Subjects read scenarios describing a fictitious student and rated the extent to which the students' academic success was due to ability, effort, test difficulty, and luck. Attributions to ability and effort were greater for positively valued information; attributions to luck were greater for negative information. Results partially followed…

Subjects rated an individual described as either male or female, white or native Indian who chose an upwardly or downwardly mobile occupation (teacher or store clerk). Female characters were rated less likely to succeed. Male subjects were more surprised at male, but not female, character's choice of downwardly mobile career. (Author)

Two cognitive models of depression have attracted considerable attention recently: Seligman's (1975) learned helplessness model and Beck's (1967) cognitive schema approach. Describes each model and, in two studies, evaluates the assumption that depression is associated with systematic distortion in cognition regarding causal and controlling…

Examined the role of attributions in initial and long-term smoking behavior change. Manipulated the externality of treatment. Subjects receiving nicotine gum were superior to the intrinsic self-help group in initial cessation but were inferior in maintaining abstinence. Subjects in the intrinsic self-help group made fewer external attributions for…

Introduces the practicing school counselor to a theoretical framework known as the "social influence model," which has been found effective in promoting attitude change. Provides an example of how counselors can evaluate their efforts in attempting to dispell career myths through this model. (ABB)

Students from grades four through eleven (n=304) responded to a questionnaire regarding their viewpoints on grades. Three dimensions were examined: (1) attitudes about being graded; (2) comprehension of grading systems; and (3) causal perceptions and attributions about why students get good grades. Findings are discussed. (Author/MT)

Studied the influence of intelligence, self-concept, and causal attributions on metamemory and the metamemory-memory behavior relationship in elementary school children. Results indicated that intelligence had an impact on metamemory in all age groups; and that metamemory remains an important predictor of memory behavior. (Author/RWB)

Analysis of responses of 280 mother-father-young adult child triads showed that both parents had limited ability to gauge their children's attitudes. Parents made best guesses on Fundamentalist Religious Beliefs and Sexual Permissiveness. Mothers were slightly better than fathers at knowing daughters' opinions; neither parent was better at…

Preschool children's awareness of distinctions between animate and inanimate objects was assessed by showing stimulus films of animate and inanimate objects that moved in different ways. Results indicated that five- and some four-year-olds performed near adult levels, whereas three-year-olds did not, although the animate-inanimate distinction did…

The study involving 28 educationally handicapped (EH) and 25 learning disabled LD/EH children (mean ages 13 and 12 years) included among its results that EH Ss took significantly more personal responsibility for academic failure than did LD/EH Ss; EH Ss attributed success to ability but failure to both lack of ability and lack of effort.…

Prevailing interpretations of minors' reluctance to participate in treatment tend to emphasize personal deficiencies, pathology, and inappropriate motivation. This review suggests (1) interpretations of reluctance for treatment may often be a function of the interpreter's biases; and (2) reluctance may frequently result from appropriate negative…

The reliability and validity of the Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scale was examined for 350 American community college students, ranging in age from 17 to 59. The attributions of ability, effort, context, and luck emerged as well as distinctions between attributions related to academic success or failure. (Author/PN)

The hypothesis that students who cheat will externalize the cause of this behavior was tested by contrasting the causal inferences of cheating and noncheating college students. Results supported Kelley's attributional model. Uninvolved observers also indicated that students tended to formulate self-serving attributions. (Author/BS)

Results of four related studies revealed (1) a trend toward better differentiation of the color attribute from four years through college-age; and (2) a possible stage of development, occurring before children can organize stimulus values conceptually or multidimensionally, in which they are able to organize or "dimensionalize" stimulus values…