Sex-role concepts in 120 children aged three to seven were assessed by means of an instrument that allowed children to categorize attributes as being characteristic of males only, females only, both males and females or nobody. The children sorted attributes once for adult peer stimulus figures and once for peer stimulus figures. The relationship…

The purpose of this study was to test several hypotheses from self-efficacy theory in the area of children's arithmetic achievement. Fifty-six elementary school children showing low arithmetic achievement were assigned to one of four treatment groups of 12 subjects each (modeling-attribution, modeling-no attribution, didactic-attribution,…

Tests were constructed to measure three dimensions of prejudice related to interracial communication: stereotyping, affective reactions, and communicative social distance. A test was also constructed to measure the type of attributional choices made about blacks. The attributional choices were either defensive (negative and stereotypical) or…

The social psychology literature largely ignores attribution patterns made by both sexes of differing generations on an activity with salience for both sexes. "Parenting" is an activity with such salience. In estimating parental success for stimulus situations involving parent-child interactions, undergraduates and their parents were virtually…

Since its appearance in 1974, the Snyder Self-Monitoring Scale has been employed in research dealing with self-presentation, attribution, and attitude expression. The Scale was developed to measure the degree to which people are concerned with the social appropriateness of their behavior, are aware of relevant social cues, and regulate their…

Perceived causality for events seems to be age-related, the cognitive structures of older children being more complex. The influence of age on interpersonal perception was examined by comparing the preferred causal attributions of youngsters in grades 5-13 for teacher behavior. A pilot study produced eight explanations of teacher behavior: (1)…

Low and average school achievers in grades 1 and 2 and grades 4 and 5 made attributions for successes and failures on school related and unrelated tasks. Students in the low achievement group were participants of the Title I program, and tested a year below their age-mates on reading and math achievement. Students were given two booklets of four…

Do success-oriented and failure-avoidant students differ in their performance because of differential attributions? Path analysis, which permits the evaluation of causal assumptions in well-specified theories, was employed to test the adequacy of the causal linkages in the attributional model of achievement behavior. Thus, although differences in…

This paper presents a study of age differences in children's plan interpretations, interpretations of the interrelationship between actions, goals and outcomes. It is suggested that developmental differences exist which affect children's ability to recognize the necessity for internal and external consistency before labeling behaviors as…

Based on research indicating the existence of a generalized positive stereotype of physically attractive individuals, the present study was designed to investigate the effects of an individual's attractiveness on attributions about his achievement-related behavior. In the context of an accuracy-of-person perception task, 162 male and female…

This paper describes recent research on causal attribution (ways people construe the events in their lives) and how knowledge of this psychological phenomena can be used to aid students in developing attributional processes that will enhance motivational factors and have positive effects on academic achievement. Four specific suggestions are made…

Beliefs about children's performance in mathematics were examined through interviews with mothers and their sixth-grade children in the People's Republic of China (PRC) and in Chinese-American and Caucasian-American groups in the United States. (Author/LMO)

In spite of recent reforms, minorities remain marginalized, especially if they are poor. Correlations can be measured between schooling, class, and minority goals to show that equal opportunity in schooling is not sufficient to permit social mobility for all. Society must be reformed economically, racially, and structurally to eradicate…

Examined the ability of three-year-olds, four-year-olds, kindergartners, and second graders to predict how certain internal and external conditions affect behavior. In two studies, a forced-choice procedure revealed that even the youngest group could predict the effect of various causes, while a third study examined more complex types of causal…

This study compared the causal attribution by sex for academic failures of 38 learning disabled and 38 nondisabled elementary school students. The relationship between different attributional tendencies and a reading persistence task were also examined. (BS)