Since the identification of self-handicapping strategies in 1978, considerable attention has been paid to this phenomenon. Self-handicapping is a strategy for discounting ability attributions for probable failure while augmenting ability attributions for possible success. Behavioral self-handicaps are conceptually distinct from self-reported…

The self-perceptions and attributions for success among 561 college administrators were studied. Questionnaires were completed by presidents (27 percent), deans (27 percent), directors and coordinators (33 percent), and nonadministrative faculty (13 percent). Self-perceptions were measured by adjectives that were subsequently categorized as…

The objectives of this study were to investigate (1) whether prior opinions concerning a child's sex influence the qualities attributed to the child; (2) whether differences exist in the responses of male and female raters; and (3) the effect of forced-choice responses vis-a-vis non-forced responses. An 8-minute videotape of a 22-month-old infant…

A total of 83 children of 27 to 63 months of age were interviewed in an effort to assess the importance of the children's understanding of gender constancy and their use of physical characteristics in making gender role stereotype attributions. It was hypothesized that young children would use stimulus models' sex to a greater extent than the…

Research examining alcohol consumption by using Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale has reported conflicting results, possibly related to comparisons of clinical groups of alcoholics with nonclinical light drinkers or to an overuse of correlational statistics and a lack of appropriate controls. This study sampled a wide range of ages…

Job satisfaction has been identified as one of the most important antecedents of turnover, although it rarely accounts for more than 16% of the variance in employee withdrawal. Several data sets collected on the Mobley, Horner, and Hollingsworth (1978) model of turnover were reanalyzed with path analytic techniques. Data analyses revealed support…

Previous research has shown that different emotions are associated with different attributions. To examine the situational context, i.e., the relationships between attributions and emotions as well as the inter-relationships within emotions and within attributions under separate success and failure conditions, 208 college students performed…

Substantial evidence is accumulating which emphasizes the significant role of the family for drug abusing adolescents. To investigate the influence of the family on adolescents (N=17) involved in heavy marihuana use, interviews with family members, case studies of each adolescent, and psychological evaluations were conducted to determine the…

Social cognition is defined as a new field in psychology which emphasizes cognitive processes. It is concerned with how people interpret and construct their social environment. Selected aspects of this field are reviewed. These include perceptual salience, causal attributions, and indirect ability communications. Their pertinence to the…

A reformulated theory of learned helplessness posits that helplessness may be the outcome of a learning disabled (LD) student's belief of personal or universal helplessness. Motivational, cognitive, and emotional deficits may result. Research on locus of control and persistence as well as on the contrast between mastery (achievement)-oriented…

Trust is an important construct in understanding the social dynamics in interpersonal and race relations. Several studies have concluded that blacks tend to mistrust both whites and the predominantly white government. The consensus among theorists and researchers supports the social learning view that accumulated life experiences critically…

Twenty normal and 20 retarded children were studied to determine the influences of mental (MA) and chronological age (CA) on the attribution of life characteristics to animate and inanimate objects. In both normal and retarded children, attribution depended on an interaction between M.A. and C.A. (DP)

This study examined the influence of male and female models on the expectancies, achievement, and attributions of college students. A factorial design varied sex of subjects (male, female), sex of models (male, female), and causal attribution offered by models for completion of a novel task (effort, luck, ability, task difficulty). Females'…

Male and female subjects evaluated a male after seeing a videotape of him with his girlfriend. The attractiveness and intelligence of the girlfriend was varied. A multivariate analysis of variance on 10 dependent measures showed the male to be evaluated more favorably when his partner was more attractive or more intelligent. Univariate analysis…

Since adult children are both an essential and a limited support system for elderly parents, it is important to understand the factors which elicit and sustain their helping behavior. A causal path model based on the attachment and equity theories was constructed in which adult children's feelings of attachment to their parents lead to their…