Alcohol consumption as a self-handicapping strategy in women.

Assessed whether women self-handicap with alcohol consumption prior to engaging in a social evaluation task, which may be more relevant to their self-esteem than the intellectual tasks used in past self-handicapping studies on substance use. 113 women (aged 19–32 yrs), who were evaluated as normal drinkers, performed either a solvable or an insolvable social judgment task and then received either success feedback or no feedback. Ss received access to alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages while awaiting a retest. The study terminated before the retest. The self-handicapping hypothesis that noncontingent success would produce relatively greater alcohol consumption was not supported. Regardless of feedback, insolvable test Ss consumed more alcohol than did solvable test Ss. Findings suggest that the hypothesis may be limited as a general model of alcohol consumption in both sexes. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem and self-estimates of academic performance.

Used 3 measures of self-esteem to test the hypothesis that 36 undergraduates with low self-esteem would predict getting lower grades on an examination than 36 high-self-esteem Ss. The hypothesis was confirmed (p     

The imitation of resistance to deviation: Conclusive evidence for an elusive effect.

Argues that previous studies on the imitation of resistance to deviation have confounded exposure to a model who resists temptation with other variables that might influence children's response inhibition. The present experiment sought to clarify the results of previous studies by independently manipulating and assessing the effects of 3 variables hypothesized to influence children's resistance to temptation: (a) modeling of resistance to deviation, (b) modeling of a task that was incompatible with deviation, and (c) availability of this task to the S during test. Ss were 72 4th-grade boys. All 3 variables were found to make independent contributions to boys' resistance to deviation. It is concluded that the suggestion in the literature that models are ineffective as agents of inhibition is incorrect. Finally, there was evidence for the idea that when children avoid a prohibited activity because of exposure to a conforming model, they alter their attitude toward the prohibited activity to reflect their avoidance of it (i.e., they devalue the activity). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem and sources of cognitive bias in the evaluation of past performance

Examined relationships between self-esteem and cognitive biases involved in processing self-relevant information. 49 male and 52 female paid college students completed a series of self-esteem measures, participated in an anagram-solving task, and then answered questions concerning (a) their standards for successful achievement and (b) their retention of solved and unsolved anagrams. Low self-esteem males had higher discrepancies between their criteria for successful achievement and perceived performances than high-self-esteem males; females did not show this relationship. Predicted relationships between self-esteem and retention of solved vs unsolved anagrams were not found for either males or females. As anticipated, no significant relationship was found between level of performance and self-esteem. Implications for interpreting the self-esteem construct and for identifying sex differences in self-esteem are discussed. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negative cognitive errors in children: Questionnaire development, normative data, and comparisons between children with and without self-reported symptoms of depression, low self-esteem, and evaluation anxiety.

Constructed a self-report questionnaire, Children's Negative Cognitive Error Questionnaire (CNCEQ), to measure in children 4 types of negative cognitive errors derived from A. T. Beck's (1967, 1976) cognitive theory of adult depression: (a) overgeneralized predictions of negative outcomes, (b) catastrophizing the consequences of negative events, (c) incorrectly taking personal responsibility for negative outcomes, and (d) selectively attending to negative features of an event. Results from administration of the CNCEQ to a normative sample of 637 4th-, 6th-, and 8th-grade children showed that in general these Ss did not endorse any of the 4 types of negative thoughts to any large extent. However, 3 subsequent studies, using 201 of the Ss in the normative sample and 211 other 4th–8th grade children, indicated that Ss with self-reported symptoms of depression, low self-esteem, and evaluation anxiety (according to a children's depression inventory, the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, and a test anxiety scale) endorsed each type of negative cognitive error significantly more than did their nondepressed, high self-esteem, and non-evaluation-anxious counterparts. (55 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Observers and participants in an intergroup setting.

High- and low-self-esteem participant and observer (control) Ss received feedback about the performance of in-groups and out-groups. Self-evaluations and evaluations of the groups were assessed. Results suggest that participant group members (vs observers) enhance evaluations of both groups under conditions of failure feedback. Intergroup bias was obtained over and above these effects for participant high-self-esteem Ss. However, participant low-self-esteem Ss favored failing out-groups. Results suggest that individuals with different levels of self-esteem may differ in terms of their inferred status within groups. Intragroup comparisons may then influence one's choice of group for social identification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Socialization of achievement: Influence of mothers' need for approval on children's achievement cognitions and behavior.

Investigated the effect of mothers' need for approval (nApp) on children's expectancies for success and persistence during failure. 90 5th-grade boys and girls were asked to complete 4 puzzles, 3 of which were unsolvable. Ss stated their expectancies before each trial, before the first and last trials, or before the last trial only. On each trial children's persistence was measured. In addition, nApp of the children's mothers was measured with the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Gender differences in expectancies were found only for children with high-nApp mothers, with boys stating higher expectancies than girls before both the first and last trials. With regard to persistence, differences between groups emerged only for children with high-nApp mothers. No gender differences were found. Implications of these results for parental socialization of achievement are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem, need for approval, and cheating behavior in children.

We investigated the effects of personality and situational variables on children's cheating behavior. Two hundred twenty-eight 10- to 12-year-old boys and girls completed the Children's Social Desirability Questionnaire and the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and were given unsolvable problems at which they could "succeed" only by cheating. One group was offered a tangible prize for success, the second group was told that its performance would be made public, and the third group served as a control group. The children with high self-esteem and low need for approval cheated significantly less than the children with high self-esteem and high need for approval, who behaved similarly to the children with low self-esteem. In addition, boys cheated more than girls, and all children cheated most when they expected a tangible prize. We discuss two kinds of high self-esteem: "true" high self-esteem and defensive high-esteem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of competitive reward structure and valence of outcome on children's achievement attributions.

Studied how success and failure outcomes occurring under competitive and noncompetitive reward structures influenced children's attributional and affective responses. 40 5th-grade boys solved sets of achievement-related puzzles, working in pairs in which one succeeded and one failed at the task. Results show that the reward structure of the performance setting was an important determinant of self- and interpersonal evaluations. Competitive conditions caused self-punitive behavior for failure outcomes and some ego-enhancing strategies for success outcomes. Failing Ss expressed strong negative affect and perceived themselves as less capable than their successful partners, while successful Ss perceived themselves as more deserving of reward than their failing partners. No differences in self-other attributions or affect were found in noncompetitive conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcohol consumption as a self-handicapping strategy.

Two experiments with 128 male undergraduates evaluated the self-handicapping hypothesis that alcohol consumption varies directly with individuals' uncertainty of their ability to perform successfully. In a 2–3 factorial design, Exp I manipulated difficulty of an initial intellectual test (insolvable or solvable), feedback regarding test performance (success or none), and instructions regarding the difficulty of a retest (identical to or harder than the initial test). Ss then received access to an alcoholic beverage (self-handicapping option) and to study materials (performance-enhancing option). The experiment terminated before the retest. Results indicate that when a performance-enhancing option is available, Ss generally do not use alcohol to self-handicap. Exp II omitted the study option and manipulated the test difficulty and retest instruction variables. All Ss received success feedback. Results show that Ss use alcohol to self-handicap when denied access to a performance-enhancing option. With important qualifications, these data support the self-handicapping hypothesis of human drinking behavior. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem and children's reactions to youth sport coaching behaviors: A field study of self-enhancement processes.

Self-enhancement models posit a general motive to enhance self-regard that is believed to be particularly strong in people with low self-esteem. The authors extended previous laboratory research with college students to a field setting and studied the attraction responses of child athletes to coaches who differed in their observed behavior patterns during the sport season. Consistent with predictions derived from self-enhancement theory, children who were low in self-esteem responded most positively to coaches who were reinforcing and encouraging and most negatively to coaches who were low on this supportiveness dimension. A similar pattern was found in children's responses to technical instruction, which was regarded as instrumental to competency development and esteem enhancement. Attraction responses of moderate- and high-self-esteem children were relatively unaffected by these variations in adult leader behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of group expectations and self-esteem upon self-evaluation.

This study explores the effect of a specific level of achievement upon an individual's evaluations of his performance when the achievement is relative to an aspiration level set by a group and to the member's stabilized expectations about himself as represented by his self-esteem. Ss were assigned to one of 4 conditions, composed of the combinations of high and low group expectations and relevance and non-relevance of task to the purposes of the group. Half of the Ss within each experimental condition were allowed to succeed and the other half made to fail. Several specific hypotheses within this framework were tested. "The group's expectations appear to have been more potent as a scale of reference than the individual's self-esteem in determining his evaluation of his performance. When the influence of the group was weakest (task was non-relevant) persons high in self-esteem… differed in the way they evaluated their performance. When the influence of the group was strongest (task was relevant) there was no difference in the way that persons high or low in self-esteem rated their achievement." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of scientific reasoning in knowledge-rich contexts.

In this study of the development of scientific reasoning, 10 5th–6th-grade children ( 5 boys and 5 girls) and 10 noncollege adults conducted experiments over 6 half-hour sessions to explore the causal structure of 2 physical science domains. Feedback in these systems, though relevant to discriminating among hypotheses, was noisy as a result of varying effect sizes and measurement error. After 2 hr on each task, both age groups demonstrated changes in their understanding of the content and in their strategies for generating and interpreting evidence. In general, the adults outperformed the children. Neither valid strategies nor correct beliefs alone was sufficient to guarantee success, suggesting that regarding experimentation either as domain-general induction or as domain-specific learning may oversimplify its complexity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's achievement attributions and self-reinforcement: Effects of self-concept and competitive reward structure.

Studied how self-concept as a dispositional trait influences children's achievement attributions and reinforcing behaviors in the social context of a competing or a noncompeting other. 112 5th-grade boys and girls classified as high or low in self-concept (Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale) worked in pairs at an achievement-related task in which one succeeded and one failed. Results show that high self-concept children attributed success outcomes more to their high ability and engaged in more positive self-reinforcement following success than did low self-concept children. The affective significance of achievement outcomes was accentuated in competitive settings for high but not low self-concept children. The results are discussed in terms of an attribution model of behavior. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Imaginary audience behavior in children and adolescents.

The Imaginary Audience Scale (IAS), consisting of 2 subscales—the Transient Self (TS) and the Abiding Self (AS) scale—was administered to 697 Ss at the 4th-, 6th-, 8th-, and 12th-grade levels. The scale assesses young people's willingness to reveal different facets of themselves to an audience. Some of the Ss were given the test twice to obtain reliability data, and some of the other Ss were also tested on measures of self-esteem and locus of control (e.g., Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale for Children) to obtain validity data. Results show that the IAS has reasonable reliability and construct validity. Results also show that 8th graders were significantly less willing than older or younger Ss to reveal their transient and abiding selves to an audience. Girls tended to be more reluctant than boys to reveal themselves to an audience. Results support the imaginary audience construct and warrant further use of the IAS. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting creativity in preadolescence from divergent thinking in early childhood.

Administered to 75 children (ages 4 and 5 yrs) 2 divergent-thinking (DT) measures (Instances and Unusual Uses) and 2 conventional tests of general intelligence. Six and 7 yrs later, these Ss—then preadolescents—were evaluated with respect to creativity by their 6th-grade teachers. These creativity evaluations at 11 yrs exhibited substantial discriminant and construct validity and were relatively free of halo effects. A composite score based on the number of high-quality, divergent-thinking responses in childhood (i.e., responses reflecting both imagination and sensitivity to task constraints) correlated significantly with teacher evaluations of preadolescent creativity. This construct-validating correlation, which spanned 6 and 7 yrs and 2 measurement domains, was .45, uncorrected for attenuation. Even more important, this composite DT high-quality score in early childhood incrementally accounted for 14% of the variance in preadolescent creativity evaluations beyond that accounted for by sex and conventionally measured intelligence and DT fluency (number of responses regardless of quality). (1? p ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learned helplessness in task-orienting versus performance-orienting testing conditions.

Fifth- and 6th-grade subjects (Ss; 51 boys and 59 girls) were classified as low or high in effort orientation based on the number of items in the Intellectual Achievement Responsibility Questionnaire for which lack of effort was selected as an explanation for failure. On a computerized, 2-choice discrimination learning task, half of the Ss were given directions designed to reduce concerns about performance and to direct attention toward the task ("task-orientation" instruction condition); half were given "performance-orienting" instructions. The computer was programmed to ensure that all Ss failed to solve all four problems. Analyses of problem-solving strategies revealed that fewer low-effort-orientation Ss used effective strategies in the performance- than in the task-orienting condition. The instructions did not affect the proportion of high-effort orientation Ss who used effective strategies. The results suggest that task-orienting strategies may facilitate the performance of children who tend to de-emphasize the role of effort. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Elimination of vicarious reinforcement effects within an implicit reward situation.

The presence of cognitive evaluations of reward conditions in vicarious reward situations set in typical classrooms has been suggested in theoretical literature. The present study investigated this suggestion by examining the effect of free- versus no-talk conditions between target and peer Ss under vicarious reward conditions. Ss were 18 boys and 14 girls from a typical 4th-grade classroom. Data collected on a task involving reproduction of the letters of the alphabet showed that vicarious reinforcement effects occurred when verbal communication of reward enjoyment to nonreward Ss was possible but not when such communication was restricted. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metacognitive differences between skilled and less skilled readers: Remediating deficits through story grammar and attribution training.

Designed a metacognitive intervention program to remediate the failures of 42 4th-grade boys in using metacognitive skills to aid their reading comprehension. The program consisted of 2 components: story grammar training, designed to increase comprehension monitoring; and attribution training, designed to increase awareness of effort in efficient reading. Ss were assigned to 3 groups: 1 group received both components and the other 2 groups each received one component alone. 14 skilled 4th-grade male readers served as a contrast group. Maintenance was assessed through free and probed recall; generalization was assessed through a metareading test and an error detection and correction task. Results indicate that strategy training produced dramatic gains in comprehension. Only Ss receiving attribution training alone showed poorer performance than skilled readers. Partial support was obtained for generalization on the metareading assessment. It is concluded that strategy training improved poor readers' comprehension by providing them with metacognitive skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)