Abstract
Attributional style is a cognitive predisposition to explain the causes of bad events in a habitual manner (Peterson & Seligman, 1984). Research indicates that both individuals and groups develop a personal and a collective attributional style respectively which has important implications for a variety of behavioral, cognitive, and affective outcomes (see Peterson, 1991). The present study examined the relationship between the attributional style of sport teams and their success. Athletes (n = 442; 39 teams) completed the Team Attributional Style Questionnaire (Shapcott & Carron, 2010) which involves responding to a series of negative events on the basis of their controllability,stability, universality, and globality. Statistical analyses supported the aggregation of individual athlete responses to represent a team explanatory style. Discriminant function analysis and post hoc ANOVAs showed that more successful teams (winning percentage of .501 or above, n = 21) were significantly (p < .05) more optimistic than less successful teams (winning percentage of .500 or below, n = 18) on controllability ("we can fix this") and universality ("every team has this happen"). The results are discussed in terms of their relation to attribution theory, reformulated learned helplessness theory, and the research focusing on individual athlete explanatory style and success.
