Examined the relationship between adolescents' (N=72) perceptions of their parents' marital coalition and academic success as a college freshman. Results showed that students reporting a primary marital alliance tended to succeed academically and were more integral on the Rotter I-E scale than students reporting a nonmarital alliance as primary.…

Normative data collected on 197 disadvantaged high school dropouts on the dimension of internal-external control indicate this group appears to be external, but not markedly so. A short-term intervention program designed to improve academic and vocational skills did not appear to affect locus of control of 33 subjects. (Author/PN)

Health educators may be expecting the public to accept too much personal responsibility for disease. Genetic, environmental, and other factors may be as important as health-promoting behavior in avoiding disease. If health educators overstate the role of personal responsibility for health, they may lose credibility with the public. (PP)

A factor analysis of the Children's Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale was conducted with a biracial sample of children over a wide age range. Three factors (personal control and helplessness, achievement and friendship, and luck) had sufficient item loadings to be interpretable. (Author/GK)

Discusses the role of extrinsic reinforcement in intrinsic motivation in cognitive attribution theory. Concludes that cognitive attribution theory lacks parsimony, in that extant reinforcement analysis can account for undermining with equal facility. Suggests undermining is of little significance due to its elusive and transient impact on operant…

The Human Resources School Career Education program (designed to improve and maintain positive self-concept, build decision making skills, and broaden career awareness) was evaluated with 230 K through 12 physically disabled students from the HRS and two comparison groups. (SB)

Three possibilities through which children find enjoyment in sport are explored: (1) Sport may be considered as play by children; (2) sport may be seen as success-motivating; and (3) children may find sport enjoyable because the activity itself is absorbing. (JN)

Data from 47 college classrooms suggest that the extent to which students' perceived actual locus of control coincided with their preferred locus over decisions about topic sequence and instructional materials correlated positively to their appraisals of overall instructional effectiveness. Agreement with classroom decisions also correlated…

Hypothesis that externally oriented Black male subjects would view themselves as more Negro in appearance than they were judged by observers was tested by comparing subjects' and observers' judgments on scale of 15 faces which changed from Negro to Caucasian. Hypothesis was contradicted in 1968 study, supported in 1975. (Author/NRB)

Hypothesized that dogmatism and externality in locus of control are inversely related to skill in facilitative responding. Dogmatism and externality were measured by the Opinion Scale, and skill in facilitative responding was determined with the Gross Rating of Facilitative Interpersonal Functioning Scale. Results supported the hypothesis. (Author)

Examined the relationship among depression, locus of control of reinforcement, and age in psychiatric outpatients and students. Found depression and locus of control highly correlated; age negatively correlated with locus of control and positively with depression. Discusses the possible causal relationship between external locus of control and…

A detailed experiment studied the behavioral and verbal effect of a structured videotape feedback and discussion period preceding therapy groups for disturbed undersocialized adolescents. These experimental sessions were compared with control sessions without videotape feedback. (Author/GK)

Studied the determinants of attributional modesty in women. Women tend to make modest attributions for success when concerned about how others would evaluate them and when concerned about their self-image. Self-derogatory attributions for failure occur when the subjects thought their attributions would be public. (Author/JAC)

Because boarding schools resemble "total institutions," offering no escape from failure or low self-esteem, private school students feel great stress. Both good and bad students feel stress, as do new, minority, or emotionally troubled students, especially from lack of privacy, lack of control over life, and demanding schedules. (RW)

Black first graders varying in internal-external control completed digit substitution problems during which performance was praised by a Black boy and girl or a Black man and woman. Boys were most responsive to peer feedback and girls to adult feedback. Predictions involving locus of control were modestly supported. (Author/RD)