First semester college students (n=92), during their second week of classes, participated in a two (received grade point average information vs. no information) by two (imagined academic achievement scenarios vs. no scenarios) by two (received reattribution information vs. no information) intervention program designed to enhance their academic…

Questionnaires completed by 146 Westinghouse Science Talent Search winners identified curiosity as their primary research impetus. Females reported more concern with social impacts of scientific research, less variability in self-image as scientists, and a greater tendency to credit hard work and dedication (versus intelligence/creativity) for…

Mothers of learning-disabled (N=15) and normally achieving (N=16) elementary-school boys administered an academic task to their children, and mothers' expectations and attributions for their sons' performance were assessed. Mothers of learning disabled pupils held lower performance expectations, provided more negative nonverbal responses, and more…

This article reviews self-fulfilling prophecies in three sequential stages: (1) teachers develop expectations, (2) teachers treat students differently depending on expectations, and (3) students react to treatment in expectancy-confirming ways. The focus is on social and psychological events at each stage, causal processes linking stages, and…

Investigated braising effects of subordinate likeableness on leaders' attributions for subordinate poor performance and corrective actions toward subordinates in laboratory study of 96 undergraduates and field study of 98 organization leaders. Both groups made similar attributions for poor performance of liked and disliked subordinates, but were…

Interrelationships among metamemory, intelligence, attributional beliefs, self-concept, and strategy use were investigated in 102 German and 91 American children. Some were trained to use a cluster-rehearsal strategy on a Sort Recall task. Post-training assessments tested maintenance, near-transfer, and task-related metamemorial knowledge.…

Examines how certain human brow and mouth gestures influence the attributions of social dominance made by children. Hypothesizes that stimulus photographs depicting adults with lowered-brow expressions or without smiles appear to be more dominant relative to photographs showing adults with raised-brow expressions or with smiles, respectively. (HOD)

Investigated influence of Christian values of clinicians and clients on judgments of prognosis, psychopathology, and locus of client problems. Both religious and nonreligious clinicians assigned moderately religious clients more pessimistic prognoses and greater psychopathology. Religious therapists made more internal attributions for the…

Shame is a global emotion that shares an ability-linked component (humiliation) and an effort-linked component (guilt). Effort was found to increase humiliation via inability ascriptions because a combination of high effort and failure implies low ability. Conversely, high effort was found to decrease the guilt component of shame. (Author/DWH)

Examines extent to which second- and fifth-graders use social comparison information to evaluate themselves. Results indicate that fifth-, but not second-graders, made appropriate evaluations of their abilities on the basis of variations in relative performance and compensated for time differences. (Author/BE)

Naturalistic observations were made of "remedial interchanges" that occurred among kindergarten through fourth-grade children in open classrooms. Three approaches to development of moral judgments were considered: attributional, cognitive developmental, and symbolic interactionist. Data showed limited to no support for these theories and…

The importance of several causes of examination outcomes prior to and after taking a course exam were rated by undergraduate freshmen and advanced psychology students serving as proctors. Freshmen rated proctor characteristics as more important than their own as determinants of exam outcomes. Positivity, rather than egotism, biases were operative.…

The authors contend failure to confirm Weiner's theory is a result of shortcomings inherent in his model. They argue that cognitive theory has been properly represented and tested, and that the study of achievement behavior is enhanced by the addition of motivational, noncognitive assumptions to their theories. (Author/DWH)

Surveyed 190 adolescents to investigate adolescent perceptions of parental persuasive communication. Argues that adolescents base their attributions of parental power on their parents' attempts to control their behavior. Results indicated that adolescents' age and gender and communicative context affect how they perceive parental persuasive…

Data lend support of the contention that the introduction into a situation of a salient feature phenomenally consistent with the behavior enacted will tend to attract to it causal attributions and consequently affect attitudes toward the behavior even though the feature has not actually caused it. (Authors/CB)