Sandra Graham

Age Differences in Future Orientation and Delay Discounting

Age differences in future orientation are examined in a sample of 935 individuals between 10 and 30 years using a delay discounting task as well as a new self-report measure. Younger adolescents consistently demonstrate a weaker orientation to the future than do individuals aged 16 and older, as reflected in their greater willingness to accept a smaller reward delivered sooner than a larger one that is delayed, and in their characterizations of themselves as less concerned about the future and less likely to anticipate the consequences of their decisions. Planning ahead, in contrast, continues to develop into young adulthood. Future studies should distinguish between future orientation and impulse control, which may have different neural underpinnings and follow different developmental timetables.

Self-Blame and Peer Victimization in Middle School: An Attributional Analysis.

Relations between characterological versus behavioral self-blaming attributions for victimization and maladjustment were examined in middle school students. Respondents completed a questionnaire that assessed self-perceptions of victim status, attributions for hypothetical incidents of victimization, and feelings of loneliness, social anxiety, and low self-worth. They also completed peer nomination procedures measuring perceptions of victimization in others, as well as peer acceptance and rejection. Self-perceived victimization was associated with characterological self-blame, loneliness, anxiety, and low self-worth. Peer-perceived victimization, in contrast, was related to acceptance and rejection. The data suggest that self-views are more predictive of the intrapersonal consequences of victimization (loneliness, anxiety, low self-worth), whereas peer views are more predictive of interpersonal consequences (peer acceptance and rejection).

Motivation in African Americans

Close to 140 studies comprising an African-American empirical literature on motivation were reviewed. The review was organized around five topics subsumed under three broader assumptions about the relationship between ethnic minority status and motivation. First, research on the achievement motive was reviewed to examine the belief that African Americans lack certain personality traits deemed necessary for achievement strivings. Second, the empirical literatures on locus of control and causal attributions were summarized to investigate the assumption that African Americans are less likely to believe in internal or personal control of outcomes, the belief system that theoretically should accompany high achievement-related behavior. And third, research on expectancy of success and self-concept of ability was reviewed to examine the hypothesis that African Americans have negative self-views about their competence. None of these assumptions was supported in the review. In fact, African Americans appear to maintain a belief in personal control, have high expectancies, and enjoy positive self-regard. Some of the conceptual and methodological limitations of this research were discussed. The article concludes with six suggested principles of a motivational psychology for African Americans that might serve as guides for future research.

Motivational Influences on Cognition: Task Involvement, Ego Involvement, and Depth of Information Processing.

In Experiment 1, 5th- and 6th-grade children were randomly assigned to either a task-focused motivational condition, an ego-focused condition, or a control group. They received a list of 60 words manipulated to be encoded at either shallow or deep levels of processing. An unexpected recall test then followed. Experiment 2 used the same general procedure except that the motivational manipulation was timed to occur at either encoding or retrieval

Pity, Anger, and Guilt An Attributional Analysis

Three basic dimensions of causality, which represent the underlying properties of causes, have been identified: locus, stability, and controllability. Evidence was presented that these dimensions are linked with feelings of pity, anger, and guilt. Two experiments were conducted; one asked participants to recall situations in which pity, anger, and guilt were experienced, while the other examined ratings of pity and anger as a function of the a priori classification of given causes of events. It was found that uncontrollable causes of negative events gave rise to pity, independent of the locus of the cause. For both anger and guilt, the associated cause was perceived as controllable and internal to the target of the emotion. Stable causes influenced the magnitude, rather than the direction, of emotions. It was contended that causal thoughts often precede and determine the experiences of pit, anger, and guilt.

Ethnicity, Peer Harassment, and Adjustment in Middle School: An Exploratory Study

In an urban middle school, African American (n = 116), Latino (n = 118), and students from four other ethnic groups (labeled multiethnic, n = 172) completed nomination procedures that identified classmates who were perceived as aggressive or as victims of peer harassment. Peer acceptance and rejection also were measured by nomination procedures, and participants reported their self-perceived loneliness, social anxiety, and global self-esteem. Compared to Latino and multiethnic respondents, more African American students were nominated as aggressive, and fewer were nominated as victims of harassment. However, African American harassment victims reported more loneliness and lower self-esteem than did harassment victims in the other ethnic groups, and they were more rejected by peers. The data were interpreted as evidence that deviations from normative perceptions of a person’s group (i.e., being a victim of harassment when the perceived group norm is aggressiveness) are particularly detrimental to psychological and social adjustment.

Attributional and emotional determinants of aggression among African-American and Latino young adolescents.

Attribution theorists propose that negative actions of others perceived as intended elicit anger, and anger then functions as a motivator of hostile behavior. We examined the understanding of these attribution-affect-action linkages among young ethnic minority adolescents. Forty-four Latino and African-American middle-school children labeled as aggressive and a matched group of nonaggressives read causally ambiguous scenarios describing negative outcomes initiated by a hypothetical peer. They then made judgments about the peers intentions, their own feelings of anger, and the likelihood that they would behave aggressively toward that peer

Beyond the Individual: The Impact of Ethnic Context and Classroom Behavioral Norms on Victims' Adjustment.

With a sample of 1,630 sixth-grade students from 77 classrooms, the authors used hierarchical linear modeling to examine how ethnicity within context and classroom social disorder influenced the association between peer victimization and social-psychological adjustment (loneliness and social anxiety). Victimized students in classrooms where many classmates shared their ethnicity reported feeling the most loneliness and social anxiety. Additionally, classroom-level social disorder served as a moderator such that the association between victimization and anxiety was stronger in classrooms with low social disorder. Both findings were interpreted as evidence that problem behavior deviating from what is perceived as normative in a particular context heightens maladjustment. The authors discuss implications for studying ethnicity and classroom behavioral norms as context variables in peer relations.

A review of attribution theory in achievement contexts

Attribution theory has proved to be a useful conceptual framework for the study of motivation in educational contexts. This article reviews a number of the major principles of attribution theory as they relate to achievement strivings. Among the topics considered are the antecedents to particular selfascriptions, the consequences of causal attributions for emotional reactions to success and failure, help-seeking and help-giving, peer acceptance and rejection, achievement evaluation, and attributional process in African-American populations. The relations between attribution theory and other dominant motivational conceptions, as well as some criticisms of the theory, are also addressed.

An examination of the relationship between achievement values and perceptions of barriers among low-SES african american and latino students

Peer nomination procedures were used to explore the development of academic achievement values and their relation to perceptions of barriers to opportunity. A total of 615 boys and girls across 3 grade levels (2nd, 4th, 7th) and 2 ethnic groups (African American, Latino) nominated peers who they admired, respected, and wanted to be like. Nominations were summed to create a value index. Girls in both ethnic groups and across grade levels were more likely to nominate high- or average-achieving same-gender classmates as those who they admired, respected, and wanted to be like. Second- and 4th-grade boys in both ethnic groups reported a nomination pattern similar to that of girls. However, 7th-grade boys in both ethnic groups showed a relative preference for low-achieving same-gender classmates as valued. Perceptions of barriers were related to increasing valuing of low achievers among African American 7th-grade boys. Implications of the findings for understanding the motivational challenges of ethnic minority male adolescents are discussed.