Researchers have suggested that one function of touch in mixed-sex interactions is to exert influence over another person. Yet theories offer different explanations as to when women and men will use touch as an influence strategy. The gender politics hypothesis proposes that men touch more as a way to maintain inequalities present in society. In…

Power and the paradox of powerlessness are defined in terms of the resource exchange theory of Foa and Foa. Power is conceptualized as the possession of resources, e.g., love, status, and money. The Karpman triangle is used to illustrate the power behind the victim's powerlessness. (Author)

Based on a modification of Berglas and Jones' (1978) design, conditions of contingent and noncontingent success and failure were manipulated to determine when and why individuals choose to adopt self-handicapping strategies. Male undergraduates (N=76) were informed that they were participating in a study investigating the effects of music on…

Making a promise involves a self-conscious, self-commitment to undertake an obligation in the future and involves a personal sense of control. To study promises and self-focused attention, 72 women completed measures of self-focused attention and locus of control, a questionnaire, and were asked to promise to return postcards. As predicted,…

A typical assumption has been that women and men possess distinct power orientations: women have expressive characteristics, such as interdependence and cooperativeness, while men have instrumental characteristics, such as self reliance and competitiveness. An inventory assessing expressive and instrumental power orientations (PVO's) was developed…

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…

Although much is being written about the sociological aspects of the battering syndrome, little has been done to investigate the personality characteristics of battered women. To investigate the personality characteristics which relate to the life styles of battered women, 60 women (30 battered women, 30 non-battered women), ranging in age from 19…

A review of the literature on job analysis and job evaluation reveals several aspects of jobs which are important to organizations. To better explain the psychological dimensions of the work environment, three models of perceived job characteristics were compared using confirmatory factor analysis: Walsh, Taber, and Beehr's (1980) components of…

Examined the effects of perceived control and close alternative outcomes on counterfactual generation (thoughts of what could have been). Subjects played a "wheel of fortune" game in which they controlled one of two wheels. Results supported the idea that people generate counterfactuals about events over which they have perceived…

Examined impact of outcome controllability on counterfactual thoughts (thoughts of what could have been). Two studies showed that outcome controllability affected counterfactual direction: thoughts on how things could have been better were more frequent following controllable outcomes, and thoughts on how things could have been worse followed…

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.…

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…

Within the context of the social history of the Chinese American elderly in the United States, the author analyzes the psychological and cultural patterns of learned helplessness among this minority group. (EF)

Studied conditions and consequences, the characteristics of agentic (volitional, teleological) human behavior in investigations of weight control, vocational exploration, and eating disorders. Demonstrated the ability of individuals professing eating and exercise problems, to exhibit control; and in separate study examining personality factors and…

Client expectancy of powerlessness can lead to actual powerlessness. Once counselors recognize that personal power is healthy and beneficial, they have to begin to structure institutions and agencies to encourage the development of personal power. (Author)