This study examined whether youth with learning disabilities reported more maladaptive cognitive self-regulatory characteristics known to influence learning motivation and performance. Specifically, 1,518 sixth-through twelfth-graders from two separate rural school districts with and without learning disabilities completed measures of academic self-efficacy, theories of intelligence, academic goal preferences, and attributions for exerting effort in academic contexts. We found that students with a learning disability were more likely to possess low academic self-efficacy, to believe that intelligence was fixed and nonmalleable, to prefer performance over learning goals, and to interpret the exertion of effort as meaning they possessed limited levels of ability. Theories of intelligence and academic self-efficacy were also found to influence goal preferences and ability attributions. Einally, mediational findings provided strong support for the notion that differences in goal preferences and effort attributions between youth with and without LD were largely due to the fact that youth with LD possessed greater entity views of intelligence and lower academic self-efficacy. Our findings add to existing studies that support Dweck's (1999) model and suggest that interventions for learning disabilities ought to target a broader range of cognitive self-regulatory processes.

This research examined the effects of induced mood on personal standards for performance and judgments of one's performance capabilities, or self-efficacy judgments. In Experiment 1, standards and self-efficacy judgments were assessed on common social and academic tasks. In Experiment 2, these variables were assessed on 2 novel tasks. In both experiments, negative mood induced higher standards for performance. Induced mood had no effect on perceived self-efficacy. Negative mood Ss thus held minimal standards for performance that significantly exceeded the levels of performance they judged they actually could attain. A 3rd experiment provided support for the hypothesis that negative mood raises standards by lowering evaluations of prospective outcomes. Processes underlying the results and their relation to research on naturally occurring depressed mood and stringent personal standards are discussed.

Two prominent theories of lifespan development, socioemotional selectivity theory and selection, optimization, and compensation theory, make similar predictions for differences in the goal representations of younger and older adults. Our purpose was to test whether the goals of younger and older adults differed in ways predicted by these two theories. Older adults and two groups of younger adults (college students and non-students) listed their current goals, which were then coded by independent raters. Observed age group differences in goals generally supported both theories. Specifically, when compared to younger adults, older adults reported more goals focused on maintenance/loss prevention, the present, emotion-focus and generativity, and social selection, and less goals focused on knowledge acquisition and the future. However, contrary to prediction, older adults also showed less goal focusing than younger adults, reporting goals from a broader set of life domains (e.g., health, property/possessions, friendship).

Research indicates that depressed individuals are espccially likely t o engage in thought suppression in an attempt t o achieve mental control over the thoughts that threaten their emotional well-being. In this reporC, we examine the process and problems of thought suppression and offer several strategies designed t o enhance mental control. Strategies that improve mental control increase the availabilky and accessibility of effectlve distractions and optimize mental resources. Mental control can also be improved by reducing the number of unwanted negative thoughts (e. g. , via cognitbe therapy) and by using alternative strategies t o thought suppression (e.g., acceptance-based strategies). An understanding of the counterproductive aspects of thought suppression and the identification of more effective alternatives can ofFer new insights into the cognitive factom that may contribute t o depression and those that help t o alleviate it.There once was a man who hated his own footprints. In order to get awayfiom thefootprints, the man ran faster and facter. But the faster he ran, the more footprints he made. Andfinally, he ran himselfto death. G Bruya, 1992) The moral of this ancient parable is echoed by recent research which shows that trying to mentally "run away" Zhuangzi, 300 BC (adapted by Chung