"Actually I Was the Star": Managing Attributions in Conversation
In this paper, we outline the parameters of a discursive approach to attributions in sport psychology. Attribution theory has had a strong presence within sport and exercise psychology. Attributions are the perceived causes or reasons that people give for an occurrence related to themselves or other...
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doaj-558a64e659204b38b09ee99d169789482020-11-25T01:28:26ZdeuFQS Forum: Qualitative Social Research1438-56272003-01-0141732"Actually I Was the Star": Managing Attributions in ConversationSara-Jane Finlay0Guy Faulkner1University of TorontoUniversity of TorontoIn this paper, we outline the parameters of a discursive approach to attributions in sport psychology. Attribution theory has had a strong presence within sport and exercise psychology. Attributions are the perceived causes or reasons that people give for an occurrence related to themselves or others. An attributional model, developed in educational psychology, has been most influential and often requires the researcher(s) or participants to determine the dimensional categorisation of attributions (e.g., internal-external, stable-unstable, controllable-uncontrollable). Assessing attributions in sport and exercise psychology has been almost exclusively through self-report questionnaires and entrenched within a limited theoretical perspective. In contrast, a discursive approach focuses on discourse and what is accomplished through people's talk. Such an approach would advocate a move from a view of talk (discourse) as a route to internal or dimensional categories to an emphasis on talk as the event of interest. Using principles of conversation analysis (CA), a critical examination of the traditional conceptualisation of attributions will be offered in this paper. Drawing on a corpus of data where athletes discuss their sporting performance, we consider the management of attributions as talk-in-action, rather than a series of discrete cognitive elements and dimensions. To illustrate the way that attributions are managed in conversation, we consider three areas—asking questions about loss, the interactional modesty inherent in discussing wins and the "slipperiness" of attributions in conversation. Finally, the implications of a discursive approach to the study of attributions in sport and exercise psychology are discussed. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs030133http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/745attributionsconversation analysissportdiscursive psychology |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
deu |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Sara-Jane Finlay Guy Faulkner |
spellingShingle |
Sara-Jane Finlay Guy Faulkner "Actually I Was the Star": Managing Attributions in Conversation Forum: Qualitative Social Research attributions conversation analysis sport discursive psychology |
author_facet |
Sara-Jane Finlay Guy Faulkner |
author_sort |
Sara-Jane Finlay |
title |
"Actually I Was the Star": Managing Attributions in Conversation |
title_short |
"Actually I Was the Star": Managing Attributions in Conversation |
title_full |
"Actually I Was the Star": Managing Attributions in Conversation |
title_fullStr |
"Actually I Was the Star": Managing Attributions in Conversation |
title_full_unstemmed |
"Actually I Was the Star": Managing Attributions in Conversation |
title_sort |
"actually i was the star": managing attributions in conversation |
publisher |
FQS |
series |
Forum: Qualitative Social Research |
issn |
1438-5627 |
publishDate |
2003-01-01 |
description |
In this paper, we outline the parameters of a discursive approach to attributions in sport psychology. Attribution theory has had a strong presence within sport and exercise psychology. Attributions are the perceived causes or reasons that people give for an occurrence related to themselves or others. An attributional model, developed in educational psychology, has been most influential and often requires the researcher(s) or participants to determine the dimensional categorisation of attributions (e.g., internal-external, stable-unstable, controllable-uncontrollable). Assessing attributions in sport and exercise psychology has been almost exclusively through self-report questionnaires and entrenched within a limited theoretical perspective. In contrast, a discursive approach focuses on discourse and what is accomplished through people's talk. Such an approach would advocate a move from a view of talk (discourse) as a route to internal or dimensional categories to an emphasis on talk as the event of interest. Using principles of conversation analysis (CA), a critical examination of the traditional conceptualisation of attributions will be offered in this paper. Drawing on a corpus of data where athletes discuss their sporting performance, we consider the management of attributions as talk-in-action, rather than a series of discrete cognitive elements and dimensions. To illustrate the way that attributions are managed in conversation, we consider three areas—asking questions about loss, the interactional modesty inherent in discussing wins and the "slipperiness" of attributions in conversation. Finally, the implications of a discursive approach to the study of attributions in sport and exercise psychology are discussed.
URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs030133 |
topic |
attributions conversation analysis sport discursive psychology |
url |
http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/745 |
work_keys_str_mv |
AT sarajanefinlay actuallyiwasthestarmanagingattributionsinconversation AT guyfaulkner actuallyiwasthestarmanagingattributionsinconversation |
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