This research addressed whether depressive symptoms were positively or negatively associated with the extent to which research participants showed an illusion of control. In Study 1, 85 female college students participated in a psychokinesis (PK) task and completed a magical ideation scale. Consistent with research reported by Thalbourne and others (e.g., Thalbourne & Delin, 1994), participants who showed higher levels of depressive symptoms also showed higher illusory control scores. In Study 2, 105 participants completed a precognition task and a PK task as well as a judgment of contingency task used by Alloy and Abramson (1979) to test the so-called "depressive realism" hypothesis. Factor analysis confirmed two factors, one on which the judgments on the Precognition and PK tasks loaded and one on which the judgment on the contingency task loaded. Results replicated the finding in Study 1 for the paranormal tasks. For the contingency task, consistent with Alloy and Abramson's depressive realism model, participants showing higher levels of depressive symptoms also showed lower illusory control scores. Results are related to research that documents a relation between various forms of magical thinking and psychopathology.Considerable research suggests that people who manifest, or are prone toward, certain forms of psychopathology report higher levels of magical or other types of paranormal beliefs. Meehl (cited in Eckblad & Chapman, 1983) noted that people who were prone toward manifesting schizophrenia were high in magical ideation, which he defined as a "belief, quasi-belief, or semi-serious entertainment of the possibility that events which, according to causal concepts of this SOCIAL

Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the factor structure of several versions of Levenson's (1973) locus of control scales. Two- and three-factor models based on all 24 of Levenson's items and on 20 of her items were tested. The 3-factor models provided a good fit. Models proposed by R. M. Shewchuk, G. A. Foelker Jr., and G. Niederehe (1990) and R. M. Shewchuk, G. A Foelker Jr., C. J. Camp, and F. Blanchard-Fields (1992) also provided a good fit of the data. In concurrent and prospective tests of the predictive ability of the various models, the 24 and 20 item versions of Levenson's models accounted for a significant amount of variance In depressive symptomatology. The three-factor models revealed that only scores on the chance scale reliably predicted time 2 depressive symptomatology. Neither of the models proposed by Shewchuk and colleagues accounted for a significant amount of variance.

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Visual field dependence in 292 multi-ethnic adult children of alcoholics (ACAs) and nonalcoholics (NACAs) was assessed, using the Hidden Figures Test (Ekstrom, French, & Harmon, 1976). There were no differences among ethnic groups, but ACAs achieved a significantly lower percentage of correct answers and more incorrect answers and attempted more questions relative to NACAs. These findings suggest that ACAs' visuospatial deficits are not related to ethnic and cultural factors.