Relationship Between Students’Attribution On Key Events In College And Their Adaptation

The period of college plays an important role in individuals’ development. As students’ college adaptation affects their study, life and interpersonal interaction in the college as well as their social adaptation after graduation, it is one of the hottest research topics at all times. However, there are still some deficiencies in the research of this field, such as singleness of methods, neglect of specific situation’s effect and dynamics of adaptation, etc. To address these deficiencies, the current study is mainly designed to discuss the adaptation of college students from an attributional perspective based on Attribution Theory of Motivation and Emotion.120pieces of essay written by college students, in the topic of My College Life, were analyzed firstly and40key events of college life were tentatively identified. Those events were evaluated later by97junior students and12final key events were selected out, which were included in the compilation of Questionnaire of Attribution on College Key Events. Next,142junior students were tested with this questionnaire together with China College Student Adjustment Scale to study the relationship between attribution on positive/negative events and adaptation, and compare the attribution of students in different adaptation levels. Finally,4junior students were interviewed individually to further analyze the causes to the attribution differences of students in different adaptation levels, as well as the relationship between students’ attribution on specific events and their adaptation.From those studies, we found that:(1) College students had higher attribution initiatives on negative events than positive events.(2) Compared to negative events, college students were more inclined to attribute positive events to internal, stable, global and controllable causes.(3) If college students had higher attribution initiatives and were more inclined to attribute the positive events to internal and global causes, they would have stronger motivation to maintain or repeat the positive experience. If college students had higher attribution initiatives and were more inclined to attribute the negative events to controllable, global and unstable causes, they would have stronger motivation to change the negative experience. (4) The higher the attribution initiatives were and the stronger the motivation to maintain or repeat positive experience were, the better the students adjusted to college. The higher the attribution initiatives were and the more global the causes were evaluated regarding the negative events, the better the students adjusted to college.(5) Students in high adaptation level were more inclined to attribute positive events to stable and global causes and attribute negative events to specific and controllable causes than students in low adaptation level. What’s more, students in high adaptation level had higher attribution initiatives and stronger motivation to maintain or repeat positive experience and change negative experience.(6) Several different patterns of attribution on specific events were found and those attributional patterns would affect adaptation of college students.