Attributional Style and Its Relationship to Self-Esteem and Academic Performance in Black Students

Abstract

The types of casual attributions made regarding successful and unsuccessful life events are related to a number of variables including depression and self-esteem. High self-esteem individuals tend to internalize their success outcomes and externalize their failure outcomes more than do low self-esteem individuals. The objective of this exploratory study was to investigate the relationship between attributional style and self-esteem and attributional style and academic performance in Black high school and college students. The results indicated that an internal attributional style for negative events was negatively associated with self-esteem. A stable attributional style for negative events was negatively associated with academic performance. An internal attributional style for positive events was negatively associated with academic performance. It was concluded that attributional style can be useful for understanding self-esteem and academic performance in this population.

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