The purpose of the study was to experimentally determine if the attribution of positive or negative social values is associated with particular colors. The subjects were 76 four-and five-year old females drawn from six privately owned kindergartens and nurseries. The children were randomly assigned to one of two groups. In the control group, color…

The physical and interpersonal contexts within which rapes occur were investigated. The physical context, defined in terms of observers' perceptions of the likelihood of rapes occurring in a particular setting, produce variations in the degree of responsibility assigned to the victim. Women raped in high probability of rape settings were held as…

This study related subjects' perceptions of their causality for task participation to their causal attributions of task outcomes, their task attitudes, and their task motivation. Subjects received success or failure feedback on a creativity task after experimental manipulations had influenced their perception of their causality for task…

Subjects in five stress groups were threatened with electric shock while subjects in a sixth group were not. In one of the stress groups subjects were encouraged to misattribute (i.e., project) their feelings from the threat of shock to the experimenter instead of to the shock, while subjects in the remaining stress groups were not encouraged to…

Attribution theory focuses on the differences in perceptions that people have of the causes of behaviors and events. In this study attribution theory was used to determine the effect of role in a counseling interview on ratings of causal attributions for counselor and client behaviors. Counselor trainees (n=42) were randomly assigned to the roles…

The purpose of this paper is to present a social psychological explanation of the self-confrontation process. A model of self-confrontation based on attribution theory is introduced. The use of video tape playback as a tool for self-confrontation is discussed, and implications for research are outlined. (MPJ)

Two five-week test-retest reliability studies of a measure of the unit of perception of ongoing behavior were conducted. In the first, 25 females and 23 males segmented a 7-minute action sequence under fine-unit or gross-unit instructional sets. Number of units marked at first viewing correlated .87 with number of units at retest. Correlations…

The question of whether readers subjectively perceive the meaning of written materials is a specific form of the more general issue of whether human beings make or find knowledge. The subjectivist paradigm asserts that the first priority in the search for knowledge is the individual's awareness of personal motives for obtaining that knowledge. The…

After presenting the attributional model, this paper reviews research on individual differences in beliefs about causes of success and failure. Studies illustrating differential performance on achievement-related tasks by individuals who differ in their attributions are reviewed. Causal perceptions of success and failure should be considered, in…

Fifth-grade students classified as high or low in self-concept were paired in an achievement-related task in which one succeeded and one failed. High self-concept children attributed success more to their high ability and engaged in more positive self-reinforcement than did low self-concept children. Results were discussed within an attribution…

Two studies found temporal persistence and resistance to extinction to be positively related to the attribution of failure to insufficient effort, and negatively related to ability and task difficulty in sixth graders. Results provided support for the attribution model of achievement motivation as well as empirical foundation for attribution…

A random sample of medical students was compared with others who were unable to cope with unanticipated academic frustration. Techniques of attribution therapy and desensitization in the counseling of these students proved to be effective in improving coping behavior in six of seven cases. (Author/LBH)

Contrary to prediction, failure feedback increased the performance of all fifth graders involved in this study, whether they had scored high or low on a locus of control measure. (Ed./JD)

Of what importance are our impressions and perceptions of others? This empirical investigation suggests that social perceptions can and do exert powerful channeling effects on subsequent social interaction such that actual behavioral confirmation of these beliefs is produced. Outlines a theoretical account of the processes believed to underlie…

This paper focuses on the situational factors which operate on women to shape their domestic and professional choices and behavior. The analysis proposed is based on social psychological theories, such as role theory and social comparison and attribution theory, rather than on the genetic or personality theories. (Author/AM)