Relationships between attributions and emotions in a laboratory-based sporting contest.

A series of one-vs-one fencing contests was staged in a laboratory to investigate the nature and extent of relationships between attributions and emotions. The experimenter had full control over the outcome and created a substantial defeat for one subject. A pre-contest measure of the importance of winning was obtained via a questionnaire. After the contest, questionnaire ratings of 12 attributions for outcome (winning/losing), 28 adjectives describing emotions, and a rating of satisfaction with performance were elicited. Factor analysis of emotion ratings revealed three factors of 'positive self-esteem', 'depression-frustration' and 'intropunitiveness'. Relationships between emotion factors and attributions involved primarily internal attributions. Multiple regression analyses showed that positive self-esteem for winners was best predicted by performance satisfaction, outcome importance and attributions, whereas depression-frustration was predicted only by attributions. For losers, positive self-esteem was predicted from attributions. These results suggest that attributions and emotions are related after sports competition but that non-attribution variables are also important predictors of sport-related emotion.