10/27/21; Week 6: Response to “Attributional Tendencies”

As human beings, I think we have the strong tendency to find an explanation for every situation. We may attribute them to internal or external factors, depending on our culture and personal mindsets. However, almost every person has this need to find a reason behind what is happening to oneself or others. This tendency can be dangerous because sometimes victims of different crimes are blamed for what have happened to them, adding more pain to what they are already facing. Therefore, we as teachers must analyze our personal attributional tendencies, and how they could influence our teaching practices.

Cultural attributional tendencies are different for every country and even among people from the same origin. It is not the same for people with a collectivist point of view than for people who are individualists. For instance, collectivist will attribute their successes to external factors like their parents, group, or other entity, but not to their own abilities and talents; however, it will be their fault if they fail. They do not attribute mistakes or misfortunes to others but themselves. On the other hand, individualist people tend to blame or attribute failures to external factors, and praise themselves for their achievements, even though they may receive help from others in the process.

In a classroom setting, we can observe both behaviors. We will find students who attribute their lack of effort to their circumstances, bad luck, having not talent for the language, and the list has not end. And, on the other hand, students who consider they are not skillful, gifted, or who tell you all the time “I do not know” or “I do not understand”. Personally speaking, in this last case I link this self-image to a low self-esteem and a poor concept of themselves; not in all the cases, but in those who I understand this is the real problem behind their comments.

In any case, every student should be made responsible for their own learning process if we want them to overcome their challenges and personal circumstances. If we let them rest on their attributional tendencies, they will surely fail on developing their language skills and never discover what they are capable to do or overcome.