The purpose of present experiments with subjects approximately three, five, and seven years of age was to provide additional evidence for the obviousness of the generative transmission principle and to provide initial evidence for the secondary principles of absence and facility. Empirical support was found for each of these selection principles,…

Surveyed 447 adolescents to determine which model of child abuse was most consistent with their beliefs, attitudes, and opinions. Results indicated that their views were most closely aligned with the psychopathological model, followed by the ecological model. Subjects maintained that parental psychological factors and victim characteristics…

Examined the validity of a cognitive attribution model by studying the reactions of 216 college freshmen to their first-semester grades. Results confirmed the attribution of success and failure to ability and the attribution of failure to task difficulty. Attribution of success to task ease was not confirmed. (JAC)

Assumes that the explanations for the causes of unemployment held by unemployed clients and their counselors influence clients' reactions to unemployment and the counseling provided to them. Identifies contextual factors that influence attributions about unemployment and addresses specific attributional issues. Discusses counselors' own…

An investigation was conducted to determine whether a self-instructional method of attribution training could effectively alter academic task persistence and effort attributions for success and failure. Results indicated that experimental groups of students receiving self-instructional attribution training evidenced significant differences from…

Categorizes common sense as (1) a set of shared fundamental assumptions, (2) a set of maxims or shared beliefs, and (3) a shared way of thinking. Argues that psychology has and should have a different relationship with each. Discusses the role of research techniques such as conceptual analysis in investigating commonsense cognitive schemata. (CMG)

Investigated British attitudes toward the poor as measured by MacDonald's Povery Scale and the Protestant Ethic Scale. Supporters of the British Conservative Party had more negative attitudes toward the poor, and were more likely to blame the poor for their fate than supporters of the British Labour Party. (JAC)

Offers rapprochement of Rotter's (1954) social learning theory with self-esteem and related constructs. Self constructs are defined and combined into a conceptual framework indicating the impact of their interrelations within a self-esteem system. An attribution model is used to clarify the impact of causal internalization on self-esteem.…

Reviews coping theory and attribution theory to present a systematic approach to stress management counseling that focuses on teaching clients to diagnose life events and to choose the coping response that is most useful for them. Stresses the importance of counselors becoming proficient in a variety of coping techniques. (LLL)

Students in a large human development course (n=306) took two measures of academic causal attributions: a general measure of perceived contributors to a cross-section of course outcomes and a specific measure of perceived contributors to performance on the course examinations. Results indicate that students perceive personal effort as the primary…

This study investigated the causal attributions juvenile delinquents make for other's behavior and the salient pieces of information they use to arrive at these attributions. Participants were 82 male juvenile offenders selected through an a priori power analysis, drawn randomly from the population of juveniles incarcerated at a correctional…

Much motivational research has examined the role of attributions of perceived causes of outcomes. Attributions are important because theory and research show that attributions have differential effects on motivation. There are many different attributions; for example, ability, effort, task ease/difficulty, luck, strategy use, help from others,…

Twenty-one learning disabled students and 25 non-LD students were asked to explain their high and low scores in a bowling game under conditions of either high or low success. LD Ss' explanations did not differ over the two conditions. Findings suggested that LD Ss viewed their difficulty as something that could not be overcome. (Author/CL)

Research at the Chicago Institute focused on the social competence of learning disabled (LD) children, including investigation of communicative competence (e.g., adapting one's style to listeners, conversational skills), reading abilities (oral reading and comprehension), causal attributions of success and failure, and the immediate impression LD…

Eighty students and 15 teachers provided expectancies and attributions for the academic performance of hypothetical medicated and nonmedicated hyperactive children. Both teachers and peers had higher expectancies for the medicated than for the nonmedicated child. Data suggested that these differential expectancies may arise from different…