Examined whether perceived control over settlement process during divorce is related to degree of conflict reported by divorcing parents. Interviewed divorcing couples with children (n=190 families) soon after filing for divorce. Analyses indicated that parents' (especially fathers') perceived control was related to reports of interparental…

Examined relationship between husbands' (n=72) violence and desired and perceived control. Identified two subgroups of men at high risk for engaging in domestic violence: men low on self-esteem, low on desirability of control, and low on perceived personal control; and men high on self-esteem, high on desirability of control, but low on perceived…

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…

Loneliness is thought to be a relatively common experience among adolescents. Although no studies have specifically examined the relationship between adolescent loneliness and attributional style, research has found that children's attributions do affect interpersonal behaviors. The relationship between adolescent loneliness and perceptions of…

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,…

Previous research on marriage indicates that perceptions of control are important to marital satisfaction. To investigate the relationship between attributions of personal control and other variables in marriage, e.g., measures of satisfaction, decision making, and task performance, and attributions of control over decisions and tasks, and to…

Although some people fantasize about their spouse's possible death, the literature contains no reports of research on widowhood fantasies. The incidence, characteristics, and possible function of these fantasies were examined in individual interviews with 28 divorced and married men and women. Interview data were analyzed by calculating chi-square…

Little is known about the power strategies adolescents view as effective in influencing an intimate partner to have or avoid having sexual intercourse. These strategies were examined in a pretest survey of 203 adolescents who reported their agreement or disagreement with strategies used to have protected sex or to avoid having sex with a…

The Internal-External (I-E) Locus of Control scale (Rotter, 1966) was administered to 185 male and 185 female university students. The resulting scores were factored, producing two factors for males and four for females. The male factors were the generally-accepted "luck" and "powerful others"; for women, however, the "powerful others" dimension…

Two laboratory studies examined self- and socially caused behavior. Found that subjects who preferred socially caused behavior were more likely to choose spontaneous interactions with strangers (Study 1) and were more accurate in assessing their own influence over behavior of others in self-disclosure task (Study 2) than were those who preferred…

Interviewed 92 elderly residents of area targeted for massive redevelopment. Findings revealed that each health, control, and support emerged as independent predictors of affect and life satisfaction, and that affect was significantly lower for those with no close support figure than for those with one close relationship. (Author/NB)

Socio-psychological research concerning the relationship between attributions and coping with negative events unrelated to marriage suggests two constructs, blame and perceived control, which may influence conflict resolution in marriage. Married women (N=32) were interviewed in an investigation of attributions of control and blame for marital…

Examined the effects of social age status and gender on perception of control of work, home, and school situations. Adults perceived the greatest control through the ability to influence powerful others. Adult females perceived greater influence than adolescent or retired females but the same as males of any age. (Author/JA)

Interpersonal power has been defined as the ability of an agent to alter the behavior of a target through means-control, attractiveness, and credibility. To identify and delineate situations of influence in personal relationships, undergraduate students either wrote influence descriptions (N=96), made similarity judgments on the original 96…

Presents four articles about children's power struggles: (1) "The Personal Side of Power" (Bonnie Neugebauer); (2) "Learning To Harness Human Power" (Roslyn Duffy); (3) "Power Struggles: Early Experiences Matter" (James Garbarino); and (4) "Personal Power: Creating New Realities" (Janet Gonzalez-Mena). (DLH)