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Frontiers in Psychology 2018The current review provides an overview of published research on teachers' causal attributions since 1970s in the context of theoretical assumptions outlined in Weiner's... (Review)
Review
The current review provides an overview of published research on teachers' causal attributions since 1970s in the context of theoretical assumptions outlined in Weiner's (2010) attribution theory. Results across 79 studies are first examined with respect to the prevalence of teachers' interpersonal causal attributions for student performance and misbehavior, as well as intrapersonal attributions for occupational stress. Second, findings showing significant relations between teachers' attributions and their emotions and cognitions, as well as student outcomes, are discussed. Third, an overview of results showing the prevalence and implications of teachers' causal attributions to be moderated by critical background variables is also provided. Finally, observed themes across study findings are highlighted with respect to the fundamental attribution error and the utility of Weiner's attribution theory for understanding how teachers' explanations for classroom stressors impact their instruction, well-being, and student development.
PubMed: 30618897
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02305 -
Emerging Infectious Diseases Jul 2005Identification and prioritization of effective food safety interventions require an understanding of the relationship between food and pathogen from farm to consumption....
Identification and prioritization of effective food safety interventions require an understanding of the relationship between food and pathogen from farm to consumption. Critical to this cause is food attribution, the capacity to attribute cases of foodborne disease to the food vehicle or other source responsible for illness. A wide variety of food attribution approaches and data are used around the world, including the analysis of outbreak data, case-control studies, microbial subtyping and source tracking methods, and expert judgment, among others. The Food Safety Research Consortium sponsored the Food Attribution Data Workshop in October 2003 to discuss the virtues and limitations of these approaches and to identify future options for collecting food attribution data in the United States. We summarize workshop discussions and identify challenges that affect progress in this critical component of a risk-based approach to improving food safety.
Topics: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S.; Denmark; Disease Outbreaks; Food Contamination; Humans; Population Surveillance; Risk Assessment; United Kingdom; United States
PubMed: 16022770
DOI: 10.3201/eid1107.040634 -
Journal of Family Medicine and Primary... Sep 2022Patients who come to the emergency department are different from those seen in outpatient clinics. The former suffer greater stress.
BACKGROUND
Patients who come to the emergency department are different from those seen in outpatient clinics. The former suffer greater stress.
AIM
Establish an association between the attribution of the symptoms (psychosocial or organic) by the patient and the level of perceived stress in patients with Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms (MUS) in an emergency department.
METHODS
A correlational cross-sectional study was conducted in 138 patients with MUS in the emergency department of a 3rd level public hospital where the psychosocial or organic attribution of nonspecific symptom(s) by patients and the perceived stress were measured with validated scales. Bivariate analysis was performed with Chi square for categorical variables, and a Spearman correlation, p <0.05.
RESULTS
75% of patients with psychosocial attribution have higher stress compared to patients with organic symptom attribution (25%). In Spearman's correlation, a medium but statistically significant correlation was obtained.
CONCLUSIONS
The psychosocial attribution of the patient's complaint might coexist in MUS patients with higher level of perceived stress by the patients. Health professionals might need to address both psychosocial attributions and stress in MUS patients.
PubMed: 36505573
DOI: 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_2254_21 -
JAMA Network Open Sep 2023In primary chronic back pain (CBP), the belief that pain indicates tissue damage is both inaccurate and unhelpful. Reattributing pain to mind or brain processes may... (Randomized Controlled Trial)
Randomized Controlled Trial
IMPORTANCE
In primary chronic back pain (CBP), the belief that pain indicates tissue damage is both inaccurate and unhelpful. Reattributing pain to mind or brain processes may support recovery.
OBJECTIVES
To test whether the reattribution of pain to mind or brain processes was associated with pain relief in pain reprocessing therapy (PRT) and to validate natural language-based tools for measuring patients' symptom attributions.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
This secondary analysis of clinical trial data analyzed natural language data from patients with primary CBP randomized to PRT, placebo injection control, or usual care control groups and treated in a US university research setting. Eligible participants were adults aged 21 to 70 years with CBP recruited from the community. Enrollment extended from 2017 to 2018, with the current analyses conducted from 2020 to 2022.
INTERVENTIONS
PRT included cognitive, behavioral, and somatic techniques to support reattributing pain to nondangerous, reversible mind or brain causes. Subcutaneous placebo injection and usual care were hypothesized not to affect pain attributions.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
At pretreatment and posttreatment, participants listed their top 3 perceived causes of pain in their own words (eg, football injury, bad posture, stress); pain intensity was measured as last-week average pain (0 to 10 rating, with 0 indicating no pain and 10 indicating greatest pain). The number of attributions categorized by masked coders as reflecting mind or brain processes were summed to yield mind-brain attribution scores (range, 0-3). An automated scoring algorithm was developed and benchmarked against human coder-derived scores. A data-driven natural language processing (NLP) algorithm identified the dimensional structure of pain attributions.
RESULTS
We enrolled 151 adults (81 female [54%], 134 White [89%], mean [SD] age, 41.1 [15.6] years) reporting moderate severity CBP (mean [SD] intensity, 4.10 [1.26]; mean [SD] duration, 10.0 [8.9] years). At pretreatment, 41 attributions (10%) were categorized as mind- or brain-related across intervention conditions. PRT led to significant increases in mind- or brain-related attributions, with 71 posttreatment attributions (51%) in the PRT condition categorized as mind- or brain-related, as compared with 22 (8%) in control conditions (mind-brain attribution scores: PRT vs placebo, g = 1.95 [95% CI, 1.45-2.47]; PRT vs usual care, g = 2.06 [95% CI, 1.57-2.60]). Consistent with hypothesized PRT mechanisms, increases in mind-brain attribution score were associated with reductions in pain intensity at posttreatment (standardized β = -0.25; t127 = -2.06; P = .04) and mediated the effects of PRT vs control on 1-year follow-up pain intensity (β = -0.35 [95% CI, -0.07 to -0.63]; P = .05). The automated word-counting algorithm and human coder-derived scores achieved moderate and substantial agreement at pretreatment and posttreatment (Cohen κ = 0.42 and 0.68, respectively). The data-driven NLP algorithm identified a principal dimension of mind and brain vs biomechanical attributions, converging with hypothesis-driven analyses.
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
In this secondary analysis of a randomized trial, PRT increased attribution of primary CBP to mind- or brain-related causes. Increased mind-brain attribution was associated with reductions in pain intensity.
Topics: Adult; Humans; Female; Low Back Pain; Back Pain; Pain Management; Pain Measurement; Brain
PubMed: 37768666
DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.33846 -
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews.... May 2021Research in the last 15 years has challenged the idea that false belief attribution develops at 4 years of age. Studies with indirect false belief tasks contend to... (Review)
Review
Research in the last 15 years has challenged the idea that false belief attribution develops at 4 years of age. Studies with indirect false belief tasks contend to provide evidence of false belief attribution in the second year of life. We review the literature on indirect false belief tasks carried out in infants using looking and active helping paradigms. Although the results are heterogeneous and not conclusive, such tasks appear to capture a real effect. However, it is misleading to call them "false belief" tasks, as it is possible to pass them without making any false belief attribution. Infants need to keep track of the object's and agent's positions, trajectories, and focus of attention, given an intentional understanding of the agent, to pass these new tasks. We, therefore, argue that the evidence can be better explained in terms of second-person attributions, which are transparent, extensional, nonpropositional, reciprocally contingent, and implicit. Second-person attributions can also account for primates' mentalizing abilities, as revealed by similar indirect tasks. This article is categorized under: Cognitive Biology > Cognitive Development Philosophy > Foundations of Cognitive Science Cognitive Biology > Evolutionary Roots of Cognition.
Topics: Attention; Child Development; Comprehension; Concept Formation; Deception; Humans; Infant; Social Perception
PubMed: 33319503
DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1551 -
Frontiers in Psychology 2022Ostracism is known to cause psychological distress. Thus, defining the factors that can lead to recovery or diminish these negative effects is crucial. Three experiments...
Ostracism is known to cause psychological distress. Thus, defining the factors that can lead to recovery or diminish these negative effects is crucial. Three experiments examined whether suggesting the possible causes of ostracism to victims could decrease or eliminate their ostracism distress. They also examined whether death-anxiety mediated the association between the suggested possible cause for being ostracized and recovery. Participants ( = 656) were randomly assigned to six experimental and control groups and were either ostracized or included in a game of Cyberball. Two control conditions were used: participants who were ostracized but received no explanation and participants who were included. Immediately after the ostracism experience, participants in the experimental groups were presented with one of four causes for being ostracized, using locus of control (internal, external) and stability (stable, unstable), the two causal dimensions of Weiner's attribution theory. After a short delay they were administered a mood or needs-satisfaction questionnaire. The results highlight the interaction between locus of control and stability, and underscore the relative importance of different attributions in alleviating self-reported ostracism distress. Specifically, both external and unstable attributions decreased distress, and an unstable attribution led to complete recovery in some participants. Thus, recovery from ostracism may be accelerated when the victim receives an explanation for ostracism that attributes the incident to unstable, external causes soon after the incident. Death-anxiety fully mediated the association between locus of control attribution and mood, but for on needs-satisfaction or the stability of the attribution.
PubMed: 35645924
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.899564 -
Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare... 2023To describe a novel attribution metric estimating the causal source location of healthcare-associated and compare it with the current US National Healthcare Safety...
OBJECTIVE
To describe a novel attribution metric estimating the causal source location of healthcare-associated and compare it with the current US National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) surveillance reporting standard.
DESIGN
Quality improvement study.
SETTING
Two acute care facilities.
METHODS
A novel attribution metric assigned days of attribution to locations where patients were located for 14 days before and the day of their diagnosis. We correlated the NHSN-assigned unit attribution with the novel attribution measure and compared the proportion of attribution assigned to inpatient units.
RESULTS
During a 30-month period, there were 727 NHSN healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and 409 non-HAIs; the novel metric attributed 17,034 days. The correlation coefficients for NHSN and novel attributions among non-ICU units were 0.79 (95% CI, 0.76-0.82) and 0.74 (95% CI, 0.70-0.78) and among ICU units were 0.70 (95% CI, 0.63-0.76) and 0.69 (95% CI, 0.60-0.77) at facilities A and B, respectively. The distribution of difference in percent attribution showed higher inpatient unit attribution using NHSN measure than the novel attribution metric: 38% of ICU units and 15% of non-ICU units in facility A, and 20% of ICU units and 25% of non-ICU units in facility B had a median difference >0; no inpatient units showed a greater attribution using the novel attribution metric.
CONCLUSION
The novel attribution metric shifts attribution from inpatient units to other settings and correlates modestly with NHSN methodology of attribution. If validated, the attribution metric may more accurately target reduction efforts.
PubMed: 38156213
DOI: 10.1017/ash.2023.516 -
Nature Mar 2022Ancient history relies on disciplines such as epigraphy-the study of inscribed texts known as inscriptions-for evidence of the thought, language, society and history of...
Ancient history relies on disciplines such as epigraphy-the study of inscribed texts known as inscriptions-for evidence of the thought, language, society and history of past civilizations. However, over the centuries, many inscriptions have been damaged to the point of illegibility, transported far from their original location and their date of writing is steeped in uncertainty. Here we present Ithaca, a deep neural network for the textual restoration, geographical attribution and chronological attribution of ancient Greek inscriptions. Ithaca is designed to assist and expand the historian's workflow. The architecture of Ithaca focuses on collaboration, decision support and interpretability. While Ithaca alone achieves 62% accuracy when restoring damaged texts, the use of Ithaca by historians improved their accuracy from 25% to 72%, confirming the synergistic effect of this research tool. Ithaca can attribute inscriptions to their original location with an accuracy of 71% and can date them to less than 30 years of their ground-truth ranges, redating key texts of Classical Athens and contributing to topical debates in ancient history. This research shows how models such as Ithaca can unlock the cooperative potential between artificial intelligence and historians, transformationally impacting the way that we study and write about one of the most important periods in human history.
Topics: Archaeology; Deep Learning; Greece, Ancient; Handwriting; History, Ancient; Humans; Software; Writing
PubMed: 35264762
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04448-z -
Molecular Biology and Evolution May 2022Mutational processes in tumors create distinctive patterns of mutations, composed of neutral "passenger" mutations and oncogenic drivers that have quantifiable effects...
Mutational processes in tumors create distinctive patterns of mutations, composed of neutral "passenger" mutations and oncogenic drivers that have quantifiable effects on the proliferation and survival of cancer cell lineages. Increases in proliferation and survival are mediated by natural selection, which can be quantified by comparing the frequency at which we detect substitutions to the frequency at which we expect to detect substitutions assuming neutrality. Most of the variants detectable with whole-exome sequencing in tumors are neutral or nearly neutral in effect, and thus the processes generating the majority of mutations may not be the primary sources of the tumorigenic mutations. Across 24 cancer types, we identify the contributions of mutational processes to each oncogenic variant and quantify the degree to which each process contributes to tumorigenesis. We demonstrate that the origination of variants driving melanomas and lung cancers is predominantly attributable to the preventable, exogenous mutational processes associated with ultraviolet light and tobacco exposure, respectively, whereas the origination of selected variants in gliomas and prostate adenocarcinomas is largely attributable to endogenous processes associated with aging. Preventable mutations associated with pathogen exposure and apolipoprotein B mRNA-editing enzyme activity account for a large proportion of the cancer effect within head-and-neck, bladder, cervical, and breast cancers. These attributions complement epidemiological approaches-revealing the burden of cancer driven by single-nucleotide variants caused by either endogenous or exogenous, nonpreventable, or preventable processes, and crucially inform public health strategies.
Topics: Carcinogenesis; Humans; Male; Mutation; Neoplasms; Oncogenes; Exome Sequencing
PubMed: 35580068
DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msac084 -
International Journal of Environmental... Jan 2023This research aimed to validate the Academic Success and Failure Attribution Questionnaire (ASFAQ) and analyze gender and age differences in middle and high school...
This research aimed to validate the Academic Success and Failure Attribution Questionnaire (ASFAQ) and analyze gender and age differences in middle and high school students in Italy. Methods: From the ASFAQ questionnaire validated with Spanish students, an analysis of the psychometric characteristics of the scale was carried out using a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). To compare ASFAQ scores by gender and school year, the independent samples parametric t-test and Pearson's coincidence test were used. (3) Results: in total, 976 students participated in the research, of which 515 were middle school students and 461 were high school students. The results showed a validity of the ASFAQ for Italian students, in addition to statistically significant differences between males and females, and school year. (4) Conclusions: The ASFAQ is reliable and valid to assess the attributional styles of academic success and failure in an Italian context. There are significant differences in sex and school year, and a consequence with age.
Topics: Male; Female; Humans; Psychometrics; Students; Surveys and Questionnaires; Academic Success; Social Perception; Italy
PubMed: 36767602
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph20032235