Building sustainable customer relationships through effective service recovery is a worthwhile goal for all airline companies in an era of intense competition. Developing service recovery strategies that can strengthen customer loyalty in the event of service failure has become a major challenge for the airline business, but yet has received little attention from academics. To address the dearth in the literature, this study sets out to investigate how customers' perceptions of perceived justice of service recovery and those factors external to the recovery encounter, including service failure attributions and company reputation, impact their loyalty recovery in the airline context. This study uses a quantitative method based on a surrey approach. A selfadministered questionnaire was purposively distributed among airline customers at Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok, Thailand. The study was tested using data collected from 480 travellers who had previously experienced a full service airline's flight delay in the past 12 months and was analysed with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). First, the results of this research confirm the robustness of the Expectation Disconfirmation Paradigm (EDP) for understanding customer perceived justice of service recovery in an exchange relationship context by emphasising significant positive effects of all dimensions of justice in restoring positive customer relationships. Second, the findings clarify the interrelationships between postrecovery customer trust, customer's overall company satisfaction and customer loyalty by highlighting the important role of which trust plays in recovering customer loyalty. Third, The results further demonstrate how customer perceived justice of service recovery is contingent upon service failure attributions and company reputation. Lastly, the research provides airline managers with useful guidelines on developing cost-effective service recovery strategies focusing on maximising customer loyalty in different service failure situations.

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This study examined whether participants’ attributions of blame and responsibility toward a victim of domestic violence were influenced by whether or not the victim left her abuser. It also looked at whether or not educational information regarding the difficulties of leaving a violent partner would affect these attributions. Participants, all adults from the United States, either read a vignette in which a woman victim of domestic violence stayed with her abusive husband, or left him. Prior to reading the vignette, some participants were given information about the problems associated with leaving a violent partner, and some were not. All participants completed a scale measuring victim blame. No main effects of whether the victim left or whether the participant received information were found on attributions of blame, and there was not a statistically significant interaction between the victim leaving and presence of information. An interaction between whether or not the participant was a victim of domestic violence and the presence of information was found on victim blame, but further research should examine this more closely with a study specifically designed to investigate victims and their perceptions.

Employing a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology among undergraduate students at the University of Ottawa, this research has explored attributions about sexual assault and the role of perceived intoxication in the context of female and male victims of sexual assault. The use of qualitative methodology and the application of a feminist critique of attribution theory and its contemporary application to rape perception research have contributed to a better understanding of these judgements and the varied ways in which undergraduate students apply the core constructs of responsibility and blame to sexual assault, while simultaneously highlighting the limitations of typically positivistic research in this area. Analyses suggest that the judgements students make about the victims and perpetrators involved in sexual assault are varied and complex, and future research employing a similar methodology and theoretical lens among other populations, both within and outside post-secondary spheres, is warranted.

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a medical diagnosis that is conceptualized as existing on a continuum between normal cognitive aging and dementia. While a growing body of research has established the impact of this condition on family members' emotional well-being, as well as the quality of family relationships, the reciprocal impact of family dynamics and the family environment on illness course has received much less attention. Expressed emotion (EE) is a measure of the family emotional climate that has been established as being highly predictive of relapse and symptom exacerbation for a variety of mental health disorders. The recent integration of attribution theory with EE has offered new insights into the underlying attitudes and beliefs that give rise to it. This mixed methods study applied the attribution model of EE to test the validity of EE in predicting the illness course of MCI, and to identify family members' attributions regarding MCI-related behaviors and symptoms that underlie their EE status. The study sample included 57 family dyads consisting of a person with MCI and a family member providing primary care or assistance. The results of the ANCOVA did not support the hypothesis that EE status would predict changes in the non-cognitive features of MCI over time. However, methods of thematic analysis revealed four major themes, or care partner attributional stances: (a) non-blaming, (b) blaming, (c) variable, and (d) no identified. The analysis also revealed three subthemes, or attributional styles, within the variable stance: (a) ambivalent, (b) mixed, and (c) complex. These attributional stances and styles intersected with family EE status in notable ways and form the basis for future research in this area, as well as clinical interventions with these families that promote adaptation to the illness. / Ph. D.

Despite the existence of nineteen universities in Lebanon, student motivation and achievement have not received attention in relation to attribution theory by Lebanese researchers. In the present study, attribution theory is used as a conceptual framework for investigating the motivation of undergraduate business computing students at a Mediterranean university based on their academic achievement in an introductory computer programming course. While numerous studies have used attribution theory as a framework to study student motivation based on hypothetical scenarios or laboratory tasks, this study investigated forty-five male and female business computing students who completed a computer programming course that lasted for a thirteen-week semester. Instead of focusing on either success or failure, the study explored five strata of achievement outcomes. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to obtain students' perceptions. The participants made 11 causal attributions for their achievement outcomes. Only two of those 11 causes appeared in the original attribution theory model (Weiner et al. 1971, p.96), but they were amongst those least cited in this study. This study also shows that of the 11 causes, 'lack of study' and 'appropriate learning strategy' were the leading ones. The latter was cited by all high achievers. While there was total agreement on some of the underlying causal properties of some causal attributions, other causal attributions were perceived differently in the causal space. In addition, there was strong evidence that globality is a fourth dimension in this achievement context. Furthermore, the two dimensions of the Expectancy-Value motivation model (Amone 2005, p.4) do not seem to relate to attribution theory dimensions in this study, especially for low achievers. Finally, it was possible to identify some attribution styles that lead to either success or failure, thus supporting the predictive power of attribution theory.

En speciallärare bör ha goda insikter i motivationens betydelse för att kunna hjälpa elever i matematiksvårigheter. Laborativ matematik föreslås som ett sätt att motivera elever. I min aktion undersöks om SUM-elevernas (elever med speciella undervisningsbehov i matematik) motivation i matematik påverkas av ett laborativt undervisningssätt. Enkäter och intervjuer används i min studie för att bedöma vilka effekter laborativ matematik har för eleverna. De mäts i termerna av elevernas effekter av attribueringar och grad av inre motivation med utgångspunkt i Medbestämmandeteorin, Attributionsteorin och Målorienteringsteorin. En effekt av aktionsstudien är, att de börjar inse att de har talang. Det handlar om hur mycket de anstränger sig i matematik och inte bristen på förmåga. En annan effekt är att eleverna anser att matematiken är roligare, eftersom de får arbeta praktiskt och i mindre grupp. Man kan uppenbarligen påverka elever med en aktionsstudie, men det är inte säkert att den blir bestående. Det är viktigt att elever lyckas och inte misslyckas om och om igen, för då tappar de sin motivation.

Master of Science / Department of Journalism and Mass Communications / Nancy W. Muturi / Stigma towards mental illness is a problem that runs deep in most societies, causing difficulties for the people who are ill, the people related to them, and the community (Papadopoulos, Leavey, & Vincent, 2002). Stigma is one of the most crucial reasons for depressed people to avoid seeking help. Numerous interventions and campaigns for reducing public stigma have been implemented with limited effect on mental health stigma. Previous studies have focused on effectiveness of anti-stigma messages, how they are communicated and on the use of contact strategies to strengthen campaign influence (Jensen, 2017). This study examined how the key elements of the attribution theory— locus of causality, stability, and controllability – contribute to public emotional reaction and discrimination towards people with depression. Other vital variables included the level of perceived stigma, level of contact with stigmatized persons, six dimensions of stigma, communication channels, the access to depression-related resources and demographic factors. Data were gathered through an online survey that was distributed to a random sample recruited from M-Turk (N=533). Results showed negative associations between locus of causality and negative emotions (β = -.38, t = -9.47, p =.000), and discrimination (β = -.10, t = -2.41, p =.02), which means that the more participants believe the situation are responsible for the cause of depression, the more negative emotion and intention of discrimination they held. Among all information channels, Interpersonal Channel was the only significant predictor of discrimination (β = .21, t = 4.29, p =.000). Overall, this study shows that more empathy and more familiarity with depression do not lead to less discrimination. On the contrary, participants believed people with depression were easily controlled by the situation and did not put effort to change it.

The correlation between locus of control and marital satisfaction is examined as part of a longitudinal study spanning 44 years and 3 time points. It is predicted that as locus of control has more of an external orientation marital satisfaction will be lower. Participants include high school juniors and seniors in the state of Washington from 1966 with follow-up surveys in 1980 and 2010. Using ordinary least squares regressions, marital satisfaction scores in 1980 or 2010 are predicted by locus of control scores from either 1966 or 1980 with control variables that include gender, income, educational attainment, occupational prestige, and military service. Partial support for the presented hypotheses is found and discussed. Locus of control as measured in middle adulthood predicted marital satisfaction measured contemporaneously. However, in contrast to previous reports, none of the control variables significantly predicted marital satisfaction. A primary limitation that is discussed regards the measurement of locus of control occurring in a manner without any established psychometric data to confirm reliability or validity. Understanding the relationship between locus of control and marital satisfaction may help improve case conceptualization and treatment for couples seeking treatment. Considerations for future research are explored.

The current study examined whether males and females differed in math achievement and held different beliefs regarding the malleability of math ability at the elementary level. The study also explored the relationships between students’ implicit theories of math ability, math interest, and math achievement. Potential grade level differences in math trait beliefs were also investigated. Study participants consisted of a total of 1802 students from six elementary schools that participate in the Gifted Education in Math and Science (GEMS) Project. Project GEMS is a federal grant project seeking to encourage science and math interest and achievement in children from lowincome and diverse populations. Data were analyzed by means of Pearson correlations and one-way analysis of variance. Male and female math achievement was equivalent. No gender or grade level differences were observed in implicit theories of math ability. As predicted, students who believed their math abilities were malleable earned higher math achievement scores. Several limitations of this study are discussed and recommendations for further investigation are presented. Findings from this study suggest it is important to consider the impact of domain specific beliefs on math achievement, which may have implications for early identification and supports for those students who may be vulnerable to poor achievement outcomes.