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Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / Despite community policing interventions, rape incidence in South Africa reflects a consistent increase over the past decade. Victim blame continues to be a pervasive aspect of this trauma - where society blames the victim more than the perpetrator for the rape. In unpacking the complexities of victim blame, research has identified sex role orientation of the observer as an important variable. Given that the polic service is often the first contact a rape victim has with the criminal justice system, this study investigated how sex role orientation impacts on rape victim blame in a sample of police officers. / South Africa

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A questionnaire was used to study causal attribution to social roles as influenced by perceived deviance of the role, instructions to identify with the role, and participant gender. The perceived deviance or nondeviance of the roles was determined by a pilot study. The roles were varied randomly through 12 hypothetical events, and identification or nonidentification instructions randomly assigned. The participants were 194 male and female university students. Participants gave the cause of each event and rated the cause on five dimensions: internality, externality, stability, globality, and controllability. Causal attribution to deviant social roles was found to result in a significantly higher across-scales score and to be more internal, less external, and more global than attribution to nondeviant roles. Participant gender showed an interaction with deviance overall and on the dimensions of stability and globality due to significantly higher ratings by women participants than those by men. Identification instructions did not produce a significant effect.

This study attempted to extend the concept of achievement motivation, as proposed by Weiner's attributional model, to social affiliative contexts. It was proposed that low social anxiety individuals behave like high achievement motivation individuals who make more self-attributions for success, but more external attributions for failure, whereas high social anxiety individuals take more personal responsibility for failure social outcomes, but make more external attributions when successful. Subjects were 243 undergraduate students, 143 females and 100 males. They completed the Leary Social Anxiety Scale, the Lefcourt Affiliation Locus of Control Scale, the Fenigstein Social Anxiety Scale, the Social Attribution Scale, and the Russell Causal Dimension Scale.

Previous research has linked attributional style in children to self-esteem, loneliness, depression, general distress, and reading persistence to the learning disabled. The current study sough to determine if specific attributional styles in children were correlated with their length of stay in a behaviorally based Alternative Education program. Sixty-two first-grade through sixth-grade children were recruited from two Alternative Education campuses in Polk County, Florida. They each completed two administrations of the Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire (CASQ), separated by a two-week interval, and one administration of the performance Expectation Questionnaire, (PEQ), which assessed the children's expectation of their ability to perform tasks specific to the responses cost system of the Alternative Education program. A backward stepwise multiple regression analysis was used to determine the relationship among attributional style, self-efficacy, and length of stay in the Alternative Education program. It was predicted that internal-stable-global attributions for failure, external-unstable-specific attributions for success, and both the level and strength of efficacy expectations would all correlate significantly with length of stay. None of the hypotheses were supported.

One hundred and twenty six undergraduates were cast into a supervisory role in which they worked with a subordinate (confederate) for two twenty minute work sessions. Subjects were placed into one of nine conditions. Subordinate reaction (positive, negative, or none) and subsequent performance (increased, decreased, or same) were manipulated by the confederate. Both reaction conditions were predicted to influence a leniency bias in the supervisor's rating behavior, and either increase (negative reaction), or decrease (positive reaction) amount of supervision. Also, supervisors exposed to the positive reaction were hypothesized to provide more self attributions, while supervisors in the negative reaction group should tend toward greater self-serving attributions. In addition, supervisor response to interpersonal attraction, conflict avoidance, and uncertainty scales were obtained. Both ratings and amount of supervision measures failed to yield significant results. Partial support was found for the attribution hypothesis, and differences on the interpersonal attraction scales were obtained for the experimental reaction conditions. Implications of the results and suggestions for possible research are discussed. / Master of Science

Attribution theory has been used to explain the responses of individuals to others behavior. Previous research has shown that attributions for performance can influence rater's judgments and the sex of the ratee has been shown to influence the attributions made for performance. Discrepant information was used to cue the formation of attributions and these attributions were predicted to mediate the relationship between the subjects' existing view of a manager's performance and subsequent performance ratings. It was hypothesized that different attributions would be made depending on the sex of the manager and the direction of the discrepant information (positive or negative) and that these attributions would be related to performance ratings. First, no relationship between attributions and performance ratings was found. Second, the expected pattern of attributions was only found for the female manager/positive discrepancy condition. Finally, performance ratings within the positive and negative discrepancy conditions did not differ as a function of sex. Limitations of this study, possible explanations of the current results, and suggestions for future research are discussed. / Master of Science

This study examined problem-solving and causal attributional styles as possible diatheses for depression, hopelessness and suicidal ideation, given the onset of a stressor. In order to evaluate the predictive validity of these models, subjects were evaluated prospectively, before the occurrance of a naturalistic stressor, namely a midterm examination. Subjects were administered a modified version of the Means-Ends Problem Solving Scale (Platt & Spivack, 1975) to evaluate their problem-solving ability on a hypothetical task, the Problem Solving Inventory (Heppner, 1986) to evaluate perceived problem-solving ability, and the Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson, et al., 1982) to evaluate their causal attributional styles. The Life Experience Survey (Sarason, et al., 1978) was administered to evaluate other stressors in the subjects lives. Hypotheses included: 1) actual problem-solving deficits, 2) perceived problem solving deficits, and 3) an internal, stable and global causal attributional style will interact with both measures of stress to predict depression, hopelessness and suicidal ideation. Results supported each of the hypotheses, though the diatheses differed in their predictive ability depending upon the measure of stress used or the criteria examined. / Master of Science

Problematic situations involving managers and employees can be dysfunctional in the work setting. Resolution of these problems often requires giving feedback that is specific, empathic, and in a spirit of inquiry. This research tested the effects of a learning intervention designed to intercept attributional bias and untested inference through training in feedback. An experimental field study was conducted in a large municipal government to address manager-subordinate feedback. Pre and post test measures were used to answer three research questions: What are the effects of training in feedback on managers' (1) perceived effectiveness of their work groups, (2) attributional bias of their Least Effective Subordinate, and (3) use of feedback skills with employees. / Ed. D.