This study investigated whether affective reactions in achievement settings were related to self-esteem. Subjects were 308 undergraduate university students displaying affective reactions to various academic situations portrayed in short stories. Resulting biserial correlations indicate that affective reactions to success and failure were related…

A causal model, which included background/family traits, secondary school experiences, pre-college career choice, college major, college achievement and on-campus science-oriented work experience, was tested on 5162 students from 74 institutions. Science oriented on-campus work experience positively influenced science career choice for both sexes,…

A complex interactional model of classroom factors that contribute to the development of students' self-evaluations is presented. Factors described are: (1) task structure; (2) grouping practices; (3) feedback and evaluation procedures and information about ability; (4) motivational strategies; (5) locus of responsibility for learning; and (6) the…

This study examined how sociomoral judgments and other evaluations of aggression related to potentially aggressogenic social-cognitive factors and patterns of conduct problem behaviors. Participating were 124 ninth graders in the seventh, eighth, or ninth year of a developmental research project on social competence. Subjects were assessed across…

Undergraduates rated their affective reactions to hypothetical test performances under four success conditions. Then, in the role of teachers, they administered rewards to hypothetical students under identical conditions. Both positive self-evaluation and teacher praise were greatest when success followed effort. Perceptions of ability also…

Six experiments investigated the informational value of praise and criticism. Praise after success and neutral feedback after failure led to perceptions that an acting person's ability was viewed as low. Neutral feedback after success and criticism after failure led to perceptions that an acting person's ability was viewed as high. (Author/RD)

Examines how people with a high-achievement need attribute success to their ability and effort and failure to external factors such as task difficulty. Contrasts this behavior with people who have a low-achievement need. The measuring device was a multiple-choice questionnaire designed to reveal participant tendencies. (MJP)

Describes a teaching activity that improves students' scientific reasoning by focusing attention on the causal, explanatory nature of psychological theories. Students learn and use an argument form called Inference to the Best Explanation (IBE). Includes examples of this technique and student responses to the course. (MJP)

The influence of child age and parent and child gender on parents' attributions and responses to their children's social and academic outcomes was studied with 76 dual-parent families of fifth, eighth, and eleventh graders. Results suggest the complexity of the interactions among these factors. (SLD)

College students bring a variety of perceptions to the classroom about what it takes to succeed in a discipline. Attributional retraining, a therapeutic technique for modifying maladaptive perceptions into more adaptive ones, can enhance student motivation and academic achievement. The technique is most effective with students who are at high risk…

Advances an important new way to conceptualize and assess the causes of parental behavior by examining how internal working models influence parents' beliefs and behaviors. Suggests that a primary source of parents' feelings of self-efficacy with respect to child rearing, as well as their explanations for their children's misbehavior, is the…

Two studies involving 125 sixth graders and 28 fifth through seventh graders examined negative social reactions from the perspective of rejecting peers. The more children perceived atypical students to be responsible for idiosyncracies, the more anger and less sympathy they reported. Implications for improving social acceptance are discussed. (SLD)

A former editor of this journal, 1985-88, selects an outstanding article from his tenure that addresses the pervasive influence of perceptions on educational practice and research. The article selected examines the influence of perceptions on behavior, accuracy of perceptions, capacity of individuals to express perceptions, perception processes,…

Presents a study extending a model of leadership response based on attribution theories to include measures of locus of control and situational control. Describes a procedure by which subjects responded to descriptions of subordinate performance. Concludes that supervisors with an external locus of control were less sensitive to subordinate…