Girls show greater evidence than boys of learned helplessness in achievement situations with adult (but not peer) evaluators: They attribute their failures to lack of ability rather than motivation and thus show impaired performance under failure. Two studies are reported linking sex differences in attributions to adults' use of evaluative feedback. Study 1 revealed that both the contingencies of feedback in classrooms and the attributions made by teachers were ones that would render negative evaluation more indicative of ability for girls than boys. For example, negative evaluation of girls' performance referred almost exclusively to intellectual inadequacies, whereas 45% of boys' work-related criticism referred to nonintellectual aspects. Moreover, teachers attributed the boys' failures to lack of motivation significantly more than they did the girls' failures. In Study 2, teacher-boy and teacher-girl contingencies of work-related criticism observed in classrooms were programmed in an experimental situation. Both boys and girls receiving the teacher-girl contingency were more likely to view subsequent failure feedback from that evaluator as indicative of their ability. Implications for developmental theories and for development are addressed.Learned helplessness exists when failure (Dweck, 1975;Dweck & Reppucci, 1973). is perceived as insurmountable. This per-Children who tend to emphasize modifiable ception is associated with attributions of or unstable factors, such as effort, as causes failure to stable, uncontrollable factors, like of failure tend to perceive failure as sura lack of ability, and is accompanied by de-mountable and will often show heightened terioration in performance following failure persistence or improved performance in the face of negative evaluation. The first study in this series (Developmental Psy-G» rls *« mor e likely than boys to exhibit chology, 1976, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 147-156), by Carol S. the helpless pattern of attributions. GirlsDweck and Ellen S. Bush, was "Sex Differences in place less emphasis than boys on motiva-Learned Helplessness: I. Differential Debilitation with tional f acto rs as determinants of failure and P 1o±f oSaSrare based on a symposium are inore apt than boys to blame a lack of

The relationship between sense of community and subjective well‐being (SWB) was tested by conducting telephone interviews with three random samples in South Carolina and Alabama (ns = 151, 399, and 442). Respondents answered the 17‐item Sense of Community Scale (Davidson & Cotter, 1986), a measure of three facets of SWB (happiness, worrying, and personal coping), and questions about their demographic characteristics and subjective evaluations of their community. Partial correlation coefficients were computed between sense of community and SWB, partialling out the influence of demographic and community‐evaluation variables. Sense of community was significantly related to SWB in all three samples. The effects were especially pronounced for the happiness facet of SWB. Implications are drawn for theory and intervention, and recommendations are made for further research.

The investigators reviewed the retention literature and developed a 53-item questionnaire and tested its validity. Component analysis of the responses of 2,022 students at four schools yielded six reliable factors: Institutional Commitment, Degree Commitment, Academic Integration, Social Integration, Support Services Satisfaction, and Academic Conscientiousness. A second study on 283 first-semester freshmen examined whether factor scores predicted which students returned for their sophomore year. Logistic regression found that three factors were statistically significant predictors of enrollment status, after controlling for high school class rank and standardized test scores: Institutional Commitment, Academic Integration, and Academic Conscientiousness. Strategies are provided for making use of scores based on differences between institutions and between individual students.

Based on a deductive process, several objective items were developed to measure people's sense of community with their city of residence. An item analysis produced a 17-item scale, which was then evaluated for homogeneity and external validity in three studies using telephone interviews on random samples in Alabama and South Carolina. Of seven hypotheses that were tested, six received support. Results described the scale as internally reliable and unidimensional, and the scale differentiated between people who differed in terms of demographics, home ownership, and civic contributions. Contrary to prediction, the scale did not relate to how long people had lived in their city. Explanations for this were offered and then conclusions were drawn about the potential usefulness of the scale.

Current conceptualizations of sense of community suggest that this quality may be correlated with various forms of political participation. This notion was tested in the current study by measuring and computing relationships between sense of community and five different types of political participation: voting, campaigning, contacting political officials, working on public problems, and talking about politics. Indices of these political activities were further subdivided into those with local relevance and those with nonlocal relevance. Self‐report measures of sense of community and political participation were administered by telephone interview to 546 randomly selected respondents in Birmingham, Alabama. Results showed that sense of community was significantly related to voting, to contacting officials, to working on public problems, to local and nonlocal participation, and to an index of overall political participation. The findings are discussed.