Students from three South African Universities, representing three ethnic groups, explain their perceived success or failure on a class test and rated the importance of casual attributions derived from previous studies. Important factors that emerged were as follow: (1) effort, (2) academic skills, (3) understanding. (Author/LHW)

Subjects of this study were 144 White, middle-class children in kindergarten, first, second, and fourth grades. Children were interviewed individually about their explanations for both academic and social outcomes and their evaluations of their own outcomes. Self-evaluations became less positive in both domains and less similar across domains with…

A semantic differential measure of the attributions of the term feminist was developed and administered to 768 college students. Principal components analysis resulted in five factors: general evaluation, behavioral characteristics, political orientation, sexual preference, and gender classification. Internal replication and stability of the…

The Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scale and the Mathematics Attribution Scale were administered to 107 gifted high school students. Both scales' assessments of the attribution of school success and failure to effort and ability were significantly correlated. Limited support for their convergent validity was indicated. (Author/GDC)

A formal model is presented that decomposes the attribution of personal dispositions into identification and dispositional inference processes. Two illustrative experiments trace the processing of behavioral and situational information at the identification and dispositional inference stages and examine attributions as a joint product of the…

This rejoinder to Brown and Weiner (TM 509 074) attempts to resolve areas of apparent conflict and to offer a broad synthesis around the self-worth theory of achievement motivation. The different yet compatible aspects of attribution and self-worth theories in regards to achievement effort are discussed. (BS)

Compared self-perception and school performance variables in three groups of secondary school students: (1) remedial students; (2) failures; and (3) successful students (controls). Suggested that school failure was related to emotional difficulties, while the remedial group had more straight forward academic deficits. (JAC)

Examines the relationship between personality, as represented by Rotter's internal versus external control of reinforcement (locus of control), and frequency of public library use by university freshmen. Review of literature, hypothesis for study, definitions (independent and dependent variables), methodology and data collection, and findings are…

Examined personality (persistence, future orientation, and the tendency toward reckless/rash behavior) and cognitive factors related to success or failure in college science courses. One finding noted is that both men and women were more apt to attribute their success to effort/ability, and their failure to the difficulty of a task. (JN)

Examines how people use "accounts," (communicate their own preferred meaning to explain a failure or problem in a more acceptable way). Illustrates the use of accounts in a teacher-student conference. (PD)

Examined development of relations between causal explanations, the anticipated emotional consequences for others if these causes were communicated, and the decision to disclose or withhold causal explanation. Within a role-playing paradigm, children aged 5-12 were given scenarios involving social rejection or broken social engagement. Data…

Five studies were conducted to determine if college students employ different conceptions of ability in self-referenced (task-involving) and interpersonally competitive (ego-involving) situations. Competence and positive affects were associated with higher effort in task-involving situations but negatively associated with higher effort in…

This study examined the influence of female students' (N=90) self-monitoring and attribution on achievement when throwing darts. It was hypothesized: (1) that students who set strategic process goals and used self-evaluative recording would attribute outcomes to strategic causes; and (2) that students who set outcome goals and did not use…

This study examined the factors to which parents attribute their children's academic failure. Participating in the research were 13 parents, all living in Malta. About half of the parents' 41 children (ranging in age from 6 to 17 years) had experienced failure in school examinations. Almost all the parents were from a low socioeconomic background.…

Investigated the implicational relations between dispositional levels and relevant categories of behavior. Findings were consistent with the idea that dispositional labels are used to represent a central tendency in a person's behavior. (Author)