Psychology

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    Adolescent Attributions About and Responses to Imagined Future Romantic Partners’ Behaviors: Links to Adolescent Attachment to Parents
    (2020) Fitter, Megan Haley; Cassidy, Jude; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Attachment theory states that experiences with primary caregivers influence other close relationships throughout the lifespan (Bowlby, 1969/1982). The quality of early caregiving experiences influences children’s mental representations of how others will treat them. These representations guide social information processing, the way that individuals remember, perceive, hold expectations, and make attributions about their social world. The present study is the first to examine how young adolescents’ attachment to parents influences their attribution biases about future romantic relationships. Attachment insecurity with mothers and fathers predicted negative attribution biases about hypothetical future romantic partners. Insecurity to fathers marginally predicted negative attributions above those predicted by insecurity to mothers. Negative attributions, in turn, predicted adolescents’ forecasting their own negative behaviors in a future relationship. Further, adolescents’ attachment avoidance (discomfort with closeness) across both parents predicted negative attributions. Results suggest that attribution biases could explain relations between attachment to caregivers and later romantic relationship functioning.
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    How Did You Get In? Attributions of Preferential Selection In College Admissions
    (2006-12-15) Bates, Archie Lee; Klein, Katherine J.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Minorities are often suspected beneficiaries (e.g., Heilman, 1994) of affirmative action--that is, they are individuals who attribute or perceive that others attribute their selection for a job or admission to a school, in part, to preference given to race or gender status. Experimental research has shown that suspected beneficiaries experience negative self-evaluations, yet little research has focused on performance outcomes. I draw upon attribution theory (e.g., Kelly, 1972) and stereotype threat theory (C. M. Steele & Aronson, 1995) to extend the literature by examining the emotions and academic performance of freshmen college students who are suspected beneficiaries. I hypothesize that racial minorities are more likely than are Whites, and women are more likely than are men, to be suspected beneficiaries of racial and gender preference, respectively. These attributions lead to decreased academic self-efficacy and increased evaluation apprehension and anxiety, which ultimately decrease academic performance. Additionally, I pose research questions to explore factors that mitigate the effect of attributions on these outcomes. I use structural equation modeling to test my hypotheses. The results suggest that racial minorities and women are more likely than Whites and men, respectively, to be suspected beneficiaries. Further, attributions of racial and gender preference lead to the hypothesized negative outcomes. I find that past academic performance moderates the relation between attributions of gender preference and anxiety, such that students who scored higher on the SAT and (perceive that others) attribute their admission to gender preference experience more anxiety than do students who scored lower on the SAT and (perceive that others) attribute their admission to gender preference. Additionally, social support moderates the relation between attributions of racial preference and evaluation apprehension, such that students who receive high levels of social support and (perceive that others) attribute their admission to racial preference experience less evaluation apprehension than do students who receive low levels of social support and (perceive that others) attribute their admission to racial preference. Overall, the results support the perception that uncertainty in the selection process can lead to attributions of preferential selection and harmful consequences for racial minorities and women.
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    The Effect of Organizational Climate on the Attribution to Discrimination Process
    (2004-04-12) Leslie, Lisa Michelle; Gelfand, Michele J; Stangor, Charles; Psychology
    Research on the multi-stage attribution to discrimination process (construct accessibility, perceiving, and reporting of discrimination) focuses on individual difference antecedents and tends to examine one stage in each study (e.g. Major et al., 2002; Stangor, Sechrist, & Swim, 1999; Swim & Hyers, 1999). The current study extends research on this process by examining the interactive effect of individual differences and organizational climate on all three stages of the attribution to discrimination process in an organizational simulation study. Findings indicate that Climate for Intolerance for Discrimination interacts with individual based sensitivity to sexism to predict perceptions of discrimination. Furthermore, perceptions of discrimination fully mediate the relationship between the climate by sensitivity interaction and reporting of discrimination to the organization.