Explored the experiences of 30 visually impaired adults in finding employment and their explanations for successful or unsuccessful vocational outcomes. Interviews indicated that problems were related to public attitudes toward blindness, employer reluctance, and inadequate vocational training. (JAC)

Investigated two methods for changing a perceiver's (N=37) observational set towards an alcoholic. Subjects given empathy instructions tended to like the alcoholic more while not changing their attributions for his alcoholism. Those receiving attributional rule instructions and controls showed greater dislike for the alcoholic and made situational…

Examined the role of subordinate age in performance evaluations. Results found that supervisors rated older subordinates lower than younger subordinates doing the same job; differences between self-ratings of performance and supervisory ratings seemed to be a function of the subordinate's age; and a significant age by performance interaction was…

Reviews conceptual and methodological advances in understanding attributional processes in intimate relationships. Studies are organized according to their focus on general versus specific components of attribution making, and their use of distressed versus nondistressed samples. Results offer strong evidence of the importance of attributional…

Results of sex by attribution manipulations indicated that without the effort attribution, women in mixed-sex situations had lower expectations, performed worse, rewarded themselves less and attributed their poor performance to a lack of ability. In same-sex and alone situations, women's expectations, performance and self-reward did not differ.…

Examines the relation of preschoolers' self-attributions about their prosocial behaviors to frequency of prosocial responding. Attempts to determine if different types of prosocial behaviors are associated with different configurations of moral judgment, self-attributions, and social behaviors. Classroom observations of 44 preschoolers were made…

Supervisors (N=80) heard tapes of a trainee describing how her client's depression lifted or worsened and attributing this change to her efforts (defensive style) or to the client (counterdefensive style). The counterdefensive trainee was judged to be more socially skilled, but the defensive trainee was rated as more self-confident. (BH)

This study describes an action research case study through which the dynamics of identifying and changing strongly held assumptions illustrate the differences between experiences that serve to strengthen beliefs from those that lead to learning. Theoretical considerations are presented linking cognitive schema, action science, attribution theory,…

Examines reasons for divorce reported by 333 men and women. Reasons for divorce, which ranged from lack of personal self-fulfillment to nonfulfillment of marital role obligations, were influenced by sex, age, education, income, and number of children. Children had the most pervasive effect on motivations for divorce. (JAC)

Forty fourth graders viewed behavioral sequences and were then randomly assigned to groups in which label and attribute variations were present. Results suggested that positive attributes produced favorable peer ratings when compared with neutral ones. No effects of a special education label were observed. (CL)

Describes a study that assessed (1) differences in causal ascriptions for a given performance outcome between males and females; and (2) sex differences in performance expectations, pretest anxiety, desire to take similar tests in the future, and expectations of performance outcomes on future tests. Contrasts results with previous findings by…

When given a story about either mentally retarded or fast learning children displaying defense mechanistic behavior, 40 retarded students (mean CA 13 years) rated the defensive characteristics higher and liked them more than did 89 nonretarded students matched for CA or MA. (CL)

Studied effects of verbal accounts offered by a threatener on targets' (N=82) subsequent attributions of the threatener's social motives. Results showed a cooperative account led to an inference of cooperative disposition, a transrelational equity account led to attribution of deceit, and an excuse of ignorance was linked with apathy. (WAS)

Draws links between child abuse and depression literature, discussing implications for mental health services. (Author/MP)

In contrast to Weiner's attributional model, these research findings indicate that attributions for performance in an actual achievement situation are not linked to self-esteem-related affect such as pride/shame. (Author/PN)