Approaching the motivators for information seeking: The viewpoint of attribution theories Review Article

Psychological attribution theories can be applied to understanding the motivators of information seeking. Attribution theory, which was developed by Bernard Weiner in the 1970s and subsequently updated, suggests that an individualʹs willingness to engage in information seeking in a current situation is dependent on how the person attributes the causes of past success or failure of information seeking efforts. The main causal factors affecting information seeking efforts are ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. Motivation to seek information depends on whether the causal factors are seen as internal or external, stable or unstable, and controllable or uncontrollable. Weinerʹs ideas can be used to examine the motivators for information seeking and information avoidance. The theory can also be used in information literacy education approaches.