Self-consciousness, self-esteem, and success–failure as determinants of alcohol consumption in male social drinkers.

Tested the proposition that alcohol is consumed as a function of the quality of past performances and of the individual's level of private self-consciousness. 120 adult male Ss were randomly given success or failure feedback on an intellectual task. They then participated in a separate "wine-tasting" experiment in which they were allowed to regulate alcohol consumption. As predicted, high self-conscious Ss who had received failure feedback drank significantly more than did high self-conscious Ss who received success feedback. Consumption by low self-conscious Ss fell between these extremes and did not vary as a function of success and failure. Ss' scores on the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List indicated that these results were mediated by differential sensitivity to the positive or negative implications of success/failure by high and low self-conscious Ss. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparative study of feminist and traditional group assertiveness training with women.

Tested the effectiveness of feminist group therapy within the context of group assertiveness training for women. Two types of group were organized: One emphasized female role modeling, identity formation, and awareness of sex roles; and one had a traditional approach. Two female group leaders were trained and conducted one of each type group with all-female group members. The 40 adult Ss were interviewed, and 5 outcome measures were taken pre- and posttherapy and at follow-up 6 wks later. Both groups made significant gains on all measures, but the feminist groups did not make greater gains than the traditional groups. Ss who described themselves as feminists at the outset generally showed elevated scores throughout, more commitment to remain in treatment, and greater initial gains in self-reported assertiveness than did Ss who endorsed a more conservative position. It is concluded that the success of feminist therapy groups may not be attributable to their consciousness-raising style but perhaps to the single-sex composition of such groups and to the feminist orientation of clients who seek this form of psychotherapy. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of consciousness-raising groups on measures of feminism, self-esteem, and social desirability.

34 female undergraduates in 2 consciousness-raising groups were objectively assessed to determine whether changes relating to self-reported profeminist attitudes and behaviors and relating to self-esteem and social desirability would occur. 22 Ss were randomly assigned to either a 16-hr marathon group format or a 2-hr, 8-wk time-spaced group format. 12 additional Ss who took objective measures at the same time as 1 of the 2 groups acted as no-treatment controls. All experimental Ss significantly shifted toward more self-reported profeminist attitudes and behaviors both at posttesting and at follow-up. Two personality measures did not reveal any lasting changes. When compared with each other, Ss in the 2 time formats did not evidence any significant differences. When compared with control Ss, time-spaced Ss reported significantly more profeminist behavioral changes and an increase in self-esteem. Marathon Ss were significantly different from controls on a profeminist attitude measure (Attitudes Toward Women Scale). The purpose for which consciousness-raising groups have been formed was empirically supported by desired changes reported by Ss in relation to more profeminist attitudes and behaviors. Whether participation in consciousness-raising groups produces increases in self-esteem and decreases in the need for social approval is in need of further assessment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determinants of selective memory about the self.

Investigated the influence of success and failure experiences and expectancies (on an ability task) on selective memory for positive vs negative personality information about oneself. Success-failure experiences and expectancies were manipulated independently in all combinations. Ss were 90 undergraduates. Thereafter, each S was exposed to an equal extent to positive and negative information about his personality and then tested for memory of that information. As predicted, Ss correctly remembered their personality liabilities relatively less than their assets when they expected to succeed than when they expected to fail on an ability test or when they had no relevant expectancy (control). Also, as predicted from cognitive social learning theory, the effects of expectancy overshadowed those of experience. Correlations with data from Byrne's Repression-Sensitization Scale and Rotter's Internal-External Control Scale are discussed. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivational determinants of curricular choice in college males.

Studied the relationship of achievement-related motivational variables and subjective probability of success to curricular choice in college males. 142 male management school students completed the Cue Interpretations Test (a projective measure of need for achievement), the Alpert-Haber Achievement Anxiety Test, Debilitating Anxiety scale, and a curricula questionnaire. When the fear of failure was greater than the need for achievement, Ss chose majors with either a low or high probability of success, regardless of how probability of success was judged. When need for achievement was the greater of the motives, results depended on how probability of success was determined. Ss chose majors with a low or high probability of success when the self was used as the standard of judgment but chose majors with an intermediate probability of success when others were used as the standard. Results are discussed in terms of J. Atkinson's model of risk taking and the significance of the method of determining probability of success is stressed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender jeopardy: The effects of gender, assessed femininity and masculinity, and false success/failure feedback on performance in an experimental quiz game.

61 female and 62 male undergraduates assessed on the Femininity and Masculinity scales of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory answered multiple-choice questions in a 3-trial computerized quiz game. Ss could modify the experimental situation by choosing the questions' difficulty levels and, on Trials 2 and 3, choosing among stereotypically "feminine," "masculine," and "gender-neutral" question topic areas. Between Trials 2 and 3, Ss were given false success/failure feedback. Results indicate that females chose less-difficult questions and estimated their performance lower than did males even in trials in which they could choose feminine questions. In Trials 2 and 3, Ss' gender strongly influenced choices of feminine or masculine question topics. High-masculine males showed a greater preference for masculine questions, whereas high-masculine females showed a greater preference for neutral questions. Assessed masculinity also influenced topic choices in interaction with the success/failure manipulation. The effects of gender and assessed femininity and masculinity may best be understood in interaction with situational variables. The current paradigm is proposed as a means of carrying out more interactive kinds of research on personality–situation interactions. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of performance attributions on others' perceptions of the attributor.

Two studies investigated the effects that performers' attributions actually have on others' impressions. 441 undergraduates served as Ss. "Self-serving" internal attributions for success and external attributions for failure produced slightly higher ability evaluations than did the opposite pattern in 1 of the 2 experiments. However, in both experiments, these self-serving attributions produced lower ratings on a modesty dimension. External attributions were also perceived as relatively dishonest for all Ss in Exp I and for unsuccessful Ss in Exp II. Publicity (Exp I) and task variables (Exp II) did not affect ability, modesty, or honesty judgments made from performance attributions but did strongly affect the influence these dimensions had on overall likability evaluations. In general, Ss who made internal attributions tended to be better liked than those who made external attributions. The implications and limitations of these results are discussed relative to self-presentational considerations. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavior of high, moderate, and low test anxious students during an actual test situation.

A 3 by 2 by 3 Test Anxiety Level by Level of Past Academic Performance by Point of Assessment factorial design was employed to examine effects on 8 dependent variables: positive thoughts; negative thoughts; evaluation, potency, and activity semantic differentials; history test grade; bodily sensations; and Subjective Units of Disturbance Scale score. Results with 231 college students indicate that low test anxious Ss differed significantly from high test anxious Ss on all 8 dependent variables. Level of test anxiety had a significant effect on each dependent variable. In addition, Ss with high GPAs received significantly higher test grades and reported more bodily sensations indicative of arousal than Ss with low GPAs. Ss assessed toward the end of the test (last 10 min) reported significantly more negative thoughts and bodily sensations than Ss assessed after reading the history test questions for the first time (beginning) or at the middle of the test. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of two types of counseling analogues.

Compared Ss' attraction to the counselor, self-reported and physiological anxiety, and susceptibility to persuasion, using 2 types of counseling analogs, quasi-counseling, and vicarious participation. Ss were 85 undergraduates. Participants in the quasi-counseling analog were significantly more attracted to the counselor than were vicarious-participation Ss. An attempt to indirectly structure perception of counselor empathy was unsuccessful in both analogs. The need for greater delineation of counselor and counseling process variables appropriate for different types of analogs is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assertion training with handicapped persons.

Investigated the effects of assertion training in 9 handicapped college students and 5 handicapped discharged rehabilitative medicare outpatients. Ss were matched on self-reported assertiveness and were assigned to 1 of 2 groups: (a) treatment Ss who received assertion training, and (b) waiting-list-control Ss who received no treatment for 5 wks and then received assertion training. Behavioral role playing, self-report, and activity budget pre- and posttest measures revealed that assertion-training Ss reported significantly greater gains in assertive behavior and showed greater improvement in performance on 7 criterion measures than did control Ss. 18 criterion measures did not show any differences between treatment and control groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reconciling competing motives in self-evaluation: The role of self-control in feedback seeking.

On the basis of the assumption that positive experiences enhance perceived ability to cope with the discomfort associated with negative performance feedback (NF), it was hypothesized that (1) positive experiences increase willingness to accept negative but useful feedback and that (2) individuals seek positive experiences before accepting NF. Exp 1 found that past success increased Ss' interest in unrelated NF. Exp 2 found that positive mood increased Ss' interest in NF. Exp 3 investigated the amount of time Ss spent reading about their past success while waiting for new feedback. When the new feedback was mandatory, the time Ss spent reading about their past success increased with the anticipated negativity of the new feedback. However, when the new feedback was optional, the time Ss spent reading about their past success was an inverted-U function of the anticipated negativity of the new feedback. Results are discussed in terms of self-control processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Expectations, aspirations, and evaluations as influenced by another's attributions for success and failure.

A study with 80 male and female students aged 16–18 yrs examined the effects of another's attributions for performance on one's own expectations, aspirations, and evaluations of performance. Ss witnessed an other (O) who had attributed his (or her) performance (successful or unsuccessful) on an anagram task to luck, task ease or difficulty, effort, or ability. When O had succeeded, Ss expected to perform best if O had attributed his success to the task (rather than to luck, effort, or ability); when O had failed, Ss expected to perform worst when O had attributed his failure to the task. In addition, Ss witnessing a successful O were more hopeful if O had made a task attribution, but Ss witnessing an unsuccessful O were more hopeful if O had made an effort attribution. Finally, Ss showed a tendency to attribute their own performance to the same cause to which O had attributed his own performance. Results are discussed in relation to the stability–instability and internal–external dimensions of causal attributions and to the need to perceive oneself as exercising effective control over the environment. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimenter approval, social desirability, and statements of self-reference.

Using 40 undergraduate Ss high or low on a social desirability scale, a verbal conditioning attempt was made to alter the relative frequency of self-referent statements that were either positive or negative. Before reinforcement, high and low social desirability Ss responded very similarly, and used more positive than negative self-references. High social desirability Ss responded to reinforcement by increasing equally the frequency of both positive and negative self-referent statements. Low social desirability Ss did not condition, but continued to make more positive than negative self-references. Although high and low social desirability Ss both have the need to impress others favorably, the high social desirability person is apparently more dependent on the overt, evaluative behavior of others, and for this reason he can be manipulated more easily than low social desirability Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Success, failure, and resistance to temptation.

78 8- and 9-yr-olds were randomly assigned to success, failure, and control conditions involving a test of intellectual ability. Subsequently, they were exposed to a resistance to temptation test involving play with a forbidden toy, and measures of latency were taken. As hypothesized, Ss who experienced success reported positive affect and resisted temptation for a longer time than Ss who experienced failure. Prior expectancy for self-control in resistance to temptation situations was significantly related to Ss' latency scores. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcohol expectancies and their relationship to actual drinking experiences.

44 undergraduate normal drinkers participated in a social task in drinking and nondrinking conditions and rated their subjective experiences and their perception of experiences of other group members along 7 alcohol expectancy dimensions. In the drinking condition, Ss rated their experiences as being positively enhanced on those dimensions predicted by the expectancy literature, but did not report experiencing the negative cognitive and motor effects associated with alcohol consumption. It is concluded that in social situations, individuals' alcohol expectancies and experiences coincide for socially relevant variables, but do not for variables related to cognitive skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences in parents' and their grown children's perceptions of parenting.

A 2–5 factorial between-Ss experiment was conducted, with level of success, sex of stimulus parent, sex of stimulus child, sex of respondent, and generation as the 5 independent variables. 139 undergraduates and their parents of the same sex served as Ss. The overall performance rating, the attributions made to explain parenting success/failure, and the ratings made both of the stimulus parent and of the stimulus child on the same 60 personality items were the dependent variables. The present study replicated one of the principal findings of attribution research: that males are more given to explaining failure in terms of external factors. Males of both generations made greater use of the factor Child's Fault in explaining parenting failure than did females. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of self-esteem, hypothetical explanations, and verbalization of expectancies on future performance.

A hypothetical explanation task was used to make success- or failure-related cognitions differentially available for 60 high self-esteem (HSE) and 60 low self-esteem (LSE) undergraduates. Ss wrote an explanation for either a hypothetical failure or success, or they wrote no explanation. Half of the Ss in each condition stated performance expectancies. The effects of these variables on subsequent performance were examined. Success explanations increased the performance of both HSE and LSE Ss, whereas failure explanations only decreased the performance of LSE Ss. A content analysis revealed that the content of failure explanations, but not success explanations, was related to self-esteem and subsequent performance. These effects were more pronounced for Ss who stated expectancies, and expectancies were more highly correlated with performance in the explanation conditions than in the no-explanation control condition. Results are discussed in terms of current self-esteem theory and the cognitive processes associated with generating causal scenarios for success and failure, expectations, and performance. (57 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning disabilities, locus of control, and mother attitudes.

Academic locus of control and mothers' school-related reactions and expectations were studied in 81 learning disabled (LD) and 81 normally achieving (control) children in Grades 3–6. The Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire, the Intellectual subscale of the Parent Reaction Questionnaire, and the Parents Version of the Projected Academic Performance Scale were used. LD Ss indicated more external perceptions of control with respect to successful academic experiences. For failure outcomes, no difference between LD and control Ss was found; however, a trend toward increased internality was noted over grade levels for both groups. Mothers of LD Ss reported more negative and fewer positive reactions to their children. They also held lower academic performance expectations for their children than control mothers. Results are discussed in terms of the need to develop more internal control perceptions in LD children and the role of parental attitudes and expectations in school learning. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imaging vividness and the outcome of in vivo and imagined scene desensitization.

Reexamined the role of imaging vividness in desensitization success. Scores on the Betts Questionnaire on Mental Imagery were used to divide 48 snake-phobic Ss into high, medium, and low vivid groups, who were assigned to imagined scene or in vivo desensitization treatments. The Fear Survey Schedule was used to measure general fearfulness. Imaging vividness was assessed at scheduled points during therapy. Significant decreases in behavioral and self-reported fear were observed after both treatments, although in vivo desensitization produced significantly greater fear reduction. In therapy, imaging vividness scores were significantly correlated with therapeutic success and were superior to pretherapy ratings as predictors of outcome. (2 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Variables affecting stimulus fading and discriminative responding in psychotic children.

Overselective attention in autistic children has proven detrimental to learning when prompt-fading techniques are used, as autistics often respond exclusively to the prompt (the extra guiding stimulus) and fail to learn about the training stimuli. Exp I investigated stimulus variables in prompt fading that might reduce the attentional requirements for discrimination learning. Ss were 8 institutionalized autistic children, each of whom was either mute or echolalic, with minimal intelligible verbal behavior. Two variables were assessed: distinctive vs nondistinctive feature fading, which signified whether a prompt was a feature contained only in the positive stimulus (S+) or contained both in S+ and in the negative stimulus, and within- vs extrastimulus fading, which signified whether the prompt was superimposed on S+ during fading or presented spatially separate from S+. Significant main effects were found for both variables, due to the success of the within-stimulus and the distinctive feature conditions; the combination of within-stimulus and distinctive feature fading was the most effective procedure. Exp II was conducted with the same Ss to assess whether they were still responding only to that pretrained feature after fading. Results show that discriminative responding was maintained when the pretrained feature was made irrelevant, showing that Ss attended to multiple features of S+, but that it was disrupted when the whole letter containing the pretrained feature was made irrelevant, showing that Ss still learned a restricted portion of the S+ word. (48 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)