The career ambitions of 1012 pupils in the final years of secondary schooling in Fiji were surveyed. The range of careers they nominated was very narrow, with teaching, nursing and other white collar work in the majority of responses. This stands in somewhat stark contrast to projected labour force needs, and the current serious shortage of…

A number of studies have supported the hypothesis that negative attributional styles may confer vulnerability to the development of depression. The goal of this study was to explore factors that may contribute to the development of negative attributional styles in children. As hypothesized, elevated levels of depressive symptoms and hopelessness…

This study examined the factors associated with resistance to peer pressure toward antisocial behaviors among a sample of Mexican-origin adolescents (n=564) living in a large Southwestern city in the U.S. A model examining the influence of generational status, emotional autonomy from parents, and self-esteem on resistance to peer pressure was…

Although reattribution training has been shown to be very useful in improving learning, researchers disagree on what mediates the effects. As to the possible mediating factors, the prominent theories suggest factors such as expectations, notions of intelligence, self-efficacy or anxiety. However, this article proposes an alternative mediating…

Objective: This study investigates attributional styles and psychosocial functioning of men and women with ADHD identified in adulthood to inform practice issues. Method: One hundred and eighty adults participate: 52 females with ADHD, 37 males with ADHD, 51 female controls, and 40 male controls are administered questionnaires broadly assessing…

The goal of this study was to extend what is currently understood regarding attitudes toward the homeless population. The study focused on how homeless and nonhomeless adolescents attribute the causes of homelessness. Grounded in attribution theory, the study hypothesized that nonhomeless adolescents would ascribe causality to dispositional or…

Experiences with uncontrollable events may lead to the expectation that future events will elude control, resulting in disruptions in motivation, emotion, and learning. This text explores this phenomenon, termed learned helplessness, tracking it from its discovery to its entrenchment in the psychological canon. The volume summarizes and integrates…

If greater self-monitoring can lead to greater awareness of the characteristics of others, self-monitoring should be positively related to personality attributions and negatively related to situational attributions. To compare the relationship between self-monitoring and attributions when gaining information through social interactions and through…

Recent research on teachers' expectations has begun to explore the factors underlying the link between expectations and performance. To investigate the relationship between the affective responses of teachers and students' attributions regarding effort versus ability, 130 college students (66 male, 64 female) were instructed in solving anagrams…

Male and female adults revise their perceptions of control three times in their lives, between the ages of 20 and 65. To investigate the relationship between experienced control in terms of loci of control (internal, external), situations (opposite sex, same sex), and direction (from or over the environment), and the developmental stages of men…

Past research has shown significant treatment versus control differences using paradox, although the literature often does not detail how the paradoxical directive is given to the client. College students (N=105) were tested with the Procrastination Log and the 40 with the highest scores were selected in order to study the effectiveness of paradox…

According to the major attributional hypotheses, egotism and expectancy confirmation, people tend to make internal attributions when successful and external attributions when they fail. In order to investigate the effect of manipulation on egotistical and expectancy confirmation attributions, 190 female undergraduates participated in two series of…

Terborg and Ilgen (1975) used attribution theory, equity theory, and sex-role stereotyping to explain the results of an investigation of occupational sex discrimination which found that male management student subjects differentiated in a stereotypical way between men and women in initial and second-year salaries and task assignments. A…

Past research has produced conflicting results concerning the manner in which Type As and Bs make attributions following success and failure. Some studies find that Type As are more likely than Type Bs to blame themselves for all outcomes, particularly failure. Other research indicates that Type As are more self-serving in their post-performance…

This study sought to reexamine children's attributions of successful performance on current cohort-defined masculine, feminine, and sex-neutral tasks. Dimensions of attributional choices were used with children of preschool/kindergarten and third/fourth grade levels. The results from this investigation were only partially consistent with previous…