The effects of contingency training, instructor expressiveness, and student incentives on student achievement and attributions were investigated in a simulated college classroom. The following conditions were involved: a contingency manipulation resembling an aptitude test; an instructor lecture; two levels of student incentive; and an achievement…

The reluctance of depressed people to try hard may result not from their low expectancy for success, as Learned Helplessness Theory suggests, but rather from egotistic motivation to preserve whatever self-esteem they still have. Two studies were conducted using a paradigm which permitted a direct comparison of Learned Helplessness Theory and…

Learned helplessness has recently incorporated attribution theory to predict the specific occurrence/nonoccurrence of the motivational, cognitive and affective deficits characteristic of helplessness. College students (N=50) participated in a study to investigate the effects of a personal-universal helplessness manipulation on subsequent task…

Abramson, Seligman and Teasdale's reformulated model of learned helplessness hypothesized that an attribution of causality intervenes between the perception of noncontingency and the future expectation of future noncontingency. To test this model, relationships between attribution and performance under failure, success, and control conditions were…

Both cognitive and learned helplessness models of depression stress the importance of low self-esteem in the etiology of depression and depressive symptomatology. To investigate the correlations and causal relationship of low self-esteem to depressive cognition, equal groups of low, medium, and high self-esteem college students (N=135; 89 female,…

Recent research on domestic violence has sought to provide insight into the psychological consequences of such violence. A conceptual framework, which suggests that both situational and person-centered factors contribute to adjustment to violence and affect a woman's personal and social resources, was formulated to examine the impact of stress,…

Loneliness has been implicated as a central causal factor in depression, suicide, social problems, physical illness and general maladjustment. To investigate the correlates of loneliness in gifted adolescents, 175 adolescents (aged 14-17) who had been separated from their homes to participate in a special academic program completed a battery of…

Noting that loss of control is a major concern confronting patients experiencing an illness, this paper critically analyzes the research literature on control and clarifies the implications of this research for provider-patient communication. The paper first defines control, noting that the most frequently cited definition is the "locus of…