The Type A behavior pattern, an independent risk factor for coronary heart disease, has been characterized as a response style for coping with perceived threats to control. Recent research suggests that self-attributional biases may play a role in the Type A's sensitivity to loss of control. Attributional mediation of Type A's experience of stress…

The relationship between women's perceptions of rape controllability and their fear, worry, concern, and perceived risk associated with rape is examined from in-person interviews with women (N=58) in Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Women's response to descriptions of the "typical rape" were used to divide them into those with high rape…

A model of persuasion suggests that individuals comply with a prediction of their behavior because they are persuaded by that prediction; a model of threat suggests that they defy prediction because of its threat of control. College students with either internal (N=20) or external (N=20) loci of control were informed of the accuracy of the…

Research has found that differential attributional styles exist between depressed and nondepressed populations. Depressed (N=32) and nondepressed (N=32) undergraduate female students were selected on the basis of scores on the Beck Depression Inventory and Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist. Participants performed a key press task where the…

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…

Although researchers have investigated the chronological age-subjective age discrepancy in several ways, they have, for the most part, ignored where and how older persons live. The lifestyles of elderly Los Angeles residents (N=308), i.e., institutionalized, socially active in the community, or socially inactive in the community, were taken into…

This journal issue brings together research on perceptions of control of several vulnerable populations, specifically children, lower level employees, the ill, and the aged. This introduction discusses positive outcomes associated with sense of control and identifies common themes found in work in this area. (SLD)

A study examined age and sex differences in engagement style and locus of control and their influence on African-American parent-adolescent relationships. The study subjects were 71 students in 9th grade and 57 students in 11th grade from 4 high schools in a large midwestern city; 46 college freshmen attending a large midwestern university; and 46…