Seventy-eight adolescents were administered the Career Decision Diagnostic Assessment instrument. Students with mental retardation or learning disabilities scored more poorly than nondisabled students on decision anxiety, tendency to avoid decision making, authority orientation, and luck and fate orientation. The study concluded that students'…

Reviews research on the determinants and the effects of parents' attributions. The evidence suggests that parents do form attributions for their children's behavior; these attributions vary in predictable ways across judges (mothers versus fathers), targets (age or sex of child), and behavior outcomes (positive or negative); and attributions…

Determined gender differences in undergraduates decisions to seek a bachelor's degree and whether these differences could be explained by performance levels, expectations, and attainment values. No gender differences were found for expectations and attainment values, and performance levels did not explain gender differences in reasons for seeking…

Examined the self-protective role of social attributions by comparing individual attributions made to the self, to one's ethnic group, and to factors external to oneself. Results from 309 Black, Hispanic, and White mothers show they all attributed positive outcomes to themselves, while Whites attributed failure to themselves personally. Middle-…

This study highlights the correlation between seventh grade students' (n=429) beliefs about how mathematics is learned and their achievement in mathematics. Results from structural relation modeling indicate that, when beliefs are considered as a single construct, the relationship between beliefs and achievement is much stronger than when beliefs…

Attempts to improve a set of patient assault vignettes for a simulation by developing and testing a control version of the vignettes and exploring additional question and alternative scoring procedures. Influences of victim gender and assault severity are examined for 58 neuropsychiatric hospital nurses and 12 mental health experts. (SLD)

This study, with 103 nongifted students and 77 female and 76 male gifted students in grades 3, 6, and 9, found that gifted females evidenced self-defeating causal attributions for math performance relative to gifted males only in grade 9. For the nongifted subjects, the sex differences were not as pronounced. (DB)

Causal attributions of 96 college students' performance in cooperative group assignments, and students' perceptions of the underlying dimensions of causal attributions (including relationships among performance outcomes, attributional dimensions, and attributional consequences) were examined. Locus of causality was related to affective reactions.…

Regression analysis of results from 81 fourth graders (41 females) completing several assessments of metamemory indicate that relationships between metamemory and recall depend on assessment method and timing of the child's engagement with the recall task. General metamemory is significantly related to recall on the posttest and near transfer.…

Students' understanding of attributional self-presentation strategies that facilitate adults' and peers' social approval in achievement situations was examined in 2 experiments involving the same 48 eighth graders. Results suggest that adolescents possess very sophisticated knowledge about attributional principles and the expectations and concerns…

Found that (1) children perceived that school failure attributed to lack of competence, task difficulty, and a bad explanation by the teacher is controllable; and (2) children with problems in learning and concentration perceived failure attributed to lack of effort as noncontrollable more often than did children without such problems. (BB)

Research is reviewed on classroom behavior, demandingness, and beliefs of effective teachers of nonhandicapped students with behavior problems, and the need for different attitudes and additional skills for teaching students with behavioral disorders is discussed. Teacher characteristics analyzed include instructional and management strategies,…

Two studies investigated (1) the development of children's implicit theories of self-attributes in the domains of intelligence, sociability, physical skills, and physical appearance; and (2) the degree to which conceptions of ability can be experimentally manipulated to predict achievement cognitions and behaviors. (BB)

Contends that recent developments in historical sociology emphasize the centrality of temporality to analysis and explanation. Illustrates how computer-assisted analysis of qualitative narrative can be used to develop generalizable causal interpretation of events. (CFR)

Results of two experiments involving 35 college students and 96 junior high school students studying spontaneous cognitions after receiving test results or taking a test show that success triggers evaluative cognitions while failure triggers attributions, particularly in uncertain situations.(SLD)