Research has revealed linkages among sex, sex-role self-concept, self-esteem, and attributional style, suggesting that sex-role self-concept may mediate the relationship between biological sex and attributional style. Female undergraduates (N=140) completed several questionnaires, including the Bem Sex Role Inventory to determine sex-role…

During the heightened self-consciousness of adolescence, reevaluation and modifications in self-perceptions and sex-role orientations generally take place. Therefore, a developmental perspective is needed to investigate the adoption of sex-typed, cross sex-typed, or non sex-typed attitudes and behaviors. Young women (N=226) responded to a…

An attributional approach to social behavior traces problems in personal adjustment back to the assumptions individuals formulate about the causes of behaviors and events. Attributional information presented during counseling may have therapeutically beneficial consequences. The effectiveness of attribution therapy was investigated in a factorial…

The influence of empathy on observers' attributions for an outcome achieved by an actor was examined as well as self-presentational strategies when observers either expected to assume the actor's role later (Role-Playing). On videotape, observer-subjects (N=160) watched an actor succeed or fail at an interpersonal influence task, after being given…

The concept that teacher beliefs about future student achievement may actually influence the subsequent performance of students provides the basis for a model of teacher expectation communication which uses attribution theory as explanatory links in the communication process. These model links were tested in a two-year study involving 16 third-,…

Through self-presentations, individuals claim a variety of public images that influence how others regard and treat them in social interactions. An examination of self-presentation in a leadership situation focused on three dimensions of leader behavior: competence, socioemotionality, and prominence. Subjects (N=128) were assigned leadership…

Different research traditions on social cognition are reviewed to determine how they can be used in the study of classroom life. A structural-developmental perspective is more applicable to the study of the social cognitive outcomes of schooling than to the explanation of student behavior in the classroom. The information processing approach…

This research project examined the relationship between the psycho-social malaise, alienation or anomia, and each of four psycholinguistic or semantic habit patterns: irrational ideation, identity orientation, uncritical inference behavior and allness orientation. In so doing, it sought, generally, to explicate alienation in terms of semantic…

Discusses general issues that have shaped research on whether depictions of violence in television and other media significantly influence real-life aggressive behavior. Presents a theoretical framework for understanding media effects on the psychological processes of acquisition, maintenance, and emission of aggression. Outlines contents of this…

Discussion of teachers' acceptance of educational innovations focuses on a study of primary teachers which was conducted in London to determine their use of microcomputers in the classroom. Topics discussed include attribution theory, causal structures, differences between competence and confidence, curricular implementation, and implications for…

Examined the help-seeking behaviors of college students needing assistance with personal problems. Using attribution theory and the learned helplessness paradigm, found that race and sex differences but not causal attribution (seeing problems as caused by internal or external factors) were related to seeking out assistance. Discusses the recurrent…

Examines the implications of temporal separation for children's developmental differences in inferences drawn about an individual's characteristics after observing multiple instances of that individual's behavior. Also tests two competing hypotheses about how young children process information separated in time. (HOD)

Examines whether there are sex differences during middle childhood in children's choices to participate in activities differing in level of adult-provided structure; effects of structure on children's compliance, leadership, and recognition seeking directed to adults and to peers; and relation of sex-typed social skills or dispositions and…

Six studies were reported questioning the conclusions of Covington and Omelich that pride in success, shame in failure, and positive self-esteem are more closely linked with ability ascriptions than with effort. The research demonstrated that affective intensity is in part determined by the perceived importance of the task. (BS)

An intervention program, consisting of story grammar training and/or attribution training, was designed to remediate the failure of poor readers to use metacognitive skills. Using 42 fourth-grade poor readers in three different treatment groups, results showed strategic training produced dramatic gains in reading comprehension. (BS)