Explores the effects of age spacing of siblings on three general personality dimensions: locus of control, introversion/extroversion and neuroticism. Subjects were 191 college students enrolled in four introductory psychology courses. (MP)

Explores how domestic violence is related to personal control. Finds that individuals who have initiated violence against a partner do not differ from individuals who have nonviolent relationships in feelings of personal control. Experiencing violence at the hands of a partner has more significant adverse effects on sense of personal control for…

Explored whether and to what degree differences between actor and observer were likely to occur in the mutual attributions of 40 married couples regarding the causes of each other's behavior. Results revealed that married couples exhibited mutual idealizing tendencies in both their perceptions and causal attributions. (Author/ABB)

Examined relationship between locus of control and self-reported psychopathology in 139 residents of retirement complex. Correlation coefficients computed for locus of control and each of nine symptom dimensions of the Brief Symptom Inventory indicated that locus of control was correlated with self-reported psychopatholgoy for older women but not…

Significant sex differences indicated that boys generally ate more than girls and held more internal locus of control expectancies. However, obese and normal-weighted children were not differentiated by their performance on either food-related measures nor by their locus of control expectancies. (Author/MP)

Examined personality traits of kibbutz children (n=130) and compared them to those of city children (n=142). Children completed Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale, Locus of Control for Children, and Persistence Scale for Children. Found differences between kibbutz and city children in locus of control, anxiety, and persistence, and also…

Showed that men used more ability attributions on a digit guessing task and women stressed ability for failure. Those more successful on the task reported using more ability, effort, and luck ascriptions. Only in relation to subjective outcome for effort did sex identity add information beyond sex of subject. (Author)

Results from a study of 104 college students generally did not corroborate previous findings. A small, statistically significant correlation between locus of control and birth control knowledge was found, but the practical significance of the relationship was diminished because the correlation was small and other relationships tested were found to…

Studied relationships among repression-sensitization and Levenson's three dimensions of perceived contingency (internal, powerful others, and chance) in college students (N=70). Found relationship between sensitization and belief in powerful others appeared to depend on the presence of a belief in chance control. (Author/ABL)

Examined data from 809 Illinois residents surveyed in 1985. Found marriage had trade-offs for women's sense of control: it increased it by increasing household income, but it decreased it, probably by decreasing autonomy. With household income held constant, nonmarried women had highest sense of control of any group. For men, marriage had less…

Examined Rotter's Internal-External locus of control concept in relation to life satisfaction and death anxiety in aged population (N=122). Found strong gender and locus of control effect for life satisfaction. For death anxiety, found strong gender effect and significant interaction between locus of control and age. Suggests need for life span…

Investigated the relationship between locus of control and death anxiety in 99 college students. Results indicated a significant relationship between external locus of control and concern about death, and a specific differential patterning between locus of control and death anxiety. Sex differences existed on four locus of control dimensions. (WAS)

To test the hypothesis that women exhibit an externality bias in their performance attribution, male and female college students made effort, ability, luck, and task difficulty attributions for their performance on a recent course examination. Findings suggested an internality bias among men, rather than an externality bias among women. (Author/GC)

College subjects undertook nine cognitive tasks with different perceived sex linkages, stating their expectancy of success before performance and attributing causality for their perceived performance after each task. Results indicated that (1) females hold lower expectancies of success than males and (2) perceived sex linkage of the task also…

Investigates infants' fear reactions in response to a potentially frightening toy as a function of their having control, or not having control, over the toy's movements. Subjects tested were 24 boys and 24 girls, age 12 to 13 months. (Author/SS)