Examined whether cognitive attributes differentiate depressed children from those with other psychiatric disorders. Findings from 108 child and adolescent psychiatric patients revealed that depressed children endorsed significantly lower self-esteem, more hopelessness, more externalized locus of control, and more depressive attributional style…

Examined relationship between self-reported depression and cognitive style in adolescent psychiatric inpatients (n=80). Adolescents who reported depression also reported significantly more internal attributions for negative events and less internal attributions for positive events, evidenced more external locus of control, and described themselves…

Research has established a reliable relationship between self-awareness and causal attribution, i.e., heightened attention toward the self increases attributions of responsibility to the self. It was hypothesized that increased availability or accessibility of self-related cognition would increase causal attributions to the self, although this…

This study investigated the reformulated theory of learned helplessness, centering around attributional style in the cause of cognitive and emotional deficits. Subjects (N=58) were undergraduate and graduate psychology students at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. Subjects were divided into an experimental group (N=30) who received…

Discusses the role of extrinsic reinforcement in intrinsic motivation in cognitive attribution theory. Concludes that cognitive attribution theory lacks parsimony, in that extant reinforcement analysis can account for undermining with equal facility. Suggests undermining is of little significance due to its elusive and transient impact on operant…

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…

Research has suggested that race and sex are strongly associated with the "imposter phenomenon" (I-P), a secret, intense, subjective self-perception of phoniness experienced by many high achievers. Sex, race, and perceived atypicality were examined in relation to the imposter phenomenon for 30 persons with adequate achievement in career…

Attribution theory suggests that attributional styles may contribute to the motivational and performance deficits frequently observed in depressed and lonely populations. An Attributional Style Assessment Test (ASAT) was created and administered to college students, along with the Beck Depression Inventory and the UCLA Loneliness Scale.…

Efforts to understand mediating and maintaining factors associated with dysfunction of alcoholics have produced competing explanations and conflicting, overlapping constructs. To clarify the relationship between mental health and attributional patterns among women, the attributional patterns of alcoholic, depressed, and control females in response…

Studies of learning disabled students' self concept and attributions suggest that the passive learning style may reflect their beliefs that they are not in control of their destinies. The paper reviews strategies to help LD children acquire more adaptive notions about the causes of their successes and failures. (Author/CL)

This experiment investigated: (1) relationships among locus of control, attributional style, and depression; (2) if a depressogenic attributional style could be empirically isolated; and (3) if reliable relationships existed between attribution and depression when depression was operationalized using different instruments. Subjects completed the…

Studies indicate that individual differences in strategy use among mentally retarded and learning disabled students can be explained by a metacognition model which integrates three components--Specific Strategy Knowledge, Metamemory Acquisition Procedures, and General Strategy Knowledge (including beliefs about the causes of successful…

This study investigated the cognitive styles, attributions, and self-evaluations of 40 gifted girls and 40 gifted boys, grades 6 through 8. Informational attributional ratings for task difficulty, luck, ability, and effort were studied in the context of: (1) an individual non-competitive goal structure; (2) a competitive goal structure; (3)…

Analyses of deviant sexual behaviors have most often derived from psychodynamic or behavioral theory. Little systematic research attention has been paid to the role of intervening cognitive variables such as social perception and the causal attribution process. Two studies were conducted to examine differences in cognition between child molesters…

This study investigated the effects of college students' actual, rather than manipulated, perception of control along with expressive instruction, as they relate to cognitive and emotional aspects of academic achievement. In a simulated college classroom study, 228 male and female introductory psychology students at the University of Manitoba…