Final answer:
A student attributing their lack of success to an unchangeable lack of ability indicates an internal, stable, and global attribution, which, according to attribution theory, can lead to learned helplessness and potential depression.
Step-by-step explanation:
According to attribution theory, when a student believes they have no control over the successful outcome of their efforts and have given up, the student is most likely attributing their lack of success to factors that are internal, stable, and global. This is evident as they may believe that their inability to succeed is due to a lack of ability—an internal factor—which they perceive as stable since they think they cannot change this aspect of themselves, leading to a global view where they feel inefficient in most areas of life. For example, if a student performs poorly on an exam and makes an internal attribution like "I'm just not smart," believing this is a stable situation ("Nothing can be done to change the fact that I'm not smart") and has a global implication ("This is another example of how lousy I am at everything"), they are at risk of developing learned helplessness and possibly depression.
To relate this to one of the provided scenarios (Solution 4.11): Failure is defined as a student not completing homework on time, and the student believes that their low success rate is due to an unchangeable lack of ability, which indicates an internal and stable attribution about their performance, and if they generalize this to other areas, it becomes global as well. Similarly, Jane's belief that her poor grade was due to her professor’s dislike of her reflects an external locus of control, where she attributes her performance to factors outside of herself.