Book reviews

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45632/1/11199_2004_Article_BF00287406.pd

Intrapsychic factors influencing career aspirations in college women

A 300-item questionnaire designed to assess the relationship and relative importance of several factors for women's career aspirations was answered by 169 female college juniors and seniors. Regression analyses showed that women with high career aspirations were satisfied with their lives; confident of their career plans; willing to postpone marriage; nontraditional in their values and behaviors; generally external in orientation, believing that discrimination is responsible for many of women's failures and that organized pressure rather than individual action is necessary to combat this discrimination; certain that women's demands for equality are justified and that most men agree with them; likely to have had a working mother who was perceived as being dissatisfied with her own life; and if planning to marry soon, endorsing dual role compatability. When all variables were considered simultaneously, attitudinal factors were found to best predict career aspirations, while socialization variables were relatively unimportant.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45615/1/11199_2004_Article_BF00287286.pd

Sex differences in attributions and learned helplessness

This investigation assessed the hypothesis that girls are more likely to be learned helpless in math than boys. Students in grades 5 through 11 completed questionnaires assessing their causal attributions for success and failure in mathematics, their self-concepts of math ability, and their expectations for both current and future success in math. Results indicated that sex differences in attributions depended on the type of methodology used (open-ended or rank-ordered questions). The most consistent difference involved the differential use and ranking of ability, skills, and consistent effort. No sex differences were found in either students' perceptions of their own math ability or in their current achievement expectations. Girls, however, rated their future expectations slightly lower than did boys. Taken together, these results provide little support for the hypothesis that girls are generally more learned helpless in mathematics than are boys.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45648/1/11199_2004_Article_BF00287281.pd

Parent perceptions and attributions for children's math achievement

From junior high school on, girls report lower estimations of their math ability and express more negative attitudes about math than do boys, despite equivalent performance in grades. Parents show this same sex-typed bias. This paper examines the role that attributions may play in explaining these sex differences in parents' perceptions of their children's math ability. Mothers and fathers of 48 junior high school boys and girls of high, average, and low math ability completed questionnaires about their perceptions of their child's ability and effort in math, and their causal attributions for their child's successful and unsuccessful math performances. Parents' math-related perceptions and attributions varied with their child's level of math ability and gender. Parents credited daughters with more effort than sons, and sons with more talent than daughters for successful math performances. These attributional patterns predicted sex-linked variations in parents' ratings of their child's effort and talent. No sex of child effects emerged for failure attributions; instead, lack of effort was seen as the most important, and lack of ability as the least important, cause of unsuccessful math performances for both boys and girls. Implications of these attributions for parents' influence on children's developing self-concept of math ability, future expectancies, and subsequent achievement behaviors are discussed.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45585/1/11199_2004_Article_BF00289840.pd

In the Mind of the Actor: The Structure of Adolescents' Achievement Task Values and Expectancy-Related Beliefs

The authors assessed the dimensionality of and relations between adolescents' achievement-related beliefs and self perceptions, focusing on subjective valuing of achievement. Beliefs derived from expectancy-value theory (adolescents' valuing of achievement activities, expectancies for success and ability perceptions, and perceptions of task difficulty) were assessed. Adolescents completed questionnaires once a year for 2 years. Confirmatory factor analyses indicated that achievement-related beliefs separate into three task values factors (interest, perceived importance, and perceived utility), one expectancy/ability factor (comprising beliefs about one's competence, expectancies for success, and performance perceptions), and two task difficulty factors (perceptions of difficulty and perceptions of effort required to do well). Task values and ability perceptions factors were positively related to each other and negatively correlated to perceptions of task difficulty.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69045/2/10.1177_0146167295213003.pd

Surviving the Junior High School Transition Family Processes and Self-Perceptions as Protective and Risk Factors

This study used a longitudinal design to investigate the association offamily processes and self-perceptions with adjustment and self-esteem following the transition to junior high school. Students'positive self-concepts in academic and social domains emerged as facilitative of positive adjustment across the transition, while self-consciousness in these domains proved detrimental to adjustment. In addition, adolescents'perceptions of their parents as being developmentally attuned to them and supportive of autonomy in decision-making situations were positively associated with adjustment and gains in self-esteem across the transition. The results are discussed in light of the salient developmental tasks confronting the early adolescent and the role offamily and school contexts in facilitating the successful negotiation of these tasks.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67358/2/10.1177_027243169401400205.pd

The Accuracy and Power of Sex, Social Class, and Ethnic Stereotypes: A Naturalistic Study in Person Perception

This research examined the accuracy and power of sex, social class, and ethnic stereotypes in person perception. Participants included 49 to 56 teachers and nearly 2,000 students in seventh-grade public school math classes. Results indicated that teacher perceptions regarding achievement and motivation differences between girls and boys, lower- and upper-class students, and African American and White students were mostly accurate. Results also showed that although teachers generally relied on students' personal characteristics to form their perceptions, they occasionally relied on stereotypes. We discuss these results in terms of the classic view that stereotypes are inaccurate, rigid, exaggerated, and exert powerful effects on person perception.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68982/2/10.1177_01461672982412005.pd