Two experiments examined the relationship between the desire for effective control over performance outcomes and attributions of causality for those outcomes. In Experiment 1, subjects were led to believe that they had either succeeded at or failed a test that was either unimportant or important. As predicted, failure of the important test was attributed more to lack of effort (a controllable cause) and less to lack of ability (an uncontrollable cause) than was failure of the unimportant test. In Experiment 2, all subjects were led to believe that they had failed a test. Once again, subjects were informed that the test was either important or unimportant. In addition, half the subjects were told that they would be undergoing more tests in a later testing session, while half were not informed of any future testing. As in Experiment 1, subjects failing the important test attributed their failure less to lack of ability than did subjects failing the unimportant test. The anticipation of future testing interacted with test importance in its effects on attributions to ability. Subjects performing the unimportant task attributed their failure more to lack of ability when anticipating future performance than when not. Attributions of subjects performing an important task were not affected by the anticipation of future performance. Results were discussed in terms of the need for control over performance outcomes.

AbstractIn an experiment to study the effects on attitudes of requiring subjects to use evaluatively biased language, 84 schoolchildren aged 13–14 years completed a questionnaire to measure their attitudes on the issue of adult authority over teenagers, before and after writing an essay on this issue in which they were either required to incorporate words from a list all of which implied a positive evaluation of a pro‐authority position or a negative evaluation of an anti‐authority position (pro‐bias condition), or required to incorporate words where the implied evaluations were reversed (anti‐bias condition), or were given no words to incorporate (control condition). Relative to controls, pro‐bias subjects showed as a shift towards a more pro position and anti‐bias subjects became more anti irrespective of their initial attitudes (pro‐bias versus anti‐bias comparison, p<.01). However, when tested 6 days later most of this effect had disappeared, particularly in the case of subjects whose initial attitudes were least pro. At this final session, subjects also rated attitude statements on the issue in terms of scales constructed from the pro‐bias and anti‐bias word lists. In accordance with previous research, the more pro subjects' attitudes, the more they showed greater polarization of judgement on the pro‐bias than the anti‐bias scales (p<.000l). It is concluded that a person's attitude may be related to the kind of evaluative language he will apply to an issue, and that when a person is induced to use language implying a particular evaluation of an issue, he may change his attitude, at least in the short term, so as to be more congruent with the language he has used.

Four types of appeal were used to determine which would be the most effective in eliciting interest in and donations to a charity for children. In a "needy child" appeal, a picture of a child who was ill-looking and poorly clothed was used to help solicit donations. In a "helped child" appeal, a picture of a healthylooking child was presented. A third type of appeal presented both a "needy" and a "helped" child, in order to demonstrate that donations could actually help the needy child to a better life. In a final control appeal, no pictures were used. Results indicated that the "helped child" appeal was most effective in eliciting interest from potential donors; the "needy child" appeal proved least effective. These results were discussed in relation to research on reactance theory, the "just world" hypothesis and interpersonal attraction.

Causal attributions for performance in an introductory psychology course were examined with respect to students' es- timates of the number of psychology courses to be taken in future. Attributions to ability were more negatively correlated with the likelihood of future performance for unsuccessful stu- dents (receiving a final grade of C or less) than for successful (A or B) students. In addition, unsuccessful students tended to say that they had worked less, the more they anticipated future performance, while successful students said they had worked more, the more they anticipated future performance. Results were interpreted in terms of the "controllability" of the two causal factors, effort and ability.

The present study was designed to determine the effects of situational constraints and personality information in inferring freedom and responsibility. Subjects received information about a target individual's personality (the target was described as either competitive or neutral), and his competitive behavior in a situation was either facilitated, inhibited, or was neutral with respect to competition. Least freedom was attributed to an actor in the facilitative and inhibitory situations; greatest freedom in the neutral situation. Personality information did not have significant effects on perceived freedom. In addition, the amount of responsibility attributed to the target person for his actions was significantly correlated with the freedom attributed to him. These results suggest that the degree to which situational pressures are present during the commission of an act can affect judgments of the actor's freedom in performing the act.