un expected (Stipek, 1993).

When people make causal attributions,

People attribute successes they are essentially seeking or creating
and failures to such factors beliefs about what happened and why.
as ability, luck, effort, mood, Once they create the explanation,
individuals can often use it to better
interest, and unfair manage themselves and their
procedures. environment.
Weiner (1985, 1986, 1992, 1994a, 1994b, 2000) argues that most of the causes to
which individuals attribute their successes and failures can be characterized in terms of
three dimensions of causality—locus, stability, and responsibility.
1. Locus (internal VS external) defines the location of the cause.
 Ability and effort are the most common internal factors on the locus dimension.
 Task difficulty and luck are common external determinants of outcomes.

2. Stability (stable VS variable) designates causes as constant or varying over time.

 Ability is stable because an individual’s aptitude for a task is thought to be relatively fixed,
whereas
 effort is variable because people can vary their labor from one situation to another.

3. Responsibility (controllable VS uncontrollable) refers to personal responsibility,

that is, whether the person can control the the cause.
 Effort is controllable because individuals are thought to be responsible for how hard they try.
 In contrast, ability and luck are generally believed to be beyond personal control (Weiner,
1986, 2000; Kanfer, 1990; Graham, 1991)
 Each of these three dimensions has important implications for motivation
because then tend to generate emotional reactions to success and failure. For
examples:
1. Internal-external locus seems to be closely related to self-esteem (Weiner,
2010). If success or failure is attributed to internal factors, then
 success typically produces pride,
 whereas failure diminishes self-esteem.

2. The stability dimension is linked to emotions that implicate future

expectations.
 For instance, stable causes for failure produce hopelessness, apathy, and resignation.

3. The responsibility dimension is linked to a set of social emotions that

includes guilt, shame, pity, and anger.
 We feel guilty when the causes of personal failure are due to factors under our control
such as lack of effort and deciding not to take responsibility for action;
 we are proud if we succeed.
 Skeches two attribution of failure:

Failure Failure

Attributed Attributed
to lack of • which is seen • which is seen as
as controllable to lack of uncontrollable
effort ability

Individual feels Individual

responsible does not feel
and guilty responsible

Behavior to
improve
Avoid the
performance task
 Failures

Lacks of effort Lack of ability

Controllable Uncontrollable

Responsible Not responsible

Guilt Embarrassment

Engagement Avoidance

Performance Performance
Improves declines
 Students, teachers, and administrators will be highly motivated when
they know the cause of the outcomes and these causes are internal
(locus), amenable to change (variable), and under their control
(controllable).
 Using attribution theory there are many explanations for poor job
performance/ for examples:
 Internal External

Stable Variable Stable Variable

Controllable Typical effort Preparation Observer bias Help from team

Uncontrollable Ability Mood Task difficulty Luck

Dimension classification Reason for poor performance

• Internal-stable-uncontrollable • Low ability

• Internal-stable-controllable • Typical effort insufficient

• Internal-variable-uncontrollable • Bad mood at time of observation

• Internal-variable-controllable • Not prepared for the task

• External stable-uncontrollable • Task was too difficult

• External stable-controllable • Observer was biased

• External-variable-uncontrollable • Bad luck

• External-variable-controllable • Teammates failed to help
 Some of the most powerful attributions that effect motivation and
behavior are beliefs about ability.
 Adults have two general views of ability—stable and incremental (Elliot
and Dweck, 2005) and ability can be improved.
An incremental view of ability
A stable view (sometimes called an (sometimes called a growth view),
entity view) of ability assumes that assumes that ability is unstable
ability is a stable and and controllable—an expanding
uncontrollable trait, that is, a reservoir of knowledge and skills.
characteristic of an individual that
cannot be changed (Dweck and Thus, people with an incremental
Bempechat, 1938). Accordingly, view believe that by hard work,
some people have more ability that persistence, study, and practice,
others and the ability level is fixed. knowledge can be increased and
ability can be improved.
 For examples:
In early grades in elementary
school,
 Most students believe that effort
is the same as intelligence.
 Smart people try hard and trying
hard makes you smarter.
 So if you don’t do well, you are not
smart because you did not try hard
enough.
 If you do well, you mush be a
smart, hard worker (Spitek, 1993,
2002).
About the age of 12,
 Students begin to differentiate
between effort and ability.
 Students begin to realize that
some people achieve without
working hard and these are
smart people.
At this point, beliefs about ability
began to influence motivation
(Anderman and Maehr, 1994).
 People who hold a stable view of
intelligence tent to set performance
goals.
 They seek situations where they will
look good and protect their self-
esteem.
 Such individuals would rather not try
than fail; in fact if you don’t try, no one
can accuse you of being dumb.
 When you fail, the reason is obvious—
you just didn’t prepare or try hard.
 So not trying or preparing becomes a
strategy for protecting oneself from
failure and looking dumb.
 Such strategies do protect one’s self-
esteem, but they do not enhance
learning.
 Individuals with an incremental view
of intelligence, tend to set learning
goals and seek situations in which
they can learn and progress because
improvement means increasing their
ability.
 To such people, children or adults,
failure is not devasting; it merely
suggest that more work is needed to
improve.
 Ability is not threatened by failure; in
fact, often failure is accepted as a
challenge to work harder (Woolfolk,
2004,2010).
 People with an incremental view of
ability are most likely to set
challenging but realistic goals, and as
we have seen, such goals are effective
motivators.
 In brief, one’s beliefs about ability play an important role in motivation
and performance in students, teachers, or administrators.

On the contrary, those who hold

Those individuals who believe that
they can improve their ability are
more likely to set learning goals
that are moderately difficult and
challenging and are concerned
with mastering the task at hand.
a stable, fixed view of ability are
more likely to set performance
goals that are either very easy
or very difficult because they
are concerned with self in the
eyes of others.
They want to look good and
avoid anything that would
threaten that image.
Indeed, they often equate high
effort with low capabilities.
 Basic unfairness in the workplace is what some theorists call an inequity, and
it brings us to yet another perspective on motivation called equity theory,
which focuses on perspective fairness—individuals’ beliefs about whether
they are being treated fairly or not. The perceived fairness of the
procedures used to allocate resources is called procedural justice and is the
key concept in equity theory.
 Equity theory suggest that the key mechanism for such decisions is social
comparison; we compare ourselves with others.
 In more technical terms, we compare our ratio of inputs (contributions) to
outputs (rewards) to the input/otput ratio of others (Kulik and ambrose, 1992).
 Equity theory explains that,
 If the input/output ratios are about the same for those with whom we compare
ourselves, then we view our treatment as fair.
 If, however, the rations are not roughly equal, we believe that we have not been
treated fairly and a sense of inequity develops.
 Inequities are annoying and we try to eliminate them.
One of the potential consequences of feelings of inequity is reduced
motivation.
 Baron (1998) explains that feeling of inequity interfere with work
motivation and individuals attempt to reduce such feelings in three
ways:
1. They try to increase their outcomes—they seek increased
benefits such as a raise or other reward.
2. They try to leave—they quit and find another job.
3. They reduce their inputs—they expend less effort on the job
 Three more issues should be noted about the theory:

Individuals judgments about fairness are

subjective.
• They are in the eye of beholder.
• The individual does the comparing and makes the judgment
about equity.

Individuals are more sensitive to receiving less

that they deserve rather that more.
• It is easier to rationalize receipt of more rather than less than
one deserves, but over time receiving more that one deserves
also has the potential to reduce motivation.
• but over time receiving more that one deserves also has the
potential to reduce motivation.

1.Equity and justice are important motivating

forces to many individuals.
 My ratio of Colleague’s ratio
inputs to outputs inputs to outputs
contribution contributions
rewards rewards

Perceived Equity
Negative Balanced Positive
Balanced Balanced

Rewards
Unfair Fair More that
Treatment Treatment Equitable

General Decreased
Decreased Reduced Satisfaction
Leave Job Motivation
Motivation Effort (motivated)
In sum, when students, teachers, or administrators conclude
that they are being treated unfairly, their performance
motivation often declines dramatically, and they my plan to
“even the score” by cheating or engaging in other
questionable practices.
 Organizational justice is organizational members’ perceptions of fairness in the
organization and includes both distributive justice—the fairness of the distribution of
resources—and procedural justice—the fairness of the procedures for distributing
resources.
 In brief, a sense of organizational justice in the school workplace is dependent upon
administrative behavior that is equitable, sensitive, respectful, consistent, free of self-
interest, honest, and ethical.
 In addition, voice, egalitarianism, and representativeness are crucial in any attempt to
empower teachers.
 Teachers want to participate in decisions that affect them (voice), but they must be
willing to put the interest of the school ahead of their own (egalitarianism) and feel
that their views are being authentically represented in the process of deciding
(representativeness).
 Finally, principals must have the good sense and confidence to reverse and correct
poor decisions as they get feedback and new and more accurate information.
 Pinciples of organizational justice

Equity principle Rewards should be proportional to contributions

Perception principle Individual perceptions of fairness define justice

The voice principle Participation in decitions enhances fairness

Interpersonal justice principle Dignified and respectful treatment promotes fairness

Consistency principle Consistently fair behavior promotes a sense of justice

Eqalitarian principle Self-interest should be subordinated to the good of the whole

Correction principle Faulty decisions shoul be quicly corrected

Accuracy principle Decisions should be anchored in accurate information

The representative principle Decisions must represent those concerned

Ethical principle Prevailing moral and ethical standards should be followed