Illustrates the implementation of a framework to guide evaluations of specialized living settings for older people by discussing (1) person-environment selection and allocation, and (2) the provision of opportunities for resident choice and control. (Author/GC)

Reviews and evaluates recent research examining the effects of control, perceived choice, and enhanced competence on the well-being of the institutionalized aged. (Author/GC)

Presents evidence that there are relatively stable individual differences in the belief in a just world and that these differences may underlie the ways in which people react to victimized persons and groups, both outside and inside the experimental laboratory. (Author/AM)

Examines age differences in control beliefs for several domains, including intellectual aging and memory, for 200 adults aged 20-89 years. In domains of health and intellectual aging, older adults have lower internal control and higher external control beliefs than young and middle-age adults. A memory training program is described. (SLD)

Research on children's perceptions of control has identified both changes and consistencies in control beliefs during childhood and early adolescence. Developmental changes in coping have also been documented. Implications of research for interventions aimed at enhancing children's problem-solving and coping skills are discussed. (SLD)

The complexity of perceived control is illustrated through the Life Events and Aging Project (LEAP), a 12-occasion assessment of predictors and correlates of the mental health of 246 older adults over nearly 5 years. Constructs of perceived control, internality, and personal mastery should be placed in a transactional framework. (SLD)

Research suggests that primary control increases as humans develop from infancy through middle age and then decreases in old age. To minimize losses, individuals rely on cognitively based secondary control processes in middle and old age. Literature on adult control processes is reviewed. (SLD)

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)