Attribution Theory

 

Attribution Theory is based off of the idea that everyone wants to know why they experienced a certain event one way and why the outcome was how it was. The innate need to understand why we experience life the way that we do can lead us to believe that there is always an attribution as an explanation. There are three main areas in relation to casual attribution: locus of control, controllability, and stability. Locus of control is either internal or external cause, controllability is how much a person can control an event, and stability is whether or not the controllability is stable.

            According to Weiner there are four major achievement attributes: ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. Ability is related to intelligence and is generally deals with internal locus of control, controllability is uncontrollable, and stability is highly stable. Effort has an internal locus of control, controllable controllability, and is usually unstable. Task difficulty has an external locus of control, uncontrollable controllability, and stable stability. Luck has an external locus of control, uncontrollable controllability, and unstable stability.

            In the episode “Bad Day at Black Rock” Dean and Sam run into one of the talismans that is closely related to luck materialized, a lucky rabbit’s foot. As stated above luck is extremely hard to control and is very unstable. In the beginning of the episode the brother first come in contact with the lucky rabbit’s foot when their father’s storage locker is robbed by two thieves that were hired by a woman who deals in rare magical items. When they find the thieves that stole the lucky rabbit’s foot, they take it back which then leads to their streak of luck. Dean decides to use this luck to buy scratch off lottery tickets whereas Sam just wanted to find a way to get rid of it without having the luck turn around on them. Unfortunately, their luck turns for the worse, this is shown in the episode when the brothers lose the lucky rabbit’s foot, all the luck that they had experienced turned around and hit them tenfold. This shows how luck is unstable and uncontrollable in a way that most people wouldn’t think about in the real world. 

    

    Going back to the lottery tickets, Dean relied on the luck that the rabbit’s foot is supposed to bring. Meaning he relied on this attribution [luck] to explain the outcome of winning money off of those lottery tickets that he purchased. Due to luck Dean was happy and surprised with the amount of money that he won with the lottery tickets, meaning he achieved success. Then that all turned around when the brothers lost the rabbit’s foot, becoming disappointed when they failed to keep it in their possession. Dealing with this failure led to them having to confront the woman who wanted the rabbit’s foot in the first place, Bela. When they finally got the rabbit’s foot back from Bela the brothers decided to destroy it so that no one else would have to experience the success that comes with it and then the inevitable failure they would experience when they lost it. When Dean was about to throw the rabbit’s foot into the fire to destroy it Bela showed up to take it back because she wanted to sell it for a large amount of money. Yet another turn of bad luck for the brothers because Sam ends up with a gunshot wound in his shoulder and Dean being forced to hand over the rabbit’s foot. When forced into this situation Dean decided to trick Bela by throwing the rabbit’s foot at her rather than handing it over, which forced her to catch it out of pure reaction. Once that happened Dean’s luck changed again because then Bela would be forced to destroy it unless she wanted to live with the uncertainty of luck.