Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1977. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 233-239).

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1992. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 78-82). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis--University of Wisconsin--Madison. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 122-132).

M.A.(Clinical Psychology) / Recently the concept of depression in children has been receiving much attention, in contrast to the previous decade when children were generally regarded as being incapable of experiencing depression. This study was conducted in an attempt to ascertain whether depressed children exhibited a depressogenic attributional style as predicted by the Reformulated Learned Helplessness Model of Depression (Abramson, Seligman & Teasdale, 1978), and whether these children's attributional style matched those of either of their parents. Furthermore, the childrearing practices of the parents were investigated in order to establish whether parental attributional style was transferred to children through a particular child-rearing style. The Children's Depression Inventory (Kovacs & Beck, 1977) was used to screen 166 privata school pupils, and an experimental and control group of 10 pupils each was formed on the basis of criterion scores. The KASTAN (Kaslow, Tannenbaum & Seligman, 1978) was the instrument employed to assess the attributional style of the children. Both mothers and fathers of the experimental and control groups were required, separately, to complete the Attributional Style Questionnaire (Peterson, Semmel, Abramson, Seligman & von Baeyer, 1978), which assesses adult attributional style and the Child-Rearing Practices Questionnaire (Dielman, Catell, Lepper & Rhoades, 1971). Data obtained from the investigation were subjected to t-tests, and Pearson product-moment correlation co-efficients were calculated to determine any significant differences and associations, respectively, between variables. The results of the study did not substantiate the hypotheses. It was suggested that perhaps the initial screening instrument, the Children's Depression Inventory, differentiated children with a general emotional disturbance, rather than depression per se, and that children develop attributional styles independently of their parents' style and childrearing practices. It was suggested that the development of an attributional style in children was related to their own experiential world.

No description available.

published_or_final_version / Psychology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

The purpose of this study was to develop a Navajo Intercultural Sensitizer. It is an attempt to sensitize non-Navajo educational personnel who have come to work in the Navajo Nation to the attributional system of the Navajo culture. The assimilationist, culturally destructive educational policies of the past have been an objective failure. This effort attempts to build on the cultural strengths of Navajo people by promoting the acknowledgement, respect, and understanding of cultural differences. The method used is based on the identification of critical incidents that produce misunderstanding, confusion, or bad feelings between Anglo and Navajo people. The construction of the Navajo Intercultural Sensitizer involves four phases: episode generation, episode selection and construction, attribution elicitation, and attribution selection. Critical incidents (87) were gathered from Navajo students, teachers, and teachers' aides at two Reservation sites. Fifty-six of the incidents were selected by an eight person bilingual and bicultural panel of Navajos who were community and educational leaders. Attributions were elicited in response to the incidents and questions posed. An Anglo sample was drawn from students who were entering the fields of education, educational psychology, counseling, and clinical psychology. Attributions were elicited from them upon presentation of each episode and associated questions concerning the thoughts, feelings, or behavior of the Navajo participant in the incident. An empirical test, consisting of 56 incidents and the question associated with each episode, was administered to a sample of Navajos (n = 70) from two Reservation sites and the Anglo group (n = 56). Each question was followed by four choices. Forty-six of the incidents yielded significant (p < .05) differences in the attributions chosen by the two cultural groups in a chi-square test of significance. These incidents, plus two more, were used in the development of the Navajo Intercultural Sensitizer. The ICS is in a programmed instructional format. The learner is presented with the incident, the question and four plausible attributions. The task of the learner is to learn how the Navajos tended to attribute meaning to the incident.

Three experiments were conducted to extend the Jones and Nisbett (172) hypothesis, concerning the divergent perspectives of observers and actors, to counselors observing clients. Following the notion developed by Storms (1973) and others that point of view is a salient fact-or in creating one's perceptual bias of observers, the present research presented subjects with a point of view similar to that of a counselor observing a client in a counseling interview. Subjects were shown three videotaped segments of two actors engaged in brief simulations of counseling interviews. One actor -was designated the "client." The second actor was designated, the "counselor." Subjects rated the "clients'" behaviors on an attributional questionnaire adapted from Storms' (1973) model. The key items required subjects to rate the degree to which "client" behavior was caused by "personal characteristics" of the client "characteristics of the situation". In the first experiment (Pilot of Study), forty-eight undergraduate students viewed only the "client" or the "counselor" in a series of three taped interviews. The experimental expectation that subjects viewing "clients" from the "counselors view" would rate their behavior as relatively more dispositionally than situationally caused was not confirmed. To test the hypothesis that these results were representative of the sample of naive subjects rather than artifacts of the experimental procedure, this group was compared to a group of doctoral level counselors. The counselors' ratings were significantly more dispositional than were the ratings of the naive subjects. It was suggested that the situational responses of naive subjects to the counselor-view tapes might be typical of naive persons observing a counseling interview. It was suggested that naive subjects identified with the more familiar role of the "client" thus adopting the client's perspective of the situation. Consequently, the tapes were judged effective for further experimental use.A second experiment, utilizing the counselor-view tapes, tested the hypothesis that attributional bias among student counselors may be reduced by special training. Two groups of student counselors were compared using a pretest-posttest design. One group received a treatment between testings labelled "Attending to Situational Cues". The second group served as a control, receiving no special treatment. No differences in degree of attributional bias were found between the two groups before or after treatment. It was concluded that the attributional bias of student counselors was resistant to the experimental treatment.In the third experiment a group of twenty experienced counselors rated the same counselor-view video tapes used in the previous experiments. It was expected that bias created by perceptual focus would be exhibited by subjects regardless of level of counselor training and experience. As expected, experienced counselors rated "client" behavior as caused relatively more by personal characteristics of the "client" than by characteristics of the situation. The attributional ratings of the experienced counselors, the student counselors and the naive subjects were then compared. There were significant differences between all groups. Experienced counselors exhibited significantly more dispositional bias than either student counselors or naive subjects. Student counselors exhibited significantly less dispositional bias than experienced counselors and significantly more than naive subjects. It was suggested that the attributional bias common to other observers increases among counselors with increased training and experience. Implications for the training of counselors were discussed.

Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-81).