DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/SHKT-Z182
Defense Date
1980
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Iris A Parham
Abstract
The present investigation was designed to test the hypothesis that failure experienced by the individual in a testing situation is moderated by causal attributions and these attributions influence subsequent test measures. The effect of manipulating cause (lack of effort or Lack of ability) to response-independent failure and its relationship to scores on the Reasoning, Hidden Patterns, and Paper Folding Test, in younger an older person's was investigated. The same measures were assessed in a group that experienced the same response-independent-failure but with no explanation offered as to the cause for the failure, a group that was not given any information concerning the outcome, and a control group that did not experience the response-independent-failure.
Analysis of results indicated that younger subjects obtained significantly higher scores than one subjects on all three subtests. A significant age by condition effect in results from the Paper Folding Test was also found. The failure-ability group showed lower scores than the failure-effort group for both age categories. The two non manipulated-attribution groups were lower than the failure-effort group for the elderly, and were higher than the failure-ability group for younger subjects. The results supported the hypothesis that elderly individuals may demonstrate lower cognitive scores in part, due to influences that are extraneous to cognitive assessment. Implications of the results for elderly cognitive assessment were discussed.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
3-9-2018
Comments
Scanned, with permission from the author, from the original print version, which resides in University Archives.