Examined the effects of age and aggressive status on children's understanding and use of excuses. Found links between perceived responsibility, anticipated anger, and excuse giving that were stronger among older boys than younger boys, and stronger among aggressive boys than nonaggressive boys. (ET)

Investigated whether attributions of opiate addicts would predict abstinence and reactions to abstinence violations. Found that addicts who at admission attributed to themselves greater responsibility for negative outcomes and who attributed relapse episodes to more personally controllable factors were subsequently more likely either to be…

Presents an interpretive theory assigning all text to "Linguistic Worlds" (LWs). Shows how a special deictic LW (needed for default attribution to the speaker and useful for describing parentheticals, evaluative adjectives, and epitheticals) gives the capacity to characterize shifts in point of view accompanying the indirect first-person speech of…

Undergraduates (n=198), separated by self-reported virginity status, completed Russell's Causal Dimension Scale and Snyder's Self-Monitoring Scale. Results indicated variety of statistically significant virginity status and gender differences in causal attributions made about virginity and sexual choices. Self-monitoring was not significant…

Investigated female single-parent college students' attributions of academic success. Findings from 28 single-parent students indicated that more successful students made different causal attributions for grade point average than did less successful ones. Compared to less successful counterparts, academically successful students less frequently…

Fifty-two subjects competed on a task against themselves, a difficult competitor, and an easy competitor. Certainty, ability attribution, and task satisfaction for those with low self-esteem were affected by perceived goal difficulty but not for those with high self-esteem. Low self-esteem groups had lower goals, certainty, and task performance.…

Recently, language has acquired theoretical importance as the medium of causal thinking. A discursive action model of description and attribution is presented that argues that causal attributions can be studied as social acts performed in discourse and not merely as cognitions about social acts that happen to be expressed in conversation. (SLD)

Defines the formal dimensions of responsibility in the context of philosophical theories, and defines the attribution of responsibility with reference to social psychological and interactionist theories. Gives a typology and explanation of ways people deny responsibility for actions. Draws on empirical studies of the attribution and denial of…

The psychometric properties of the Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire-Revised (CASQ) (N. Kaslow and S. Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991) were studied with 1086 children, 9 to 12 years old. Results indicate the revised version to be somewhat less reliable than the original, but with equivalent criterion-related validity for self-reported depression.…

Confirmatory factor analysis of data from 1,346 respondents to the Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) (C. Peterson and others, 1982) reveals that adequate fit is provided by a three-factor attributional style model that includes context-dependent item sets. Results suggest that there is no such thing as a nonsituational attributional style.…

Describes the evolution and testing of an "attributes checklist" tool for assisting counselor development. These attributes relate to characteristics of case notes that indicate evidence of counselor reflection and consideration of the counseling process. (Author/GCP)

Examines the attributions made by depressed clients about responsibility for the causes of and solutions to their problems. University counseling center clients (N=160) completed instruments measuring attributions of responsibility, internality, stability, and controllability of their problems. Results support the hypothesis that depressed clients…

Evaluated relative importance of relational and individual factors in accounting for aggression in third-grade boys' laboratory play groups. Found that relationship effects accounted for as much variance in total aggression and proactive aggression as actor or target effects. Mutually aggressive dyads displayed double the total aggression as…

Surveys 167 counselors on their etiology and responsibility attributions and models of helping. Participants responded to vignettes describing a client experiencing symptoms of either an identity or adjustment problem. Counselors endorsed all of P. Brickman et al.'s (1982) models of helping for both problem types, and selected attributions…

Surveys attitudes towards and beliefs about dyslexia among Adult Basic Education (ABE) teachers and providers. Finds doubt, uncertainty and confusion about dyslexia and considerable misgiving. Discusses attribution theory and learned helplessness in the context of ABE. Argues that a diagnosis of dyslexia may be a maladaptive attribution and so…