Research has shown that learned-helpless children, who make attributions for failure to lack of ability, tend to show impaired performance of decreased persistence in the face of challenge. In similar situations, mastery-oriented children, identified by their tendency to attribute failure to insufficient effort, show improved performance or…

The self-regulation of attributions, beliefs concerning the causes of outcomes, is explored. An increasing body of research substantiates the idea that effective self-regulation depends on forming positive attributions that promote perceptions of competence and sustain motivation directed toward learning. Self-regulation refers to the process by…

The major task of life is to become masterful. As individuals grow the choice of which tasks to attempt and how best to achieve mastery at them becomes increasingly under their control by the situations they choose to engage in and by perceptions of their abilities. Mastery oriented people tend to attribute failure to unstable, external factors…

Child care workers may derogate youth in order to restore their own sense of justice and may do so only when they feel organizationally and personally unable to help the youth. The relationship between child care workers' sense of power (both in their agencies and to help youth) and their perceptions of the youth was examined for a sample of 171…

The classifications of 11 attributions according to dimensions of locus, stability, controllability, predictability, and globality by participants in 7 countries (China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Spain, and the United States) were compared in a cross-cultural study. The attributions were: (1) bias; (2) help; (3) luck; (4) ability; (5)…