A reformulated theory of learned helplessness posits that helplessness may be the outcome of a learning disabled (LD) student's belief of personal or universal helplessness. Motivational, cognitive, and emotional deficits may result. Research on locus of control and persistence as well as on the contrast between mastery (achievement)-oriented…

Trust is an important construct in understanding the social dynamics in interpersonal and race relations. Several studies have concluded that blacks tend to mistrust both whites and the predominantly white government. The consensus among theorists and researchers supports the social learning view that accumulated life experiences critically…

Twenty normal and 20 retarded children were studied to determine the influences of mental (MA) and chronological age (CA) on the attribution of life characteristics to animate and inanimate objects. In both normal and retarded children, attribution depended on an interaction between M.A. and C.A. (DP)

This study examined the influence of male and female models on the expectancies, achievement, and attributions of college students. A factorial design varied sex of subjects (male, female), sex of models (male, female), and causal attribution offered by models for completion of a novel task (effort, luck, ability, task difficulty). Females'…

Male and female subjects evaluated a male after seeing a videotape of him with his girlfriend. The attractiveness and intelligence of the girlfriend was varied. A multivariate analysis of variance on 10 dependent measures showed the male to be evaluated more favorably when his partner was more attractive or more intelligent. Univariate analysis…

Since adult children are both an essential and a limited support system for elderly parents, it is important to understand the factors which elicit and sustain their helping behavior. A causal path model based on the attachment and equity theories was constructed in which adult children's feelings of attachment to their parents lead to their…

Several reasons exist for the wide variation in estimates on the prevalence of alcohol abuse among women from one study to another. An attempt to establish the prevalence of alcohol abuse among both men and women in the working population employed the Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (SMAST) and the Iowa Alcoholic Stages Index (ASI) as…

This paper provides a conceptual definition and model of self-presentational behavior. Self-presentation is defined as the attempt to control self-relevant images before real or imagined others. Several aspects of the definition are discussed along with the notion that people's self-presentations represent the choice of the most desirable images…

Several researchers have explored the role of alcohol in domestic violence and attributions of blame. To compare the amount of blame attributed to an incident of wife abuse, alcoholic (N=52) and nonalcoholic (N=159) subjects read an account of wife abuse and distributed a percentage of the blame to the man, the woman, and the situation.…

Characteristics of the situation in which a fear-arousing communication is received affect the effectiveness of the communication. The influence of situational factors affecting a recipient's interpretation of the arousal induced by communication were investigated with smokers (N=37) who were exposed to a fear-arousing anti-smoking movie. Prior to…

Cheating behavior has been found to relate to emotion-attribution explanations. Prior research with second-grade children has indicated that increased self-control occurs in a watching task when the child's emotional response is attributed to internal rather than external actions. In the present study, freshman women (N=221) took a reading…

Chinese immigration to the United States in the 19th century was predominantly male. White racism led to the passage of Exclusion Laws, which severely restricted the immigration of the wives of the earlier migrants. This, coupled with miscegenation laws, has seriously affected the demographics of Chinese Americans. The underrepresentation of…

Cognitive self-instructional (CSI) programs have been successful in improving problem-solving skills in many, but not all, children. The importance of understanding the influence of subject characteristics in self-control studies, while often ignored in actual research, has been repeatedly advocated verbally. This paper presents a study designed…

The curious association between romance and adverse circumstances is based on an extension of emotional attribution theory, which postulates that romantic notions are evoked when nonspecific physiological arousal is attributed to another person or to an interpersonal relationship. Data from a survey on stressful life events was examined to…

The reliability and validity of measurement is analyzed by a sampling model based on generalizability theory. A model for the relationship between a measurement procedure and an attribute is developed from an analysis of how measurements are used and interpreted in science. The model provides a basis for analyzing the concept of an error of…