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Dispositional optimism is considered a stable personality trait and as such may influence expectations about outcomes in a variety of decision-making scenarios. The current study assessed the relationship between dispositional optimism and decision-making behavior when risk is present. To investigate whether optimism was associated with risky decisionmaking behavior, we examined the relationships between dispositional optimism and two correlates (attributional style and trait hope) and risk-taking behavior on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) for 61 participants (Mage = 19.62). Correlational analyses between the three measures of optimism and IGT performance indicate that dispositional optimism and risky decision-making behavior are not significantly related to one another. This study contributes to the literature examining how individual differences influence decision-making. A broader perspective on the factors that influence decision making is necessary so that the mechanisms that predict and explain risky decision making can be better understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Results of previous research about Pygmalion effects have demonstrated that teachers adapt their behavior towards their students according to their expectations of students. Inaccurate expectations of teachers' behavior can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies regarding student and teacher performances. As this effect has been shown mostly for the individual level not much is known on the level of the group. Looking at the collective level school tracks play an important role in secondary education in some countries, e.g. Germany. The purpose of this study was to investigate how stereotypes held by teachers about their school tracks are related to the expectation-effects on the collective level and whether any connection exists with respect to the self-efficacy of teachers and their attributional style. Data were collected from 317 (213 females and 104 males) school teachers in Germany using a written-survey method. Results indicated that the performance and abilities of people at the highest school track were regarded positively. The self-efficacy of teachers at the highest school track had a statistical correlation with the consideration of the performance and talents of their students. The self-efficacy of teachers of the lower school track and of vocational schools had statistical connections to the consideration of the social behavior of their students. Results also showed that teachers attribute their students' failures primarily to a lack of students' effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examined whether attributional style could explain burnout among 201 counseling graduate students. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis results indicated that stability and globality of attribution explain a significant amount of the variance in counselor trainees' burnout. These findings suggest intervention and training should be used to promote a more flexible and positive orientation to handle stressful life events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Patients with schizophrenia are characterized with deficiencies in various aspects of social functioning. Given the relationship between social functioning deficits and relapse in these patients, identification of underlying factors is of significant importance. Thus, in this study, the contribution of each dimension of social cognition (Emotion Perception [EP], Theory of Mind [ToM] and Attributional Style [AS]) in predicting the social function of schizophrenic patients were examined. Methods: The statistical population included all patients with chronic schizophrenia hospitalized in Shiraz chronic healthcare centers. Of them, a total of 62 patients with schizophrenia disorder were selected based on purposive sampling method from three chronic care centers and were evaluated using social cognition tools (Hinting Task, Face Emotion Identification Task, and The Ambiguous Intentions and Hostility Questionnaire) and the Social Functioning Scale (SFS). Results: The results showed that ToM and EP predicted social functioning in people with schizophrenia but attributional style was not associated with social functioning. Discussion: On the whole, ToM and EP are general abilities contributing in explaining social functioning. However, the importance of attributional bias is significant when evaluating the performance of a person in specific areas such as aggressive behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this research was to examine the contribution of personality, cognitive style and life events to the prediction of the symptoms of emotional distress in adolescents. The sample consisted of 300 adolescents. In the analysis, the indicators of five personality dimensions were included - Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, indicators of attribution dimensions- controllability, internality, stability and the global nature of causes, and importance of the situation, the number, type and occurrence period of life events, and the severity of symptoms of emotional distress in adolescents. Life events have proved to be the best predictors of the symptoms of distress in adolescents. The most significant contribution to the occurrence of distress provided the total number of events. The probability of the occurrence of distress increases with the occurrence of chronic stressors and family problems. Significant contributors to the prediction of distress are also the dimensions of personality - Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, and attribution dimensions - externality and the importance of negative situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social cognition is increasingly recognized as an important treatment target in schizophrenia; however, the dearth of well-validated measures that are suitable for use in clinical trials remains a significant limitation. The Social Cognition Psychometric Evaluation (SCOPE) study addresses this need by systematically evaluating the psychometric properties of promising measures. In this final phase of SCOPE, eight new or modified tasks were evaluated. Stable outpatients with schizophrenia (n = 218) and healthy controls (n = 154) completed the battery at baseline and 2-4 weeks later across three sites. Tasks included the Bell Lysaker Emotion Recognition Task (BLERT), Penn Emotion Recognition Task (ER-40), Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task (Eyes), The Awareness of Social Inferences Test (TASIT), Hinting Task, Mini Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity (MiniPONS), Social Attribution Task-Multiple Choice (SAT-MC), and Intentionality Bias Task (IBT). BLERT and ER-40 modifications included response time and confidence ratings. The Eyes task was modified to include definitions of terms and TASIT to include response time. Hinting was scored with more stringent criteria. MiniPONS, SAT-MC, and IBT were new to this phase. Tasks were evaluated on (1) testretest reliability, (2) utility as a repeated measure, (3) relationship to functional outcome, (4) practicality and tolerability, (5) sensitivity to group differences, and (6) internal consistency. Hinting, BLERT, and ER-40 showed the strongest psychometric properties and are recommended for use in clinical trials. Eyes, TASIT, and IBT showed somewhat weaker psychometric properties and require further study. MiniPONS and SAT-MC showed poorer psychometric properties that suggest caution for their use in clinical trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IT training is firmly established as a key condition that influences successful technology adoption, yet little is known about factors that can affect voluntary training participation. We evaluate the predictive value of IT-related attributional style in relation to the intention to participate in voluntary training in the context of a mandatory enterprise resource planning system rollout. We find that individual IT-related attributional style is highly predictive of the intention to participate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research investigates personality dimensions and attributional styles among individuals with and without gender dysphoria in relationship to gender, educational level, and ethnicity. Participants were 60 men and women with and without gender dysphoria. A demographic sheet and two inventories were used. Results showed that patients with gender dysphoria had significantly higher neuroticism and lower agreeableness compared with individuals without gender dysphoria. No significance differences in extraversion, openness to experience, and conscientiousness (based on the "big five" personality model) were found between those with and without gender dysphoria. Also, individuals without gender dysphoria had higher positive attributional styles compared to patients with gender dysphoria. Finally, there were significant effects for gender and ethnicity on personality dimensions, but not for gender, ethnicity, or the ethnicity by gender interaction on the attributional styles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maladaptive coping may play an important role in the manifestation of symptoms, functioning, and overt psychosis onset in individuals at ultra-high risk (UHR) for psychosis. To determine the factors associated with coping strategies, the relationships between cognitive appraisals and coping styles were investigated in UHR individuals. Sixty-five UHR individuals and 83 healthy controls were assessed for coping styles and cognitive appraisals of attribution bias as a primary appraisal and self-efficacy and perceived social support as a secondary appraisal. UHR participants relied more on a passive, tension-reduction coping style and less on an active, problem-focused coping style. These maladaptive coping styles in UHR individuals were significantly associated with their cognitive appraisals of stress. Aberrant attribution style of hostility perception and composite blaming bias were associated with problem-focused coping and tension-reduction, respectively. Perceived social support was related to problem-focused coping, seeking social support, and wishful thinking. General self-efficacy was associated with problem-focused coping. Our findings suggest that cognitive appraisals themselves may be the major determinants of coping styles in UHR individuals. The identified attribution styles, perceived social support, and self-efficacy may provide some clues regarding specialized interventions for the buildup of adaptive coping strategies in UHR individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of negative affect (defined in terms of lack of optimism, depressogenic attributional style, and hopelessness depression) on the quality of life of women with type 1 diabetes mellitus. Methods: Participants (n = 177) completed either an online or paper questionnaire made available to members of Australian diabetes support groups. Measures of optimism, attributional style, hopelessness depression, disease-specific data, and diabetes-related quality of life were sought. Bivariate correlations informed the construction of a structural equation model. Results: Participants were 36.3 ±11.3 years old, with a disease duration of 18.4±11.2 years. Age and recent glycosylated hemoglobin readings were significant contextual variables in the model. All bivariate associations involving the components of negative affect were as hypothesized. That is, poorer quality of life was associated with a greater depressogenic attributional style, higher hopelessness depression, and lower optimism. The structural equation model demonstrated significant direct effects of depressogenic attributional style and hopelessness depression on quality of life, while (lack of) optimism contributed to quality of life indirectly by way of these variables. Conclusion: The recognition of negative affect presentations among patients, and an understanding of its relevance to diabetes-related quality of life, is a valuable tool for the practitioner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Aberrant attributional styles are counted to a set of circumscribed cognitive biases that are implicated in the pathogenesis of (paranoid) psychosis. However, evidence for a specific profile (e.g., an exaggerated self-serving bias, other-blaming bias) has become equivocal over the years. More recently, one-sided (monocausal) attributions have been reported in patients with psychosis.Methods: We compared a large sample of patients with diagnosed schizophrenia (n=145) to nonclinical controls (n=30) on a revised version of the Internal, Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire (IPSAQ-R). In this task, participants have to assign probability estimates to each of three potential causes (i.e., myself, others, circumstances) for a specific (negative or positive) event.Results: Participants with schizophrenia displayed an abolished self-serving bias and showed a significant preference for one-sided/monocausal attributions, which was neither correlated with jumping to conclusions nor overconfidence in errors. School education correlated with less monocausal attributions. We did not find any congruence between attributional styles with core delusional ideas.Conclusions: Our study corroborates earlier investigations showing that monocausal attributions may play a role in the pathogenesis of psychosis; this bias unlikely represents an epiphenomenon of established biases. Unexpectedly, attributional styles (e.g., external-blaming) did not shape delusional contents. The true prevalence of monocausal attributions in psychosis is perhaps underestimated in the study, as groups were equated on school education, which was correlated with monocausal attributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We used the virtual hand illusion paradigm to study how sense of agency and sense of (body) ownership can interact with different emotional events on stress feelings. Converging evidence for at least the partial independence of agency and ownership was found. For instance, sense of agency was a better predictor of individual anxiety levels than sense of ownership and males showed stronger effects related to agency—presumably due to gender-specific attribution styles and empathy skills. Moreover, agency and ownership also interacted with emotional events and led to different anxiety levels. Taken together, our findings suggest that the disentangled sense of agency and sense of ownership can interact with different emotional events and influenced stress feelings more in threatening situations than awarding ones.

The article deals with the basic theoretical constructs, which became the basis of modern research of social cognition in schizophrenia's violations: social percep tion, pragmatic communication, attributional style, the theory of mind and oth ers. We summed empirical data (based on these constructs) and maintained its fragmented, difficult to compile character. The tendency towards unification of the empirical data on the basis of the methodology of neurosciences, namely the social brain hypothesis were fixed. The lack of attention to the motivational com ponent in modern studies of violations of social cognition in schizophrenia is emphasized. We describe the original complex model of violations of social intel ligence, including the operational, regulatory motivational and behavioral com ponents. The data of empirical studies demonstrating the important role of moti vational component in the form of social anhedonia violations of social cognition in schizophrenia is listed.

Background The sense of self-agency, i.e., experiencing oneself as the cause of one's own actions, is impaired in patients with schizophrenia. Normally, inferences of self-agency are enhanced when actual outcomes match with pre-activated outcome information, where this pre-activation can result from explicitly set goals (i.e., goal-based route) or implicitly primed outcome information (i.e., prime-based route). Previous research suggests that patients show specific impairments in the prime-based route, implicating that they do not rely on matches between implicitly available outcome information and actual action-outcomes when inferring self-agency. The question remains: Why? Here, we examine whether neurocognitive functioning and self-serving bias (SSB) may explain abnormalities in patients’ agency inferences. Methods Thirty-six patients and 36 healthy controls performed a commonly used agency inference task to measure goal- and prime-based self-agency inferences. Neurocognitive functioning was assessed with the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS) and the SSB was assessed with the Internal Personal and Situational Attributions Questionnaire. Results Results showed a substantial smaller effect of primed outcome information on agency experiences in patients compared with healthy controls. Whereas patients and controls differed on BACS and marginally on SSB scores, these differences were not related to patients’ impairments in prime-based agency inferences. Conclusions Patients showed impairments in prime-based agency inferences, thereby replicating previous studies. This finding could not be explained by cognitive dysfunction or SSB. Results are discussed in the context of the recent surge to understand and examine deficits in agency experiences in schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Characteristics of children in the educational process present essential factors of quality outcomes of their development and learning. Therefore, this study is focused on the analysis of some features of socioemotional well-being and positive thinking in gifted children. Research was conducted on a sample of 76 preschool children. On the basis of the total sample, two groups of subjects were created. Potentially gifted children were categorized in the experimental group (N=37), and children who are not evaluated as gifted were in the control group (N=39). Both groups of children were homogenous by some relevant variables, such as gender, age, place of residence. Educators who work with children in preschool institutions evaluated their characteristics in socioemotional well-being and attributional style. Analysis of differences in separated dimensions of socioemotional well-being showed that gifted children had significantly higher scores on the dimensions of the Pleasure in exploration, Self-assertiveness and Task orientation. Furthermore, it was determined that children showed higher levels of happiness and an optimistic attributional style in both groups, but that gifted children in certain categories of attributional style had higher levels of optimism. The findings were discussed in the framework of the possible implications for work with gifted children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction. Schizophrenia patients show impairments in social cognition (SC), which is a set of cognitive processes that underlie social interactions. The research about SC in schizophrenia has identified four main domains: Theory of mind (ToM), social perception, attributional style and emotional processing. The present review aims to summarize the most recent and consistent findings about SC in patients with schizophrenia, unaffected relatives and ultra-high risk for psychosis individuals (UHR), as well as its association with clinical variables and functional outcome. Methods. A systematic PsycINFO and Pubmed/Medline databases search was conducted. Results. ToM impairments have been observed in schizophrenia patients, unaffected relatives and UHR. Emotional processing disturbance has been consistently reported in schizophrenia patients and UHR. ToM and emotional processing have been correlated with symptomatology and functional outcome. However, inconsistencies have been found across studies that assess ToM and emotional processing as predictors of psychosis. Social perception and attributional style are affected in schizophrenia, but the research in at- risk populations is scarce and their relationship with symptoms or functional outcome is not clear. Conclusions. All domains of SC are impaired in schizophrenia. Non affected relatives and UHR also display deficits of SC. More research must be conducted to assess the reliability of SC domains as endophenotypes or predictors of conversion to psychosis in at-risk populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used the virtual hand illusion paradigm to study how sense of agency and sense of (body) ownership can interact with different emotional events on stress feelings. Converging evidence for at least the partial independence of agency and ownership was found. For instance, sense of agency was a better predictor of individual anxiety levels than sense of ownership and males showed stronger effects related to agency-presumably due to gender-specific attribution styles and empathy skills. Moreover, agency and ownership also interacted with emotional events and led to different anxiety levels. Taken together, our findings suggest that the disentangled sense of agency and sense of ownership can interact with different emotional events and influenced stress feelings more in threatening situations than awarding ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To investigate the attentional bias to emotional information in college students with op- timistic and pessimistic attributional style. Methods: A total of 83 college students (20 males and 23 females in op¬timistic group, 20 males and 20 females in pessimisticgroup) were recmited online. The 2 cue validity (valid, inva¬lid) X 2 emotional type (positive, negative) x 2 attributional style (optimistic group, pessimistic group) hybrid de¬sign was used to investigate the attentional bias to emotional information in college students with optimistic and pes¬simistic attributional style, adopting the cue-target paradigm. Results: Under valid situation, optimistic group had re- sponded to positive (cue) target faster than pessimistic group [ (311‘ 4 ± 26‘ 6) ms vs‘ (324 1 ± 47‘ 0) ms，P < 0. 05], while there was no significant difference in reaction times (RTs) on negative (cue) target between two groups (P >0. 05). Under invalid situation, optimistic group had responded to negative target faster than pessimistic group [ (331. 0 ±31. 7) ms vs‘（337. 4 ±50. 0) ms，P 0. 05). Conclusion: It suggests that optimistic individuals and pessimistic individuals respectively have selective attentional bias to positive information and negative information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on adolescent depression has overwhelmingly focused on risk factors, such as stressful negative events and cognitive vulnerabilities, but much important information can be gained by focusing on protective factors. Thus, the current study aimed to broaden understanding on adolescent depression by considering the role of two positive elements as protective factors, attributional style for positive events and self-esteem, in a model of depression. The sample included 491 middle school students (52 % female; n = 249) with an age range from 12 to 15 years ( M = 13.2, SD = .70). The sample was ethnically/racially diverse, with 55 % White, 22 % Hispanic, 10 % Asian American, 3 % African American, and 10 % Biracial/Other. Correlational analyses indicated significant cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between an enhancing attributional style (internal, stable, global attributions for positive events), self-esteem and depressive symptoms. Further, prospective analyses using bootstrapping methodology demonstrated significant indirect effects of an enhancing attributional style on decreases in depressive symptoms through its effects on self-esteem. These findings highlight the importance of considering attributional style for positive events as a protective factor in the developmental course of depressive symptoms during early adolescence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper aims at comparing the attributional style and resilience in students with visual or motor disabilities and normal students. In this applied and field research, the statistical population includes all normal and disabled students aged between 15 and 19 years old in Sari and Qaemshahr Cities. 120 students (60 students with visual and motor disability and 60 normal students) from the school of Sari and Qaemshahr cities participated in the study. All participants were asked to complete the attributional style questionnaire (ASQ) and (CD-RTS9) resilience questionnaire. Analysis of the data involved both descriptive and inferential statistics including means, standard deviation, multivariate analysis of variance, correlation coefficient and multivariate regression. The result of analysis of variance show that there is a significant difference between students with (visual and motor) disabilities and normal students in components of unpleasant internal-external attribution, unpleasant temporary-stable attribution, geneal-specific attribution and resilience. This indicates a more pessimistic attributional style in the first group. There is a positive correlation between attributional style and resiliency. The regression analysis shows that the components of attributional style can predict the resiliency (p

ABSTRACT. The present study focuses on variations in attributional style among high achieving adolescents, in relation with gender and level of achievement. The sample included 113 Romanian high school students, who completed an adapted version of Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ). Results suggest that gifted girls tend to display an internal, stable and global attributional style, which leads to a self-effacing attributional pattern. High achieving boys show similar attribution patterns, with a more positive tendency. Although differences among the four subgroups are inconsistent, the findings suggest a disadvantaging attributional style in both high achieving boys and high achieving girls.