Research has shown that attributing failure to lack of ability leads to lower motivation than does attributing the failure to lack of effort. An attributional model of motivation and performance following failure was tested with college students (N=63), who were preselected on the basis of their attributional styles for interpersonal failures, as…

Academically high-risk children who had participated in an efficacy-oriented intervention program were compared to a group of high-risk nonintervention children and a low-risk comparison group. The high-risk intervention and low-risk children had stronger beliefs in personal control over academic success; these beliefs were good predictors of…

The potential for feelings of hopelessness and depression in the aged is well documented. Although studies have examined the role of perceived control in ameliorating depression in the institutionalized elderly, no research has actually measured the perceived causal attributions among depressed, hopeless and/or institutionalized elderly…

Learned helplessness is a state of passivity and loss of persistence resulting from individuals' perceptions, over a period of time, that they cannot control outcomes of events nor can their efforts lead to attainment of goals. Research studies are reviewed and implications for the study of learning disabilities are evaluated. (MH)

Self-evaluation is thought to play a major role in personality and motivation. Preliminary experience with success or failure, levels of aspiration, attributions for performance, and locus of control may all be interrelated factors in human motivation. After receiving success, failure, or no feedback on a concept formation task, subjects (N=90)…

Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale's reformulated model of learned helplessness hypothesized that an attribution of causality intervenes between the perception of noncontingency and the future expectation of future noncontingency. To test this model, relationships between attribution and performance under failure, success, and control conditions were…

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…

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…

The pattern of changes in locus of control for college persisters and dropouts were examined over a three-year period, and differences between males and females were considered. Data on 6,608 students enrolled in four-year U.S. colleges were collected in 1973, 1974, and 1975. A repeated measures analysis of locus of control composite scores…