This study examined the determinants of attributions for success or failure in stopping smoking in a self-help treatment program with and without a drug component. Subjects (N=137) were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: (1) nicotine gum and a self-help manual with an intrinsic motivational orientation; (2) self-help manual…

A previous study examined determinants of attributions for success or failure in stopping smoking in a self-help treatment program with and without a drug component. This follow-up study examined the attributions that successful quitters made after remaining abstinent through 12 months, or after they relapsed. Subjects (N=137) had been assigned to…

Participants in sensitivity training reported more change after training than before and these changes were more positively evaluated than change prior to training. Changes after training were seen as more personally caused. These effects were particularly marked for behaviors that were positively evaluated. (Author)

This study examined the contribution of cognitively-oriented adjunct treatments to assertive training. Unassertive university students (N=42) were randomly assigned within an analysis of covariance design with three levels of treatment (Cognitive Self-Statement Training (CSST), Attribution Training (AT), and Behavioral Rehearsal (BR]. Multiple…

Low self-esteem and depressed individuals tend to have an attributional style of externalizing success and internalizing failure. To evaluate a program developed to help reverse this pattern of responses to be more similar to high self-esteem and nondepressed individuals, subjects were first tested for self-esteem, depression, and attributional…

Changing a health behavior and maintaining a positive change can be very difficult. This study examined attributions for health behavior change by using retrospective reports to elicit college students' (N=466) current views of successes and failures at adopting health promoting behaviors. In completing the Health Behavior Questionnaire, 229…

The question of whether special education students exhibit more learned helpless behavior and a more external locus of control than regular students is examined. The effects of these psychological conditions on school success are considered, and programs for alleviating learned helplessness and establishing a more internal locus of control are…

Interpersonal power has been defined as the ability of an agent to alter the behavior of a target through means-control, attractiveness, and credibility. To identify and delineate situations of influence in personal relationships, undergraduate students either wrote influence descriptions (N=96), made similarity judgments on the original 96…

Students with learning disabilities tend to hold an external locus of control for success but an internal locus of control for failure. Attribution feedback, combined with particular task strategies, can lead children to persist longer, acquire adaptive attributions, and make greater academic achievement gains. Attribution instruction can be…

Uses a synthetic family strategy to demonstrate the operation of caregiving transactions with children judged either "difficult" or "easy." A total of 96 elementay-age boys were paired with unrelated mothers for videotaped interactions. Results focused on socially competent child behavior patterns. (CI)