CONTROL BELIEFS, ITS JUSTIFICATIONS, AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Ten social tasks were described orally to 61 subjects aged 17 to 20. T he subjects had to decide whether or not they thought they would be ab le to complete the tasks. They were also asked about their response ce rtainty and their familiarity with the situation. In addition, the lat ency time between the end of the description of the problem and the be ginning of the utterance of the control belief was measured. We were m ainly interested in finding out what arguments (reference to episodes, to dispositional attributes, to the participant's control share, and to rules) the subjects would preferrably use to justify their belief o r non-belief in control. In addition, we measured general control beli ef as further independent variable. The results showed that references to dispositional attributes were the most frequently used arguments, followed by references to episodes, to the participant's control share , and to rules. However, the response certainty was highest in cases w hen a concrete personal experience was mentioned. Response latencies w ere also shortest when the control belief utterance was justified by i nvoking a concrete personal experience, followed by dispositional attr ibutes, participant information, and rules, in this order. Apparently, the subjects preferred episodic justifications of their control belie f. The subjects felt more certain about their statement when they clai med to have control over a given situation than when they thought they did not have control. General control belief had no influence on the preference for particular arguments or on the latency times.