Self- and peer perceptions and attributional biases of aggressive and nonaggressive boys in dyadic interactions.

This study assessed differences in self-perceptions, peer perceptions, and attributions of relative responsibility for 20 aggressive and 18 nonaggressive boys. Subjects completed semantic differential ratings of themselves and of their peer partners following a brief competitive dyadic discussion, and research assistants also rated videotapes of the interactions. The four experimental cells consisting of aggressive and nonaggressive subjects interacting with similar and opposite-status peers were found to be appropriately comparable on actual behavior during the interaction task. The results indicate that aggressive boys' perceptual and attributional biases do operate in actual social interactions. In comparison with nonaggressive boys, aggressive boys minimized their perceptions of their own aggressiveness and perceived their peer partners as more aggressive than they themselves were. An opposite pattern was found for nonaggressive boys. The differences in perceptions and attributions were significantly evident only in dyads of boys with different behavioral status. The implications of this attributional pattern for perceived responsibility are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An attributional analysis of excuse giving: Studies of a naive theory of emotion.

We conducted four studies that pertained to excuses given for a broken social contract. In an initial field investigation, participants recalled occasions in which they had given true and false reasons for not fulfilling a social obligation. Communicated reasons tended to be external to the person, uncontrollable, and unintentional, whereas withheld reasons tended to be internal, controllable, and either intentional or unintentional. The external uncontrollable excuses were anticipated to lessen the anger of the wronged party. In a subsequent simulation study, excuses based on the categories detected in Experiment I were manipulated and related to anger ratings. The same pattern of results was displayed, with intent and negligence provoking the highest anger ratings. In Experiment 3, a confederate conveyed either an internal controllable, an external uncontrollable, or no reason for making a subject wait, whereas in Experiment 4, subjects were detained and created their own good, bad, any, or no excuse for being tardy, which was communicated to a second, waiting subject. A consistent pattern of good excuse/external uncontrollable reason and bad excuse/internal controllable reason was displayed; offering no excuse resulted in the same judgments as giving a poor excuse. Relative to the external uncontrollable reasons, internal controllable excuses for being late augmented aversive emotional reactions, increased negative personality ratings, and resulted in a desire for no further social contact. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social-cognitive processes of severly violent, moderately aggressive, and nonaggressive boys.

Examined social–cognitive processes of aggressive and nonaggressive boys at preadolescent and early adolescent age levels. The social-cognitive variables included processing of cues, attributions, social problem solving, affect labeling, outcome expectations, and perceived competence and self-worth. Results indicated that a wide range of social-cognitive processes is distorted and deficient for violent and moderately aggressive children, and that different types of social cognition contribute unique variance in discriminating among groups. Severely violent boys at both age levels had difficulties with cue recall, attributions, social problem solving, general self-worth, and a pattern of endorsing unusually positive affects that they may experience in different settings. Moderately aggressive boys shared some of the social-cognitive difficulties demonstrated by severely violent boys, but they also displayed indications that their aggression may be more planfully aimed to achieve expected outcomes. When the moderately aggressive and the violent boys differed from the nonaggressive boys on attributional biases and low perceived self-worth, a continuum existed with violent boys displaying more extreme social-cognitive dysfunctions than the moderately aggressive boys. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Delusional behavior: An attributional analysis of development and modification.

Presents the case of a 37-yr-old Black male who complained that he was having sexual intercourse with a "warm form." The otherwise normally functioning S was treated using a reattribution procedure. The case illustrates the utility of attribution theory as a model for understanding the development and maintenance of delusions in addition to providing a basis for their modification. It is argued that the proper focus of attribution theory lies in changing cognitions and not overt behavior by veridical rather than deceptive manipulations. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An attributional analysis of commitment.

C. A. Kiesler (1971) suggested that commitment to an act can be equated with feelings of self-responsibility for that act. This analysis implies that factors affecting attribution of self-responsibility for an act should also affect commitment. Two studies with a total of 93 male undergraduates supported the notion that attribution of self-responsibility for an act increases commitment to that act. Increasing self-focus (Exp I) increased commitment, and increasing the number of plausible causes present (Exp II) decreased commitment to a chosen act. Furthermore, in an effort to determine the role that perceived choice plays in the attributional process leading to commitment, perceived choice was also manipulated. Results indicate that choice clearly affected attribution to self and thus commitment, but choice did not appear to be absolutely essential to that process. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hostile attributional biases in severely aggressive adolescents.

128 adolescent boys (aged 14 yrs 2 mo to 19 yrs) from a maximum security prison for juvenile offenders were administered a task to assess hostile attributional biases. As hypothesized, these biases were positively correlated with undersocialized aggressive conduct disorder (as indicated by high scores on standardized scales and by psychiatric diagnoses), with reactive-aggressive behavior, and with the number of interpersonally violent crimes committed. Hostile attributional biases were found not to relate to nonviolent crimes or to socialized aggressive behavior disorder. These findings held even when race and estimates of intelligence and socioeconomic status (SES) were controlled. These findings suggest that within a population of juvenile offenders, attributional biases are implicated specifically in interpersonal reactive aggression that involves anger and not in socialized delinquency. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

May I borrow your class notes? An attributional analysis of judgments of help giving in an achievement-related context.

Two simulation experiments described a student seeking to borrow class notes. The notes were needed either because of a lack of academic effort or because of a physical disability. The perceived controllability of the cause, affective reactions, and the likelihood of lending one's notes were ascertained. A total of 245 undergraduates served as Ss. It was found that (a) lack of effort, perceived controllability, anger, and neglect and (b) lack of ability, perceived uncontrollability, pity, and help formed 2 constellations of associations. There was also suggestive evidence of an attribution–affect–action motivational sequence, in which thoughts determine what is felt and feelings determine what is done. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An attributional analysis of reactions to stigmas.

In two experiments, we examined the perceived controllability and stability of the causes of 10 stigmas. Guided by attribution theory, we also ascertained the affective reactions of pity and anger, helping judgments, and the efficacy of five intervention techniques. In the first study we found that physically based stigmas were perceived as onset-uncontrollable, and elicited pity, no anger, and judgments to help. On the other hand, mental-behavioral stigmas were perceived as onset-controllable, and elicited little pity, much anger, and judgments to neglect. In addition, physically based stigmas were perceived as stable, or irreversible, whereas mental-behavioral stigmas were generally considered unstable, or reversible. The perceived efficacy of disparate interventions was guided in part by beliefs about stigma stability. In the second study we manipulated perceptions of causal controllability. Attributional shifts resulted in changes in affective responses and behavioral judgments. However, attributional alteration was not equally possible for all the stigmas. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Avoidance of the handicapped: An attributional ambiguity analysis.

Conducted 2 experiments with a total of 64 undergraduates to demonstrate a general strategy for detecting motives that people wish to conceal. The strategy involves having people choose between 2 alternatives, one of which happens to satisfy the motive. By counterbalancing which one does so, it is possible to distill the motive by examining the pattern of choice that people make. The motive employed was the desire to avoid the physically handicapped. It was predicted that because most people would not wish to reveal this desire, they would be more likely to act on it if they could appear to be choosing on some other basis. Results show that Ss avoided the handicapped more often if the decision to do so was also a decision between 2 movies and avoidance of the handicapped could masquerade as a movie preference. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal abilities in young aggressive boys.

Academic failure and poor verbal abilities are commonplace in older children with aggressive behavior problems. The present study addressed the question of whether a similar pattern would be observed in young aggressive boys. A variety of verbal and nonverbal abilities were examined in 71 pairs of aggressive and normal boys in kindergarten-2nd grade. Significant differences favoring normals were observed on the WISC Information, Similarities, Block Design, Mazes, Performance IQ, and Full Scale IQ subscales; Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities Auditory Reception and Grammatic Closure subscales; and the Wide Range Achievement Test Reading subscale. Results do not indicate a generalized deficit in verbal development among young aggressive boys; however, findings support the interpretation that some deficit in mediational use of verbal ability may be present in aggressive boys. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal mediation in young aggressive boys.

Compared the performance of 49 aggressive and 46 normal boys ages 77–97 mo on measures of verbal ability, types of self-guiding speech, nonverbal intelligence, reading achievement, impulsivity, ability to inhibit responses, and response modulation following overt and covert commands. Tests administered included the Boehm Test of Basic Concepts, Matching Familiar Figures Test, and portions of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, WISC-R, Wide Range Achievement Test, and Wepman Test of Auditory Discrimination. Discriminant function analysis resulted in correct classification of 88% of the cases. Variables with high scores contributing to classification as aggressive included vocabulary, immature and irrelevant private speech, fast reaction times, baseline speed of finger tapping, inhibition errors, and speed of responding during covert commands for slowing. Results are interpreted as consistent with the formulation that young aggressive boys fail to use verbal mediational activity in many situations in which it would be appropriate, and when it does occur, covert mediational activity may fail to achieve functional control over behavior. It is hypothesized that both learning and behavior problems in aggressive boys may be symptomatic of an ineffective linguistic control system. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Biased decision-making processes in aggressive boys.

Recent evidence has suggested that aggressive boys demonstrate a bias toward attributing hostility to peers in unwarranted circumstances. The present study explored 2 aspects of cognitive processing that might be related to attributional bias: speed of decision making and selective recall of hostile cues. 81 aggressive and nonaggressive boys at 3 age levels (kindergarten–2st grade, 2nd–3rd, and 4th–5th) participated in a detective game in which the task was to accumulate evidence to decide whether or not a peer had acted with benevolence or hostility. Aggressive boys were found to respond more quickly and with less attention to available social cues. They also overattributed hostility to peers in unwarranted circumstances, but only when they responded quickly. This restriction suggests that training aggressive boys to respond more slowly could lead to fewer biased attributions on their part. Selective recall was also related to biased attributions for both groups of boys. This suggests that training boys to recall all cues nonselectively could reduce the frequency of their biased attributions. Results are discussed in terms of a cognitive model of aggressive behavior. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differences in alcohol expectancy between aggressive and nonaggressive social drinkers

Previous reports have shown that drinkers with aggressive personalities not only hold the strongest beliefs that alcohol facilitates aggressive behavior, but they also display the greatest increases in laboratory aggression after receiving alcohol. Given that several studies have demonstrated that a portion of the behavioral and subjective effects of alcohol are due to psychological expectancy, this study explored whether aggressive drinkers have elevated intoxication expectancies from laboratory beverages with unknown alcohol content. The rates of aggressive responses emitted in a money subtraction aggression model under baseline conditions were used to select an aggressive group and a nonaggressive group, each with five male and five female participants. Subjects then ingested and rated each of three placebo (1 ml alcohol) beverages administered hourly during a subsequent laboratory visit, and rated a series of three 0.35 g/kg of alcohol beverages the following day. Whereas nonaggressive subjects clearly discriminated the relative alcohol content of alcohol and placebo drinks, aggressive subjects gave progressively elevated shot equivalent ratings to placebo drinks, similar to their ratings of alcohol doses. However, despite similar self-reported drinking histories, aggressive subjects reported anticipating only half the intoxication from the alcohol doses (and in fact achieved a lower peak breath alcohol concentration) than was expected by nonaggressive subjects.     

An attributional analysis of student help-seeking in academic settings.

Examined the students' decisions to seek help as a function of prior level of performance, attribution for prior performance, and availability of information about the potential usefulness of help sessions. The actual attendance rate of 198 undergraduates at help sessions prior to a major exam was assessed. Attitudinal and behavioral data confirmed the hypothesis that those most likely to seek academic help were those who had performed poorly in the past, attributed their poor performance to factors that could be remediated by help sessions, and received information about the potential usefulness of the sessions. Ability, effort, and a variety of external attributions appeared to play a significant role in determining help-seeking behavior. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does adopted mean different? An attributional analysis.

46 adopted and 121 nonadopted Ss, aged 13–21 yrs and from upper-middle-class families, completed a series of attributional stories, Rotter's Internal–External Locus of Control Scale, and a perceived parenting questionnaire. Results indicate that attributions were different and that, contrary to expectations, adopted Ss were significantly more confident and viewed others more positively than nonadopted Ss. They also had a more internal locus of control than their nonadopted peers, and their adoptive parents were experienced as significantly more nurturant, comforting, predictable, protectively concerned, and helpful than were nonadoptive parents. It is suggested that an important correlate of attributional judgments is the parenting that is experienced. Results are discussed in terms of other studies that have reported an excessive number of adopted persons who have psychological problems. (51 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Familial and temperamental determinants of aggressive behavior in adolescent boys: A causal analysis.

On the basis of previous knowledge and theoretical considerations, a causal model was formulated and tested by path analysis on 2 representative samples of Swedish boys—76 13-yr-olds and 51 16-yr-olds. Ss' habitual aggression levels were assessed through peer ratings. Data on early rearing conditions and temperamental characteristics were obtained in retrospective interviews with all of the mothers and the majority of the fathers. Main results were that the 4 factors in the model—mother's negativism, mother's permissiveness for aggression, mother's and father's use of power-assertive methods, and boy's temperament—all contributed to the development of an aggressive reaction pattern, with the former 2 factors having the greatest causal impact. Results in the 2 samples were similar, and a substantial amount of variance in the boys' aggression levels could be explained by the variables included in the model. Neither the Ss' aggression level nor the rearing variables were related to the socioeconomic conditions of the family. (44 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive and neuropsychological characteristics of physically aggressive boys.

Cognitive–neuropsychological tests were given to adolescent boys (N?=?177) to investigate processes associated with physical aggression. Factor analysis yielded 4 factors representing verbal learning, incidental spatial learning, tactile–lateral ability, and executive functions. Physical aggression was assessed at ages 6, 10, 11, and 12, and 3 groups were created: stable aggressive, unstable aggressive, and nonaggressive. The authors found main effects for only the executive functions factor even when other factors were used as additional covariates in a step-down analysis; nonaggressive boys performed better than stable and unstable aggressive boys. The covariates family adversity and anxiety were both related only to the verbal learning factor. This study highlights the importance of deficits in executive function in the expression of physical aggression relative to other cognitive–neuropsychological functions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Family processes and risk for externalizing behavior problems among African American and Hispanic boys.

This study examined the relationship between family processes and risk for externalizing behavior problems among urban African American and Hispanic youth. The structural analysis of social behavior was used to code family interactions. Results indicate that high-risk boys were more submissive and less warm than low-risk boys. When they did assert themselves, high-risk boys tended to do so in a hostile manner. Parents of high-risk boys were more punitive and less nurturant than parents of low-risk boys. Regardless of risk status, African American boys were more assertive than Hispanic boys and African American parents were less controlling than Hispanic parents. These findings complement previous research on the development of antisocial behavior by highlighting the role of the adolescent in family processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of alcohol on the marital interactions of aggressive and nonaggressive husbands and their wives.

This study examined the marital interactions of 60 maritally aggressive and 75 nonaggressive men and their wives under a baseline condition, and then after the husband had received no alcohol, a placebo, or alcohol. These sessions were videotaped and coded with the Marital Interaction Coding System by coders who were unaware of group status and specific condition. Aggressive couples exhibited more negative behavior and higher levels of negative reciprocity in the baseline interaction than did nonaggressive couples. The administration of alcohol led husbands, but not wives, to increase their problem-solving attempts. Alcohol, but not the placebo, led to increased negativity of both husbands and wives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)