Taking Responsibility You control (more then anyone else) how you perform in college.

Causal Explanations Are the reasons we give ourselves for our outcomes They affect how we perceive a past situation and how we anticipate (thus behave in) a future situation Weiner says ‘human beings are not just satisfied to experience success or failure; they must also explain to themselves what caused it’

Cause Something that produces a result or effect to a situation. Source Influence Factor Negative or unfavorable

Internal Causes : Ability and Effort Ability - is commonly referred to as “natural ability” Ability - is not necessarily something we should be so proud of [we don’t control it]

Internal Causes : Ability and effort Effort - is what we should focus on It is our responsibility It is controllable under personal control You choose to put effort forth or not

External Causes: Task difficulty, luck & help Far less painful explanations ‘That test was to difficult’ thus not my fault for getting a bad grade When we regard external cause to be the basis for our poor results Then we avoid assuming the responsibility for them We also loose the control of results too “I got a good grade just out of luck”…’I hope I am as lucky next time!’

area of influence area of concern Internal vs. External Locus of control

Think positive When you focus on the causes that you can control: by thinking positive The result is: a reason to believe that you can cause your own success

Other properties of the causes Stable or Unstable Ease with which the cause can be changed General or Specific Extent to which a cause operates in many areas of functioning Academic or Athletic or Social

Blaming external causes is to avoid responsibility When blaming external causes for our bad events you can become a person on the Victim Wheel.

The Victim Wheel

Optimist Sees the cause for their unfavorable outcome to be: Unstable - can change easy Specific - just to that one event Controllable - changeable next time Hence they see the outcome as temporary

Pessimist Expects unfavorable outcomes to continue because: They regard their cause to be permanent They generalize from one task to another It is something they can’t control

Self-Serving Bias The tendency to take credit for success and avoid responsibility for failure. - sounds good right… It makes us feel better Gives us a way not to face ourselves But there is a catch… It undermines the work necessary to avoid failures in the future!

Importance of Effort Effort is one of the explanations that is: Unstable - can change easy Specific - just to that one event Controllable - changeable next time

The Strategy: Application of Effort Acknowledging a need for change when it comes to effort can: Help avoid guilt And can be considered a controllable explanation for the cause. My goal is to put forth more effort so that I can work smarter and I know that ‘going for the goal’ can mean I learn something along the way

Working harder/smarter The distinction between working harder and working smarter is important. It is especially important to recognize that much of this course, especially what is coming up, is about working smarter. However, working hard should not be minimized as an action for change since even strategies need to be practiced (and that might be hard work - at first)