Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice 2007, Vol. 11, No.

1, 54 65

Copyright 2007 by the American Psychological Association 1089-2699/07/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/1089-2699.11.1.54

The Impact of Match Importance and Gender on the Team-Serving Attributional Bias Among Interdependent Sports Team Players
Iain Greenlees, Marie Stopforth, and Jan Graydon
University of Chichester

Richard Thelwell
University of Portsmouth

William Filby
University of Brighton

Yassein El-Hakim
University of Winchester

This study examined the team-serving attributional bias (TSAB), and moderators of this bias, in sports team players. The authors predicted that, in line with a motivational explanation for TSABs, members of successful teams would make more internal, stable, and controllable attributions than would members of unsuccessful teams, but only after an important match. The authors also examined the impact of gender. After a competitive match, 528 athletes completed a Causal Dimension Scale for Teams and measures of perceived success and match importance. A series of hierarchical multiple regressions indicated that perceptions of success were positively associated with stable, internal, and externally controllable attributions. The authors also found that stability attributions were moderated by gender and match importance, with perceptions of success being positively associated with stable attributions for males regardless of match importance but positively associated with stable attributions only for those females who perceived the match to be important. The results, therefore, provide support for the use of TSABs within sports teams but also indicate that their use may be moderated by gender and match importance. Keywords: team-referent attributions, Causal Dimension Scale for Teams, match importance

Researchers have found that group members are often prone to evaluating information about their own and other groups in ways that optimize the esteem, morale, or image of the groups to which they belong (Sherman & Kim, 2005). Examples of such evaluations include stereotyping, outgroup derogation, and in-group favoritism (Hewstone, Rubin, & Willis, 2002). An additional phenomenon that enhances the group is the team-serving attributional bias

Iain Greenlees, Marie Stopforth, and Jan Graydon, School of Sport, Exercise & Health Sciences, University of Chichester, United Kingdom; Richard Thelwell, Department of Sport & Exercise Science, University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom; William Filby, Faculty of Education & Sport, University of Brighton, United Kingdom; Yassein El-Hakim, School of Sports Studies, University of Winchester, United Kingdom. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Iain Greenlees, University of Chichester, Bishop Otter College, College Lane, Chichester, West Sussex PO19 6PE, United Kingdom. E-mail: i.greenlees@chi.ac.uk 54

(hereafter TSAB). This term refers to the proposal that, when a team succeeds, individuals attribute that success to factors that are likely to enhance the groups value. Thus, after success individuals are more likely to make internal, stable, and controllable attributions for the teams performance (e.g., the ability of the team or inspired strategic decision-making). Conversely, the TSAB predicts that after failure, group members will be more likely to use attributions that protect a positive image of the group. Thus, it can be proposed that team members will be more likely to use external, unstable, and uncontrollable factors to explain the teams performance (e.g., poor refereeing decisions, the cheating of opponents) after failure than after success. Researchers have provided conicting results concerning the existence of a team-serving bias. Early research found support for the hypothesis that winners use more internal attributions than losers. In a study examining the attributions of

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boys in summer camp teams, Bukowski and Moore (1980) reported that team success was generally attributed to internal factors, whereas team failure was attributed to external factors. This nding has been supported by research conducted by Roberts (1975) and by two experiments by Gill (1980). Gill found that members of winning teams more commonly attributed success to the team (81% and 75%) than to the opposition, whereas members of losing teams more commonly attributed failure to their opposition (56% and 72%) than to their own team. In addition, Lau and Russell (1980) and Winkler and Taylor (1979) found that members of winning teams used more internal attributions than did members of losing teams. Finally, in a meta-analysis of the early self-serving bias literature, Mullen and Riordan (1988) concluded that there was evidence for the existence of a TSAB in sport and even suggested that TSABs are generally stronger than self-serving biases. Despite the ndings of Mullen and Riordan, a number of studies that were either available but not included in their analysis. or were published after their sampling ended, showed a less clear pattern of results. For instance, Gill, Ruder, and Gross (1982), Zaccaro, Peterson, & Walker (1987), and Bird and Brame (1978) only found limited support for a TSAB. Gill and colleagues found that winners used more controllable and unstable attributions than did losers (but found no difference in the locus of the attributions). Zaccaro and colleagues (1987) and Bird and Brame (1978) found that, although winners used more internal attributions than losers, losers did not use more external attributions than winners. In contrast to these results, both Iso-Ahola (1975) and Gill et al. (1982) found no differences between winners and losers in terms of the locus of attributions, with both winners and losers using predominantly internal attributions. One potential explanation for the lack of consistent ndings in previous TSAB research is that researchers have tended to commit the fundamental attribution researcher error (Russell, 1982). The term researcher error refers to when researchers themselves categorize the attributions given by participants into the attribution dimensions rather than asking participants to rate directly the locus, stability, and controllability of their explanations. Russell

(1982) argued that it is incorrect to assume that the way in which the researcher interprets the attribution corresponds with the way in which the attributer perceives it. This error has been proposed as one factor underlying inconsistencies in the early self-referent attribution research and is a criticism that can be directed at much of the existing team-referent attribution research. Recently, Greenlees, Lane, Thelwell, Holder, and Hobson (2005) developed a measure of a team-referent version of McAuley, Duncan, and Russells (1992) Causal Dimension Scale to assess attributers ratings of the locus, stability, and the degree to which attributions reect factors that are controllable by the team (team-control) and by parties outside of the team (external control; e.g., governing bodies, refereeing decisions, coaching environment) in order to overcome the fundamental attribution researcher error. In part of the development of this measure Greenlees and colleagues examined the TSAB in a sample of 201 interactive and coactive sport team members. The results of their study found support for the team-serving bias in that winners reported more internal and stable attributions than did losers. In addition, when perception of success was used as an independent variable, results indicated that team members who perceived their teams performances as successful used more stable attributions than did individuals who perceived their teams performance to be unsuccessful. However, although these results overcome the fundamental attribution researcher error, additional research examining the prevalence of TSABs in sport is clearly needed. Although research has examined the existence of TSABs, only limited efforts have been allocated to examining why such biases occur. Two theoretical explanations for TSABs can be proposed. First, the motivational perspective proposes that the bias is an intentional, motivated strategy that is used to enhance or maintain feelings of self-esteem (Miller & Ross, 1975). Advocates of social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) have proposed that, because group membership constitutes an important part of an individuals self-concept, individuals will be able to enhance their selfesteem by making judgments that reect well on the groups to which they belong. Thus, individuals are predicted to use attributions that enhance the teams image after success (internal,

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stable, and controllable attributions) and protect it after failure (through external, unstable, and uncontrollable attributions). The alternative explanation for TSABs is the information processing perspective (Miller & Ross, 1975). When explaining the self-serving bias, Miller and Ross hypothesized that individuals may, naturally and unintentionally, perceive a greater covariance between positive outcomes and their actions than between negative outcomes and their actions. Consequently, people will logically attribute successes to internal factors to a greater extent than failures. In terms of explaining the TSAB, Otten (2002) and Cadinu and Rothbart (1996) argued that the self serves as an anchor for judgments about the groups to which one belongs. Therefore, as the self is generally evaluated positively and positive outcomes are ascribed to the self, ones groups will tend to be positively evaluated too. Although inconclusive, research has provided tentative support for the motivational explanation of the TSAB. Sherman and Kim (2005) found that internal attributions were used less often when team members had just had their self worth reafrmed. They argued that because these participants had no need to further enhance their self-esteem by providing a biased view of their group, there was no need for them to augment the success of the group with internal attributions or discount failure with external attributions. Additionally, Bird, Foster, and Maruyama (1980) proposed that team cohesion inuences the use of team-referent attributions and found that individuals in highly cohesive teams displayed more internal attributions than did members of teams with low cohesion. A possible suggestion is that cohesion would enhance the motivation of team members to view their team in a positive light and thus to use more TSABs. However, it is clear that further research examining the conditions under which TSABs are eliminated or enhanced is needed. Attribution researchers (e.g., Rejeski & Brawley, 1983) have suggested that a persons level of ego involvement in an activity (determined through such factors as match importance, the opportunity to gain social approval, the identication one feels with the activity) may inuence the use of attributions. If the motivational explanation for the self- or teamserving bias were the main reason for the use of the bias, then it would be expected that when a

match is unimportant to an individual, there would be little motivation to protect the positive view of the team. Biddle and Jamieson (1988) found some support for the inuence of match importance in self-referent attributions. They found that losers of an unimportant match were more likely to make uncontrollable attributions (i.e., use self-serving biases) than were losers of an important match. However, research examining the role of perceived match importance and personal involvement in sport has been limited, and no research has examined the role of involvement in team-referent attribution research. Another potential inuence on TSABs is gender (Croxton & Klonsky, 1982; Sherman & Kim, 2005). Researchers in a variety of achievement settings (e.g., Burgner & Hewstone, 1993; Croxton & Klonsky, 1982; Fox & Ferri, 1992; Ryckman & Peckham, 1987) have found gender differences in self-serving attributions, with males being inclined to exhibit stronger selfserving biases than females. Frieze, Whitley, Hanusa, and McHugh (1982) argued that this was because females were often lacking personal involvement in many achievement settings (and hence the motivation to protect their self-esteem). Alternatively, Deaux (1984) argued that the differences between males and females only occur because males typically have higher expectations of success than do females and so take more credit for success (using more internal and stable attributions) than do females. However, in sport settings, research has rarely shown differences in attributions between males and females (Biddle, 1993). Within team-referent attribution research gender, differences have rarely been reported, despite data from both males and females having been collected (e.g., Gill, 1980; Gill et al., 1982). In the only study to report gender differences, Croxton and Klonsky (1982) found that although there were no differences in the teamreferent attributions of winning males and females, there were gender differences after defeat. Specically, they found that after defeat, males were more likely to use external and unstable attributions than females. However, because Croxton and Klonsky (1982) committed the fundamental attribution researcher error, the results must be treated with some caution and further research examining gender dif-

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ferences in team-referent attributions, using such measures as the Causal Dimension Scale for Teams (CDS-T; Greenlees et al., 2005), is required. The current study had three aims. The rst aim was to examine the extent to which TSABs would be observed in interdependent team sport players. In line with the TSAB, and the ndings of Greenlees et al. (2005), it was hypothesized that individuals from successful teams would use more internal, stable, and team controllable attributions than would individuals from unsuccessful teams. We also hypothesized that individuals from successful teams would use less external controllable attributions than would individuals from less successful teams. This was because of the hypothesized use of externally controllable attributions to deect the responsibility of poor performances (e.g., pitch conditions, refereeing decisions). The second aim of the study was to examine the moderating role of match importance. In accord with the motivational explanation of the TSAB, we hypothesized a perceived success by match importance interaction, with more successful performances predicting more internal, stable, and teamcontrollable (and less externally controllable) attributions, but only when matches were perceived as being important. The nal aim of the present study was to examine the impact of gender on the use of TSABs. Because the examination of gender differences was largely exploratory, and research has not been consistent in the ndings of gender differences in attribution use or the impact of gender on the use of TSABs, no directional hypotheses were proposed concerning the impact of gender on TSABs.

(from 53 teams, n 88), eld hockey (from 30 teams, n 38), basketball (from 27 teams, n 43), volleyball (from 16 teams, n 23), netball (from 45 teams, n 77), and ultimate Frisbee (from 3 teams, n 3). Informed consent was obtained from all participants. The majority (91.9%) of participants reported themselves as being of White-European ethnicity. The remaining participants consisted of individuals of Black-Caribbean (4.3%) and Black-African ethnicity (1.9%). An additional 1.9% of participants did not provide ethnicity information.

Measure
CDS-T. Participants were requested to complete the CDS-T. This 16-item scale is based on McAuley et al.s (1992) CDSII, with two major amendments. The rst of these is the rewording of each item to reect a team rather than a self-referent attribution. For example, question 10 of the CDSII (Is the cause something over which you have power/have no power) has been changed to Is the cause something over which your team has power/has no power? In addition to this amendment, the scale comprised 16 items, with four items tapping each of the suggested four attribution dimensions suggested by McAuley et al. (1992): locus of causality (e.g., Is the cause something caused by an aspect of your team/by an aspect of the situation), stability (Is the cause something permanent/temporary?), internal (team) control (e.g., Is the cause something your team can do something about/can do nothing about?), and external control (Is the cause something controllable by people outside your team/over which no-one has control?). As with the CDSII, ratings are made on a nine-point scale, with higher values attached to attributions that are more internal, stable, team controllable, and externally controllable. Scores for each subscale range from 4 to 36. Preliminary validation attempts by Greenlees et al. (2005) have indicated supported for the face and factorial validity of the CDS-T, with analysis indicating strong support for the four-factor model (robust comparative t index 0.961; root mean squared error of approximation 0.054). Perceptions of success. In addition to providing demographic information (age, sex, team sport played), the respondents were asked to indicate the result of the competition played and

Method Participants
A total of 528 volunteer participants (221 males and 207 females; mean age 21.68 years; SD 7.43) completed the CDS-T. The volunteers were students attending sport psychology classes (from six different British universities) who played for a variety of different interdependent sports teams in intramural, intercollegiate, local, regional, and national leagues. The sports that were sampled included soccer (from 189 teams, n 256), rugby union

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were then asked to rate the extent to which you feel the teams performance had been successful. This was rated on a ve-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 very successful to 5 very unsuccessful. This is similar to measures used in previous attributional research (De Michele, Gansneder, & Solomon, 1998). Match importance. Participants were asked to respond to the question how important was the match to you? Responses were made on a ten-point scale ranging from 1 not at all important to 10 extremely important. This is similar to measures that have been used in previous attribution research (e.g., Biddle & Jamieson, 1988).

Procedure
Informed consent was sought from participants before data collection. The CDS-T was administered to the participants between four days and one week after the competitive match they provided attributions for. The questionnaire was completed during sport psychology classes at six British universities. All participants were informed that completion of the questionnaire was voluntarily and that any responses would be treated in the strictest condence.

maximum of four members of any one team were sampled. However, to further assess the degree of interdependence within the teamreferent attribution scores a series of intraclass correlations were calculated (Kenny & La Voie, 1985) on the nonindependent observations (n 105). In accord with the criterion values suggested by Kenny and La Voie, intraclass correlation values above 0.10 were considered to indicate that the assumption of independent data had been violated. The results of this analysis indicated that this assumption was not violated for any of the attribution subscales. After this analysis, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the existence of TSABs and the moderating inuence of gender and match importance, with one analysis conducted per subscale of the CDS-T. At Step 1, perceptions of success, match importance and gender were entered, at Step 2 the 2-way interactions were entered, and at Step 3 the 3-way interaction was entered.

Results Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Descriptive statistics and correlations between the dependent variables for the ratings of the two players are shown in Table 1. Pearson productmoment correlations indicated signicant correlations between the variables. Because no relationship exceeded Stevens (1996) multicollinearity criterion value of 0.80, all items were retained for further analysis.

Data Analysis
An issue that arises when examining grouprelated constructs, such as team-referent attributions, is the degree of groupness exhibited in the ratings of members from the same team (Eys, Carron, Beauchamp, & Bray, 2003). Because team members will have shared the experience that the CDS-T asks them to evaluate, it could be expected that the team-referent attributions would exhibit a strong degree of interdependence. However, because attributions are cognitions and can be proposed to be shaped by personal factors such as attributional style, it can also be proposed that an individuals teamreferent attributions will also be dependent on his or her personal characteristics too. One consequence of interdependent data is that the assumption of nonindependent data inherent in statistical analyses is violated. This could lead to a type II error because any effect is magnied. In order to eliminate this, intact groups were not used in the analysis and, in all cases, a

Gender and Match Importance as Moderators of TSABs

Tables 25 summarize the ndings for the hierarchical multiple regression analyses conducted on the four subscales of team-referent attributions. For the locus of causality dimension, the analysis indicated that variables entered in Step 1 accounted for 2% of the explained variance, Fcha(3, 522) 3.80, p .01. The variables that contributed to this were perceptions of success, t 2.50, p .01 and gender, t 2.13, p .03. These ndings indicate that (a) the more successful a performance is perceived the more internal attributions are provided and (b) males used more internal attributions than females. In addition, in contrast

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Table 1 Means and SDs for and Intercorrelations Between Variables

Variable 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Locus of causality Stability Team control External control Match importance Perceived success M 26.04 17.69 17.96 27.05 7.44 3.62 SD 5.72 6.46 6.00 5.85 1.61 0.97 2 0.27
**

3 0.70 0.10*
**

4 0.11 0.21** 0.21**

*

5 .010 0.03 0.09* 0.12**

6 0.11* 0.34** 0.03 0.06 0.17**

Note. N 528. Scores for locus of causality, stability, team control, and external control can range from 4 to 36. Scores for match importance can range from 1 to 10. Scores for perceived success can range from 1 to 5. * p .05. ** p .01.

to the hypothesized moderating inuence of gender and match importance, we found no signicant interaction effects for any of the twoor three-way interactions examined. For the stability dimension, the analysis indicated that variables entered in Step 1 accounted for 13% of the explained variance, Fcha(3, 522) 26.35, p .001. The variables that contributed to this were perceptions of success, t 8.44, p .001, and gender, t 2.32, p .02. These ndings indicate that (a) the more successful a performance is perceived the more stable attributions are provided and (b) males used more stable attributions than females. In addition, in support of a moderating inuence of gender and match importance, we found a signicant three-way interaction effect (Perception of Success Match Importance Gender), Fcha(3, 522) 4.29, p .04. In order to help to demonstrate the nature of the interactions, post hoc analyses were conducted. A median split was conducted that produced two groups of

athletes that differed in the importance of the match (high match importance, n 279; low match importance, n 249). A one-way analysis of variance indicated that these groups differed signicantly, F(1, 526) 1,158.95, p .001, partial squared .69) in perceived match importance. In addition, participants were grouped by gender. Four regression analyses were conducted to examine the extent to which perceptions of success predicted stability attributions in each of the four groups produced (females viewing the match as important, females viewing the match as unimportant, males viewing the match as important, males viewing the match as unimportant). These analyses indicated that perception of success was positively associated with stability attributions for females who viewed the match as important (R2 0.16, Fcha(1, 117) 23.31, p .001), with males who viewed the match as important (R2 0.17, Fcha(1, 117) 23.53, p .001) and with males who viewed the match as unimpor-

Table 2 Moderated Hierarchical Regression Analyses Results: Perceptions of Success, Match Importance, and Gender Upon Locus of Causality Attributions
Criterion Locus of causality Variable entered Step 1 Perception of success (S) Match importance (I) Gender (G) Step 2 S I S G I G Step 3 S I G R2 0.02 R2 change 0.02 F change 3.80 df 3, 522 0.65 0.03 0.09 0.03 0.005 0.81 3, 519 0.04 0.08 0.34 0.03 0.002 0.002 1, 518 1.11 1.05 .29 0.16 0.35 1.41 .88 .72 .16 2.50 0.57 2.13 .01 .57 .03 t p

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Table 3 Moderated Hierarchical Regression Analyses Results: Perceptions of Success, Match Importance, and Gender Upon Stability Attributions
Criterion Stability Variable entered Step 1 Perception of success (S) Match importance (I) Gender (G) Step 2 S I S G I G Step 3 S I G R2 0.13 R2 change 0.13 F change 26.35 df 3, 522 0.35 0.08 0.10 0.13 0.001 0.269 3, 519 0.16 0.11 0.07 0.14 0.001 4.29 1, 518 2.07 2.07 .04 1.60 1.04 0.50 .49 .60 .77 8.44 1.92 2.32 .001 .06 .02 t p

tant (R2 0.15, Fcha(1, 117) 26.78, p .001). There was no signicant association between perception of success and stability attributions for females who viewed the match as unimportant (R2 0.02, Fcha(1, 117) 1.84, p .18). This indicates that males make more stable attributions after successful performances regardless of the importance of the match, whereas females only make more stable attributions after successful performances when the match is perceived as important to them. For the team control attribution dimension, none of the variables entered emerged as signicant predictors of team control attributions (Step 1: R2cha .01, Fcha(3, 522) 3.80, p .01; Step 2: R2cha .001, Fcha(2, 519) 3.80, p .01; Step 3: R 2 cha .001, F cha (3, 522) 3.80, p .01). For the external control attribution dimension, we found that the variables entered at Step 1 predicted 2% of the

explained variance, Fcha(3, 522) 4.07, p .007. The variables that contributed to this were perceptions of success, t 2.01, p .045, and match importance, t 3.12, p .002. This indicates that (a) the more successful a performance is perceived to be, the more externally controllable attributions are made and (b) the more important a match is perceived to be, the less externally controllable attributions are made. We found no signicant interaction effects for any of the two- or three-way interactions examined.

Discussion
The rst aim of this study was to examine whether a TSAB would be observed in members of interdependent team sports. We hypothesized that members of successful teams (subjectively dened) would use more internal, sta-

Table 4 Moderated Hierarchical Regression Analyses Results: Perceptions of Success, Match Importance, and Gender Upon Team Control Attributions
Criterion Team control Variable entered Step 1 Perception of success (S) Match importance (I) Gender (G) Step 2 S I S G I G Step 3 S I G R2 0.01 R2 change 0.01 F change 1.37 df 3, 522 0.01 0.09 0.02 0.01 0.004 0.78 3, 519 0.18 0.05 0.32 0.01 0.00 0.02 1, 518 0.15 0.14 .89 0.74 0.23 1.30 .46 .82 .20 0.20 1.94 0.34 .85 .74 .06 t p

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Table 5 Moderated Hierarchical Regression Analyses Results: Perceptions of Success, Match Importance, and Gender Upon External Control Attributions
Criterion External control Variable entered Step 1 Perception of success (S) Match importance (I) Gender (G) Step 2 S I S G I G Step 3 S I G R2 0.03 R2 change 0.03 F Change 4.07 df 3, 522 0.09 0.14 0.03 0.03 0.01 1.28 3, 519 0.39 0.23 0.12 0.03 0.00 0.002 1, 518 0.05 0.05 .96 1.60 1.04 0.50 .11 .30 .62 2.01 3.12 0.66 .045 .002 .51 t p

ble, and team controllable attributions (and less externally controllable attributions) than would members of unsuccessful teams. We found partial support for such a bias, with perceptions of success predicting variance in locus of causality and stability attributions. This nding extends the research of Greenlees et al. (2005) who found that members of successful teams made more stable (but not internal) attributions than did members of unsuccessful teams. Although there is an inconsistency in the research ndings of these two studies, this may be explained by basic differences in the research designs in the studies. The differences between the current study and the ndings of Greenlees et al. may be attributable to the different participants used. Specically, Greenlees et al. used both independent and interdependent team sports, whereas we used only interdependent sports team players in this study. Zaccaro et al. (1987) found that members of interdependent teams made greater use of TSABs. They argued that as task interdependence increases social categorization and identity, the group becomes a more important source of self-esteem, thus TSABs become more likely. If the type of sport team an individual competes in inuences their attributions, then this would explain the differences in the ndings from the two studies. However, future researchers will need to examine the impacts of task interdependence on team-referent attributions. The inuence of perceptions of success on externally controllable attributions, although signicant, was not in the direction that was predicted. We found that individuals who

viewed their teams performances as successful attributed it to controllable factors that were outside the control of the team. Although this is counter to the predicted relationship, it could reect situational norms in sport. Grove, Hanrahan, and McInman (1991) proposed that situational norms will inuence attribution patterns in sport. Thus, the current nding could reect a norm for team sport players to recognize the importance of external parties (such as the coach and the sporting organization they belong to) in their teams successes. Specically, if the participants viewed the coach and the sporting organization as being external to the team, then externally controllable attributions could reect such issues as training, team selection, and team strategy. Such attributions may also represent a team-serving bias because these factors may be partially inuenced (through team meetings and discussions) by the team (although this may depend on the leadership style of the coach). However, this proposition relies on the coach being viewed as being external to the team, and further research is needed to examine the extent to which this is the case (and the factors that inuence this perception). On a methodological note, future researchers may benet from providing a clearer explanation of the boundaries of the team (to either examine the playing team, the squad as a whole and the team including coaching staff, and the team as the sporting organization as a whole) so that there is less ambiguity as to what the term team refers to. The present study also sought to examine the extent to which TSABs are moderated by per-

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ceived match importance and gender. In line with a motivational explanation of the teamserving bias, we proposed that match importance would inuence the extent to which participants would show a TSAB. Specically, we hypothesized that individuals who viewed their match as important would show a team-serving bias, whereas those who viewed their match as unimportant would not. We found no support for this prediction for locus of causality, team control, and external control attributions, with none of the match importance or gender by perception of success interactions examined showing signicant relationships. This nding is consistent with an information processing explanation of the team-serving bias (where individuals are predisposed to, unintentionally, evaluate themselves as being responsible for positive outcomes and to assign responsibility elsewhere for failures) and refutes the motivational explanation of TSABs. We also hypothesized that gender would inuence the use of TSABs. Again, we found no gender by perception of success interactions, indicating no impact of gender on the use of locus of causality or controllability attributions. For stability attributions, we found, somewhat unexpectedly, a three-way (perceived success by match importance by gender) interaction effect. Our analyses indicated that males showed a teamserving attribution pattern regardless of whether they perceived the match to be important or unimportant. This supports the information processing explanation for TSABs. Additionally, the analysis indicated that females only showed a team-serving bias after matches that they perceived to be important, with no bias emerging for matches viewed as unimportant. This supports the motivational explanation for TSABs. A number of potential explanations are tenable for this nding. First, it can be proposed that female and male athletes differ in the way in which they make and use team-referent attributions. The results indicate that females may make stability attributions according to the motivational explanation, using attributions to protect or enhance attributions after success and failure, but only doing so when the performance is personally important to them. In contrast, the results suggest that males may make attributions according to the information processing principle. Accordingly, males may have the tendency to unintentionally process information in

such a way as to see the teams to which they belong as being responsible for successes and less responsible for failures. This contention clearly requires further investigation; rst to examine whether this pattern of results generalizes to other sport settings, and second to examine whether this pattern of results is mirrored in self-referent attributions. We found no studies that had explored the interaction of perceptions of success, gender, and match importance when self-referent attributions have been studied. It would be interesting to examine whether the pattern of attribution use shown in the present study is limited to team-referent attributions or whether the differential use of attributions between males and females is also shown for self-referent attributions. Although the results could be indicative of general gender differences in the use of attributional strategies, an alternative explanation for the results could lie in the extent to which males and females are involved in their sport. Specifically, researchers have argued that males have a higher level of personal involvement than females in achievement settings (Frieze et al., 1982). If this is the case, it may be argued that, regardless of the match importance that was reported by the participants, the males had higher levels of involvement in the match that they provided attributions for. Thus, the motivation to protect the image of the group would be retained, even after relatively unimportant matches and the pattern of results that was observed would emerge. Additionally, Frieze et al. would propose that, because females are less involved in sporting activities, they have no inclination to maintain personal or group esteem after unimportant matches. However, after important matches it could be argued that females had sufcient involvement to use teamserving biases. However, this explanation for the ndings of the present study is tentative for two reasons. First, it is contentious to propose that females have less personal involvement in sport because ndings suggest that female athletes are more similar than dissimilar to their male counterparts in psychological factors, such as achievement motivation (Williams, 1978). Second, because levels of personal involvement were only assessed in the current study using a measure of perceived match importance (which revealed no gender differences), there is no data to suggest that the participants in the present

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study differed in the extent of their broader ego-involvement in the game for which attributions were made. Clearly, research is needed to examine these claims further. A second explanation for the three-way interaction is that the males used in this study had higher levels of team cohesion than did the females. Reis and Jelsma (1978) argued that males are more likely to form highly task-cohesive groups than are females, and this has been supported by research conducted by Thompson and Albinson (1991). Because cohesion may enhance the use of team-serving biases (Bird et al., 1980), it could be proposed that the males were inclined to show a team-serving bias, regardless of the match importance, because of their attraction to the group increasing their need to portray their groups in a positive fashion. However, this is again contentious because the evidence for gender differences in team cohesion is equivocal (Carron & Hausenblas, 1998). In addition, no measures of cohesion were made to verify the claims that the males and females used in this study differed in their perceptions of team cohesion. Future researchers should attempt to measure the participants perceptions of team cohesion to examine the possibility that the present results are inuenced by levels of cohesion in the various groups. The point made in the previous paragraph highlights a limitation of the present study. Weiner (1986) suggests that a range of additional factors, such as perceived competence, personal beliefs (such as attributional style) and available information, may also inuence the use of attributions. In addition, it is also possible to propose that group-related factors may inuence the use of team-referent attributions. It can be proposed that, in addition to the inuence of team cohesion, perceptions of team competence (collective efcacy) may inuence attributions in a similar fashion to perceptions of selfcompetence. Research conducted by Greenlees, Graydon, and Maynard (2000) found that, after failure, individuals high in collective efcacy used more external and unstable attributions than did individuals low in collective efcacy and after successes; individuals high in collective efcacy used more internal and stable attributions than individuals low in collective efcacy. In the present study, we assumed that such group and intrapersonal variability was distributed randomly across the variables we examined (gender, match importance, and per-

ceived success). However, future researchers should seek to control for these variables further (e.g., control for intrapersonal differences through the use of within-subjects designs) and to examine how they interact with other variables to inuence TSABs. A second limitation of the present study may lie in the measurement scales that we used to measure perceptions of success and match importance. We used single-item measures because of (a) the desire to limit the amount of questions the participants were required to complete, (b) the absence of alternative validated measures of perceptions of success and match importance, and (c) the utility that these measures have shown in previous (e.g., Biddle & Jamieson, 1988) self-referent attribution research. However, concerns have been expressed with the use of single-item measures (Duda, 1998), and this is a limitation that should be acknowledged in the present research. If research is to examine in more depth the inuence of variables, such as perceptions of success (incorporating facets such as perception of outcome, perception of performance, and perception of the process of performance) and match importance (incorporating facets such as importance to self, importance to team, and importance to others), then attempts should be made to develop measurement tools that are reliable and valid. Two further ndings to emerge from the present study were the main effects for perceptions of match importance and gender. We found that individuals who perceived their match to have been important to them were more likely to attribute team performance to team controllable factors and less likely to attribute team performance to externally controllable factors than individuals who perceived their match to be unimportant to them. This may reect an attributional strategy designed to enhance perceptions of the team. Bandura (1986) proposed that controllability of attributions might be the most important determinant of future efcacy beliefs. Here, attributions to controllable factors after successes may mean the individual believes that the chances of repeating a performance are within his or her control, thus success can be repeated. Similarly, attributions to controllable factors after failures may lead the individual to see a way in which they can positively inuence their next performance and thus maintain, or enhance, his or her self-belief and motivation for that performance. It is ar-

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gued here that after important matches, individuals are more inclined to attribute to controllable factors to protect or enhance their motivation whereas after unimportant matches individuals do not have a reason to use such a strategy as the match is not important enough to provide a threat to ones selfimage. The gender differences that we found indicate that males used more internal and stable attributions, with team control attributions approaching signicance ( p .06). This supports previous self-attribution research (e.g., Croxton & Klonsky, 1982) that has indicated that males may be more likely than females to see the causes of their performances as residing within themselves. Overall, our ndings do suggest that TSABs are used in sport and may also be inuenced by a number of factors. The extent of TSAB use among different groups of athletes may be potentially important information for coaches and team psychologists who wish to promote certain attribution patterns after team performances. Research (e.g., Wang, 1994) has indicated that team-referent attributions are trainable and can inuence group functioning, thus coaches may seek to implement attribution training programs to either promote team-serving biases in groups prone to not using them or reducing the occurrence of excessive team-serving biases (when complacency or a refusal to take due responsibility may be an issue) in groups prone to overusing them. However, research is needed to examine further those groups that are most prone to their use, and researchers also need to examine the consequences of team-referent attributions and TSABs. In addition, although researchers such as Weiner (1986), Hewstone (1989), and Carron and Hausenblas (1998) have provided a rationale to assume that team-referent attributions may inuence factors such as motivation, expectancies, collective efcacy, team cohesion and emotions, no research has systematically evaluated such claims. Thus, researchers need to explore the consequences of TSABs. If team-referent attributions do inuence such factors, then this may offer a potential point of intervention for applied practitioners and coaches seeking to enhance group functioning.

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