Attributions for real and hypothetical events: Their relation to self-esteem and depression.

Examined the association between attributional style, self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and general distress to test hypotheses derived from a learned helplessness model and B. Weiner's (see record 1979-28688-001) attributional model of motivation. 178 male and female undergraduates completed the Beck Depression Inventory, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and an attributional style questionnaire and were asked to make causal attributional ratings about 12 hypothetical events. 151 Ss also were asked to make diary ratings on 14 real events. Attributional ratings were internally consistent across events, but attributions about positive outcomes were either uncorrelated or positively correlated with attributions about negative outcomes, failing to support learned helplessness predictions that a single process underlies attributions about positive and negative events. As predicted, internal attributions for positive outcomes were primarily associated with high self-esteem. Only internal stable attributions for negative outcomes were related to depressive symptoms, consistent with Weiner's model. The pattern of correlation between attributions and general distress was essentially identical to that obtained with depressive symptoms. Attributions for real events were similar in their effects to ratings of hypothetical events. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributions of ability and motivation in a natural setting.

Examined the effects of different patterns of student performance on teachers' attributions of ability and motivation in a school setting. 415 6–8th graders and 17 teachers served as Ss. Lorge-Thorndike Intelligence Test scores and grades affected attributions of ability and motivation in an additive fashion. In contrast to F. Heider's (see PA, Vol 33:971) proposition, attributions of ability and motivation had a positive relationship when performance was controlled. Teachers had greater confidence in their attributions when performances were extreme, particularly in a positive direction. Although consistency in performance between test scores and grades did not affect their confidence, teachers were more confident when students' grades were consistent with the teachers' perceptions of the children's ability. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Orientations in the Classroom: Age Differences and Academic Correlates.

Age differences in intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and the relationships of each to academic outcomes were examined in an ethnically diverse sample of 797 3rd-grade through 8th-grade children. Using independent measures, the authors found intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to be only moderately correlated, suggesting that they may be largely orthogonal dimensions of motivation in school. Consistent with previous research, intrinsic motivation showed a significant linear decrease from 3rd grade through 8th grade and proved positively correlated with children's grades and standardized test scores at all grade levels. Extrinsic motivation showed few differences across grade levels and proved negatively correlated with academic outcomes. Surprisingly few differences based on children's sex or ethnicity were found. Causes and consequences of the disturbingly low levels of motivation for older, relative to younger, children are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What motivates children's behavior and emotion? Joint effects of perceived control and autonomy in the academic domain.

Examined the contribution of perceived control and autonomy to 264 children's (aged 8–20 yrs) self-reported behavior and emotion in the classroom. Multiple regression analyses revealed unique effects of autonomy over and above the strong effects of perceived control. In addition, both sets of perceptions (and their interaction) were found to distinguish children who were active but emotionally disaffected from those who were active and emotionally positive. Specific predictions were also tested regarding the effects of (1) control attributions to 5 causes and (2) 4 reasons for task involvement that differed in degree of autonomy on children's active (vs passive) behavior and 4 kinds of emotions: boredom, distress, anger, and positive emotions. Implications of the findings for theories of children's motivation are discussed, as well as for diagnostic strategies to identify children at risk for motivational problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of interpersonal control, perspective taking, and attributions on older mothers' and adult daughters' satisfaction with their helping relationships.

Older mother-adult daughter dyads (N?=?44) were interviewed separately about 3 variables hypothesized to affect satisfaction with the help provided to mothers by their daughters: feelings of interpersonal control, perspective-taking abilities, and attributions made about the self and other dyad member during positive and negative helping interactions. The most important predictors of partner satisfaction were mothers' and daughters' ability to accurately perceive the partner's feelings about the helping relationship and their feelings of interpersonal control. The most salient predictors of mothers' and daughters' own satisfaction were the attributions they made about the partner during a negative helping situation and their feelings of interpersonal control. These findings underscore the importance of considering interpersonal psychological variables in research concerned with helping relationships in later life. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examination-related feedback, mood and helping: a correlational study

The association of mood with helping was examined. College students (N = 62) self-reported mood before and after receiving feedback (numerical score and letter grade) on an examination administered during the previous class session. Helping measures included the number of sessions in which they were willing to serve and the number of names in a list of 120 checked for spelling. Analysis indicated that examination scores were negatively correlated with negative affect (r = -.69) and positively correlated with positive affect (r = 51); however, there was no statistically significant relationship between mood and helping.     

Influence of self-reported distress and empathy on egoistic versus altruistic motivation to help.

Proposed that a distinction be made between 2 emotional responses to seeing another person suffer—personal distress and empathy—and that these 2 emotions lead to 2 different kinds of motivation to help: Personal distress leads to egoistic motivation; empathy, to altruistic motivation. These distinctions were tested in 3 studies, each using 10 male and 10 female undergraduates. Across the 3 studies, factor analysis of Ss' self-reported emotional response indicated that feelings of personal distress and empathy, although positively correlated, were experienced as qualitatively distinct. The pattern of helping in Studies 1 and 2 indicated that a predominance of personal distress led to egoistic motivation, whereas a predominance of empathy led to altruistic motivation. In Study 3, the cost of helping was made especially high. Results suggest an important qualification on the link between empathic emotion and altruistic motivation: Ss reporting a predominance of empathy displayed an egoistic pattern of helping. Apparently, making helping costly evoked self-concern, which overrode any altruistic impulse produced by feeling empathy. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect as a determinant of egotism: Residual excitation and performance attributions.

Investigated the influence of outcome-related affect on subsequent causal attributions. After working on a social skills test, 66 male college students engaged in physical exercise. Ss were given success or failure feedback on the test 1, 5, or 9 min after the exercise. Excitation transfer theory suggests that the residual arousal from the exercise in the 5-min condition would elevate the positive and negative affective states elicited by success–failure feedback. Thus, increased attributional egotism in the 5-min condition was predicted. Findings show that Ss preferred internal factors to explain success, whereas external factors were blamed for failure. Ego-defensive attributions following failure and ego-enhancing attributions following success were more pronounced in the 5-min condition than in the other conditions. Results support the idea that outcome-related affect mediates egotistical performance attributions. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect-generating powers of effort and ability self attributions of academic success and failure.

Studied (a) the affect productivity of effort and (b) the ability self-attributions of success or failure. Three experiments collectively involving 315 college students were run wherein Ss had to indicate for either hypothetical academic success or failure the effort–ability attribution that would generate in them the greatest affect. Relative to those in effort, attributions to ability generated as much happiness, but less pride, in the case of success and more unhappiness, but less shame, in the case of failure. It is concluded that ability attributions have a greater affective impact when morally neutral affects (e.g., happiness and unhappiness), as opposed to morally unneutral affects (e.g., pride and shame), are involved. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's emotions as organizers of their reactions to interadult anger: A functionalist perspective.

Children's emotions have been implicated as mediating their responses to interadult anger, but this proposition has not been directly tested. Sixty-four 4–8 year olds (32 boys and 32 girls) were induced to feel angry, sad, happy, or "just okay" before their exposure to interadult anger. Data were analyzed by means of (a) analyses of variance testing differences across conditions and (b) correlations between children's emotions during affect induction procedures and their reactions to interadult anger. Findings indicated that negative emotions increased children's distress and negative appraisals and expectations in reaction to interadult anger, whereas positive emotions reduced distress reactions and increased children's positive expectations about future interadult interactions. The results support a functionalist view that emotions can play a causal role in organizing and directing children's reactions to events and are consistent with research and theory highlighting the role of emotionality in children's coping with marital conflict. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital violence, marital distress, and attributions.

Because empirical associations involving marital distress may be confounded by the presence of marital violence, 2 studies examined the interplay among marital distress, marital violence, and attributions for marital events. Study 1 showed that marital satisfaction was associated with causal and responsibility attributions independently of violence in a sample of 130 husbands. Study 2 demonstrated that the satisfaction–attribution association was independent of violence in a sample of 60 newlywed husbands and also showed that responsibility attributions predicted satisfaction 12 months later when violent husbands were excluded from the sample. These findings support the focus on cognitive variables in recent models of marriage and marital violence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of age and gender on affect, physiology, and their interrelations: A study of long-term marriages.

Self-reported affect and autonomic and somatic physiology were studied during three 15-min conversations (events of the day, problem area, pleasant topic) in a sample of 151 couples in long-term marriages. Couples differed in age (40–50 or 60–70 yrs) and marital satisfaction (satisfied or dissatisfied). Marital interaction in older couples was associated with more affective positivity and lower physiological arousal (even when controlling for affective differences) than in middle-age couples. As has previously been found with younger couples, marital dissatisfaction was associated with less positive affect, greater negative affect, and greater negative affect reciprocity. In terms of the relation between physiological arousal and affective experience, husbands reported feeling more negative the more they were physiologically aroused; for wives, affect and arousal were not correlated. These findings are related to theories of socioemotional change with age and of gender differences in marital behavior and health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual asymmetries reflect developmental changes in the neuropsychological mechanisms of emotion recognition.

To study how perceptual asymmetries in the recognition of emotion reflect developmental changes in processing affective information, a fused rhyming dichotic word test with positive, negative, and neutral stimuli was administered to adults and children. Results suggested that the hemisphere in which affective information is initially processed affects the strength of perceptual asymmetry and that children's perceptual processing of emotional information is constrained by limited computational resources. Another experiment ruled out effects of volitional shifting of attention to emotional stimuli. These data further confirm that emotional processing involves integration of neural systems across brain regions, including distributed systems that support arousal and recognition. General developmental factors, such as processing capacity, contribute to the coordination of multiple systems responsible for processing emotional information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Origins of children's helpless and mastery achievement patterns in the family.

An exploratory study examined the origins of children's motivational patterns in the family by observing 3rd-grade children (10 helpless and 11 mastery-oriented) and their mothers performing a series of solvable and insolvable problem-solving tasks. Mothers of mastery children appeared to show sensitivity and responsiveness to their children's ability perceptions and requests for help. They also appeared to support mastery behaviors in their children by increasing task-focused teaching behaviors and maintaining high-positive affect during the insolvable puzzles. Furthermore, in the face of failures, they retrained their children's low-ability attributions and performance-goal statements, while promoting mastery or task-focused behaviors. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that mothers of mastery children may socialize their children's achievement motivation. However, because of the small sample size and other limitations, the results should be interpreted with caution. Several directions are outlined for future research on the familial origins of helpless and mastery patterns in children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depression, general distress, and causal attributions among university students.

Attempted to replicate I. H. Gotlib's (see record 1984-15153-001) finding of a high intercorrelation among various measures of distress (depression, state anxiety, trait anxiety, psychosomatic complaints, and assertiveness) within an undergraduate sample. Results obtained from 134 undergraduates found the Beck Depression Inventory to be highly correlated with the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory—Form Y, the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule, and the Psychosomatic Symptom Checklist, although the assertiveness measure demonstrated some discriminant validity according to a principal-components analysis. A canonical correlation analysis revealed that all 5 measures of distress were significantly related to causal attributions concerning both positive and negative events on the Attributional Style Questionnaire, partially replicating Gotlib's results. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of emotionally contagious films on changes in hemisphere-specific cognitive performance.

In the framework of models on the lateralized involvement of the cortical hemispheres in affect and psychopathology, the authors examined whether cognitive processes associated with the left and the right prefrontal cortex varied as a function of valence, motivational direction, or intensity of induced mood. Affective states (cheerfulness, anxiety, sadness, anger, and neutral mood) were experimentally induced by short “emotionally contagious films.” Findings confirmed that the newly developed films were suitable to effectively elicit the expected affective states and to differentially change the dimensions of interest. Changes in verbal versus figural fluency performance were examined as a function of positive versus negative valence, approach versus withdrawal motivation, and low versus high emotional arousal. Level of interest was evaluated as a control. Both the tendency to withdraw and emotional arousal seemed to produce relative advantages for cognitive processes that are more strongly represented in the right than left prefrontal cortex. Findings suggest that changes in cognitive performance might be best explained by an additive combination of motivational direction and arousal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect and resistance to temptation.

Employed a direct induction of mood to determine the role of affect in a resistance to temptation test given to a total of 57 7- and 8-yr-olds. Ss were preselected for homogeneity in socioeconomic status, locus of control, need for social approval, and self-esteem measures (e.g., the Self-Esteem Inventory). Ss were assigned to 2 affect conditions and 1 control condition. Subsequently, they were exposed to a resistance to temptation test involving play with a forbidden toy. Measures of latency, frequency, and duration of deviance were taken. As hypothesized, Ss in the positive affect condition resisted for a longer time than Ss in the negative affect condition, and Ss in the negative affect condition deviated more quickly than those in the control condition. Results are compared to findings of previous studies regarding the effect of children's affects on situational responses and behaviors. Implications of affective state variables for children's resistance to temptation studies are discussed. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A question of standards: Attributions of blame and credit for classroom acts.

We examined differences between blame and credit judgments among 247 students and 13 teachers from 7 first- and 6 fifth-grade classrooms. Study 1 indicated that even young children used information about excuses and justifications in assigning blame but not in determining credit. The gap between grades for assignment of credit was most striking for norms involving specific classroom roles. At both grade levels, norms of duty differed from norms of aspiration; for the latter, more credit was assigned for good outcomes than was blame for bad outcomes. Study 2 analyzed teachers' attributions and examined links between teachers' and pupils' judgments. Children's blame attributions were more highly correlated with those of teachers than were credit attributions. Teachers who provided less negative procedural feedback (NPF) had pupils whose blame judgments were more highly correlated with their own. However, within categories of teachers (grade levels by high-low NPF), individual teachers' and pupils' idiosyncratic judgments were not associated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of causal attributions on affective reactions to success and failure.

Assessed the impact of outcome (success vs failure) and attribution (internal vs external) on affect in an achievement setting. Following the theorizing of B. Weiner et al (1978, 1979), it was anticipated that the outcome manipulation would determine general positive and negative affective reactions, whereas the attribution manipulation would influence affects related to self-esteem. 53 female undergraduates received success or failure feedback on a social accuracy test and were induced to attribute their performance to either an internal (ability) or an external cause (characteristics of the task). A factor analysis revealed 3 dimensions: Negative Affect, Positive Affect, and Self-Esteem. ANOVA indicated that the nature of the attribution influenced all 3 forms of affective reactions. Success produced greater positive affect, less negative affect, and higher self-esteem than failure only when ability attributions were induced. Although additional analyses offered some support for the presence of affects influenced solely by outcome, the majority of analyses supported the notion that attributions are the primary determinants of affective reactions to success and failure. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Linking marital and child attributions to family processes and parent–child relationships.

The contribution of marital attributions to parenting and parent-child interaction was examined, along with the contribution of children's attributions for negative parental behavior to ineffective parent-child communication. Data from 170 children 10 to 12 years old (84 girls, 86 boys) were used to test a model of hypothesized links among conflict-promoting marital attributions, negative marital context, parenting practices, children's attributions for parent behavior, and ineffective parent-child communication. Husbands' and wives' marital attributions were related to the marital context, which was related to ineffective parent-child communication. Husbands' and wives' conflict-promoting marital attributions also were related to parenting practices, which were related to children's attributions for negative parental behavior. Children's attributions also accounted for unique variance in ineffective parent-child communication. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)