Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Florida, 1983. / Description based on print version record. Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-119).

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2005. / Includes bibliographies.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 86 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-59).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 1985. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 189-205). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.

Thesis (Honors)--College of William and Mary, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 51-62). Also available via the World Wide Web.

This thesis is a constructive attempt to unravel the dilemma posed by Mischel's (1968) work with trait and state theories of personality, through the use of a novel design. Mischel found a failure to predict behavior incrementally from inferences about underlying traits (personalities) and states (situations). This impasse is demonstrated in attribution theory by the difference between Kelley's (1967) emphasis on environmental cues (i.e., consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness) in attributional situations, and Russell's (1982) search for an attributional style (specific to the individual). This thesis shows the relative influence of the situation and one's personality in attributions to a successful subordinate. Subjects were 527 psychology students at Florida International University (FIU). They completed James' (1957) Internal-External (I-E) Locus of Control Scale, to distinguish between internal, mid-range, and external personalities. Each subject read one of the vignettes about an army event that varied according to Kelley's (1967) (1) internal, (2) ambiguous, and (3) external patterns, and was asked to make an attribution about the depicted event (i.e., they completed the locus of causality subscale of the Causal Dimension Scale [CDS]). These attribution making scores constitute a major dependent variable of interest. The degree of attributional difficulty experienced by the subject and the evaluative disposition of the subject toward the actions in the vignette were tapped as opportunistic dependent variables. Afterwards, subjects indicated their willingness to complete evaluative forms on the subordinates in the vignettes. This measured the subject's willingness to reward the subordinate, and constitutes another dependent variable of major interest in this study. MANOVA was used to account for the variance in the dependent variables (i.e., attribution making, attributional difficulty, evaluative disposition, and evaluative behavior). The 3 X 4 (personality X situation) MANOVA showed that the situation significantly accounted for the variance in all four dependent variables, while the subjects' personality significantly accounted for attributional difficulty and evaluative disposition. I discuss the possibility that personality distinguished the more private cognitions (since those analyses were significant) from the more public cognitions (which were not significant). I conclude that the strong situational influence supports Mischel's findings. Future researchers would do well to utilize an integrated research design (as this study has done) with processes involving personality and situation antecedents.

Paulhus's (1984) Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) contains scales designed to assess the two major components of socially desirable responding. The Self-Deception Scale (SDS) assesses the tendency to give favorably biased but honestly-held self-descriptions; the Impression Management Scale (IMS) assesses the tendency to give deliberately favorable self-descriptions. Research by Millham (1974) and Roth, Snyder and Pace (1986) has distinguished two tactics of desirable responding: (a) attribution: the claiming of positive attributes, and (b) denial: the rejection of negative attributes. This thesis presents three studies designed to evaluate the relative importance of these two distinctions in the BIDR. The first study, a factor analysis of 130 cases, demonstrated that both the content (self-deception vs. impression-management) and tactic (attribution vs. denial) were important in determining responses to the BIDR. The IMS items, including both attribution and denial, formed one factor. The attribution SDS items fell on a second factor. Surprisingly, the denial SDS items fell closer to the IMS factor. Rosenberg's Self-Esteem scale was most highly correlated with the attribution SDS items. Study 2 was a similar factor analysis of the data from a much larger dataset (N = 670). The factor pattern was identical to that in Study 1. Moreover, the SDS attribution items again predicted adjustment, including high self-esteem, low social anxiety and low empathic distress. Study 3 (N = 137) was designed to determine whether the critical difference between the attribution and denial items depends on: (a) whether the item refers to positive or negative attributes, or (b) whether the statement as a whole is favorable or unfavorable. To test these competing hypotheses, 20 negations were written, one for each of the 20 original assertions on the SDS. Results showed that items referring to positive characteristics (I am a saint; I am not a saint) formed a distinct factor from items referring to negative characteristics (I am a sinner; I am not a sinner). Simple negations (I am not a sinner) fell on the same factor as their corresponding assertions (I am a sinner) but at the opposite pole. Finally, the correlations with various personality measures were consistent with Studies 1 and 2. These results clarify the distinction between attribution and denial components. The distinction is not simply one of keying direction, that is, whether the statement as a whole is desirable or undesirable. Rather, the critical factor is whether the item content refers to a positive or negative characteristic. This distinction is critical in measuring self-deception, but not impression management. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The reformulated learned helplessness model posits that individuals who make internal, stable and global attributions for undesired outcomes are more likely than others to become depressed when faced with important life events that are perceived as uncontrollable. Seligman, Abramson, Semmel and von Baeyer (1979) found significant correlations between attributional style and concurrent measures of depression in a sample of college undergraduates. The purpose of the present study was to address two questions arising from the Seligman et al. study within the context of the event of childbirth. The first question was whether the relationship between depressive attributional style and concurrent depression found in college undergraduates could be extended to women anticipating the birth of their first child. The second question was whether depressive attributional style would have predictive utility with this group, that is, whether women's prenatal attributional style would be predictive of depression in the first week postpartum. The results provide neglible support for the notion of depressive attributional style as defined by the reformulated learned helplessness hypothesis. Although this study was not designed to test hypotheses based upon any other model of depression, the findings were consistent with Beck's (1967) formulation. Several alternative explanations for the discrepancy between the present findings and those reported by Seligman et al. are discussed. Notably, 17% of this relatively homogeneous sample of primiparous women reported depression of clinical severity during the first week postpartum. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

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