Have you had the times you think that you are the dumbest person in the earth, just because you screw up a test?

Well, I did, a lot.

I still remember how I screw up my intro to psychology midterm. That only one bad grade made my question about myself → Am I stupid? I’m not good at psychology at all! Maybe I should change my major!

So what’s really happening here?

This is a case of attribution(21) — the explanations we come up with to make sense of our successes and failures.

In attribution, the three factor that we consider are:

• Locus of control (22): Internal or external reasons?
• Controllability(23): Controllable or uncontrollable factors?
• Stability(24): Stable or unstable patterns?

In my case, I made an attribution on my failure in the midterm —

“I’m not good at psychology at all, and I should change my major”, which was

• Internal (“It’s my fault”),
• Uncontrollable (“There’s nothing I can do”),
• Stable (“This will always be true”).