Thesis (M.A. in communication)--Washington State University, May 2009. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on July 27, 2009). "Edward R. Murrow College of Communication." Includes bibliographical references (p. 39-46).

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Negativity and Hedonic Relevance are examined as factors potentially influencing attributions associated with changes in the built environment. Ninety-nine male and female university students participated on a "survey" testing the extension of previous research identifying these variables as biasing perceivers toward asserting "person" as opposed to "situational" causation. As predicted, increased negativity resulted in significantly more inferences of negative dispositions to only implicitly involved actors. A significant interaction effect was also identified between negativity and gender, with males making more attributions of causality (blame) in response to a more negative event, as predicted for all subjects, and females making less. No new evidence for the role of Hedonic Relevance was identified due to failure of the associated manipulation. A greater focus on gender differences in future attribution research is recommended, as is a greater awareness among architects and planners of the psychological processes underlying the experience of environmental change.

Research has shown that aggressive children demonstrate a bias toward attributing hostility to peers in unwarranted circumstances. This bias has been found to be associated with speed of responding and recall of hostile cues. This study aimed to develop a scale to investigate the role of similar cognitive biases in the decisionmaking processes of adult psychopaths. The development of the scale to measure the decision-making processes involved in adults when dealing with ambiguous situations is described, and normative data provided for 56 normal adults. The role of recall of hostile information in the decision-making process is examined, as are the effects of the amount of information used to make a decision. The results show the presence of similar biases to those found in children, namely - those individuals who encode and thus recall more hostile information tend to interpret ambiguous situations in a more hostile manner and make more unwarranted hostile decisions, especially when they make their decisions quickly and based on little information. Although in adults it seems this process is not related specifically to hostile individuals, when high levels of hostility are combined with quick responding this leads to these individuals making the most unwarranted hostile decisions of all. It is also shown that slowing down the decision-making process and instructing individuals to attend to all available information before making a decision results in marked improvements in accuracy of decisions made and reduces the number of unwarranted hostile decisions made. The results are discussed in relation to Dodge's (1986) social information processing model, and implications for treatment are highlighted.

M.A. (Psychology) / Test anxiety has been widely researched in terms of its etiology and treatment. However, the results have been somewhat inconclusive, pointing to the fact that cognitive variables have not been accorded with the necessary amount of explanatory weight. The literature seemed to indicate that attribution of success and failure in test-related situations as well as the appropriate interpretation of cues in test-related information would account for a significant proportion of the variance observed in test anxiety. It was the purpose of this study to determine the extent and nature of the influence of attributional style and cue usage in test anxiety. In order to test the hypotheses two groups of students were selected. The experimental group consisted of students with high scores on two measures of test anxiety, and the control group consisted of students with low scores on the measures of test anxiety. These groups were then compare on scores of attributional style and cue usage. The hypotheses for the study were not supported. The results were discussed in the context of test anxiety approaching a phobic nature rather than a generalized anxiety state.

by Ma Yuen-kwan. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 82-93). / Text in English; abstracts in English and Chinese. / by Ma Yuen-kwan. / LIST OF TABLES --- p.i / ABBREVIATIONS AND FULL DESCRIPTION OF THE EVENTS --- p.iii / Chapter CHAPTER 1 --- INTRODUCTION / Chapter 1.1 --- Background and problem of the study --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Purpose of the study --- p.4 / Chapter 1.3 --- Significance of the study --- p.4 / Chapter CHAPTER 2 --- REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE / Chapter 2.1 --- The phenomenon of learned helplessness --- p.6 / Chapter 2.2 --- The original learned helplessness model --- p.7 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- The experiment -- an animal research --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- Effects found in the animals of the experiment --- p.9 / Chapter -- --- Motivational deficit / Chapter -- --- Cognitive deficit / Chapter -- --- Emotional deficit / Chapter -- --- Performance deficit / Chapter 2.2.3 --- The human research --- p.10 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Inadequacies of the original model --- p.12 / Chapter 2.3 --- The reformulated learned helplessness model --- p.13 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Causal attributions in learned helplessness --- p.13 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Internality in learned helplessness --- p.13 / Chapter -- --- "Self-esteem loss, personal helplessness and universal helplessness" / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Stability in learned helplessness --- p.14 / Chapter -- --- Chronic helplessness and temporary helplessness / Chapter 2.3.4 --- Globality in learned helplessness --- p.15 / Chapter -- --- Pervasive helplessness and specific helplessness / Chapter 2.4 --- Instruments of measuring attributional styles and their psychometric properties --- p.16 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- The Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) --- p.17 / Chapter -- --- Internal consistency / Chapter -- --- Consistency across goal areas (achievement-affiliation) / Chapter -- --- Consistency across outcomes (good-bad) / Chapter -- --- Intercorrelations of dimensions (internal-stable-global) / Chapter -- --- Stability / Chapter -- --- Validity / Chapter 2.4.2 --- The Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire (Expanded ASQ) --- p.23 / Chapter 2.4.3 --- The Children's Attributional Style Questionnaire (CASQ) --- p.24 / Chapter 2.4.4 --- The Content Analysis of Verbatim Explanations (CAVE Technique) --- p.26 / Chapter CHAPTER 3 --- METHOD / Chapter 3.1 --- Definitions --- p.28 / Chapter 3.1.1 --- Learned helplessness --- p.28 / Chapter 3.1.2 --- Dimensionality --- p.29 / Chapter 3.2 --- Hypotheses --- p.30 / Chapter 3.3 --- Subjects --- p.33 / Chapter 3.3.1 --- The preliminary investigation --- p.33 / Chapter 3.3.2 --- The pilot study --- p.34 / Chapter 3.3.3 --- The main study --- p.34 / Chapter 3.4 --- Instrument --- p.35 / The Chinese Attributional Style Questionnaire (CHASQ) / Chapter -- --- A critical examination on the applicability of the ASQ / Chapter -- --- The identification and categorization of hypothetical events / Chapter -- --- The item construction of the CHASQ / Chapter -- --- The pilot study of the CHASQ / Chapter -- --- The scoring system of the CHASQ / Chapter 3.5 --- Procedure --- p.42 / Chapter 3.5.1 --- The preliminary investigation --- p.43 / Chapter 3.5.2 --- The pilot study --- p.43 / Chapter 3.5.3 --- The main study --- p.43 / Chapter 3.6 --- Analyses --- p.43 / Chapter 3.7 --- Limitations --- p.44 / Chapter CHAPTER 4 --- RESULTS AND DISCUSSION / Chapter 4.1 --- The pilot study --- p.46 / Chapter 4.2 --- The main study --- p.51 / Chapter -- --- Reliability of the CHASQ / Chapter -- --- Means and standard deviations / Chapter -- --- Factor structure of the CHASQ / Chapter -- --- Intercorrelations among the individual dimension scoresin aversive events / Chapter -- --- Intercorrelations among the individual dimension scoresin positive events / Chapter -- --- Group difference (between high-banding and low-banding subjects) of individual dimensions in both achievement and affiliative events / Chapter -- --- Attributional styles of the sampled subjects with the real life experiences / Chapter CHAPTER 5 --- "CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS" / Chapter 5.1 --- Conclusion --- p.77 / Chapter 5.2 --- Implications --- p.78 / Chapter 5.3 --- Recommendations --- p.80 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- The evaluation of the validity of the contextualized CHASQ (Chinese Attributional Style Questionnaire) --- p.80 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Qualitative studies on the phenomenon of learned helplessness --- p.81 / REFERENCES --- p.82 / APPENDIX / Chapter A. --- Questionnaire of the preliminary investigation --- p.94 / Chapter B. --- Categorization of the good and bad events in achievement- related and affiliative domains --- p.100 / Chapter C. --- Suggestions of the hypothetical events for the Chinese Attributional Style Questionnaire --- p.101 / Chapter D. --- A preliminary draft of the Chinese Attributional Style Questionnaire (CHASQ;華人歸因模式問卷初稿） --- p.102 / Chapter E. --- A final draft of the Chinese Attributional Style Questionnaire (CHASQ;華人歸因模式問卷定稿） --- p.114

Rapporten handlar om hur människor attribuerar, det vill säga tillskriver, orsaker till beteenden i moralbaserade situationer och om det finns skillnad i hur män och kvinnor attribuerar beteenden. För att undersöka hur människor attribuerar har man i denna undersökning låtit män och kvinnor göra bedömningar om varför man själv eller ”någon av samma ålder och kön” gör som de gör i specifika situationer. Detta gjordes i en enkät innehållande två situationer med vardera fyra orsaker som rangordnas efter hur troliga de är som anledning till vad som hände i situationen. Enligt resultaten finns det en signifikant skillnad i hur människor attribuerar beteenden men det beror på vilken situation de befinner sig i. Resultaten påvisar inte någon signifikant skillnad i hur män och kvinnor attribuerar sitt och andras beteenden.

The study seeks to discover whether different cultural orientations will result in individuals making dispositional attribution or situational attribution regarding negative information about a celebrity endorser. Second, the study seeks to discover whether consumers in different cultures evaluate different types of negative celebrity information differently. Third, the study seeks to discover whether dispositional or situational attribution of the negative information about the celebrity endorser will produce different evaluations of the endorser and, subsequently, of the endorsed brand. Finally, the study seeks to discover whether the level of consumers’ identification with celebrities (low vs. high) will moderate the relationship between attribution and consequences. The study found that cultural orientation affects people’s attributional styles and dispositional attribution leads to more negative impacts on celebrity evaluation, brand evaluation, and purchase intention than situational attribution. It is found that Korean consumers reacted more negatively on other-oriented negative information than on self-oriented negative orientation. People with a low level of identification responded more negatively to the negative celebrity information than people with a high level of identification. Implications and suggestions for future research in this area are provided. / text

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Risk-based inspection provides a framework whereby inspection resources can be prioritized and targeted towards foods that pose the highest risk to human health. To provide a risk assessment of the initial biological hazards associated with foods consumed, criteria related to hazard identification, hazard characterization and exposure assessment were developed for all foods inspected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.Using Canadian scientific data, food-pathogen pairs most responsible for foodborne illness were developed and ranked. To characterize the overall population burden of these food-pathogen pairs, a model adapted from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) was developed which incorporated criteria related to pathogen characteristics and probability of exposure of humans by food.The top risk-ranked food-pathogen pairs were Campylobacter spp. and poultry, pathogenic Escherichia coli and beef, Salmonella spp. and poultry, Salmonella spp. and produce, and Campylobacter spp. and dairy.