For some time, military behavioral scientists have attempted to find ways to identify the young person who could successfully complete basic training and become a useful soldier while also detecting those individuals who would not be able to adapt or adjust and might be returned to the civilian world. This paper reports on the investigation of the…

The paper describes the Coping Inventory, an observation instrument that provides an index of handicapped children's adaptive behavior by assessing the behaviors and skills they use to meet their own needs and adapt to the demands of their environment. Coping is defined as an active, adaptive process of using strategies to manage one's world.…

A survey of published research determined that individual and group reactions to natural disasters differ greatly and depend partially on the predisaster personality. Four models are examined to explain individual and group reactions to natural disasters. A conglomerate model and a possible structure to future disaster research are offered.…

Parents from child-abuse and matched-control families were examined for variation of life-change scores, perceptions of physical and emotional health, and punitiveness of their own parents. Abusive parents had higher life-change scores, more numerous perceptions of emotion physical ill health, and more punitive childhoods. (Author)

Abused children who survived the trauma of their childhood and grew up to be well-adjusted were compared with a matched group who showed a high degree of psychosocial pathology. The variables which distinguished the two groups were fatalism, self-esteem, cognitive abilities, self-destructiveness, hope and fantasy, behavior patterns and external…

Although stressful life change events are thought to influence the development of alcoholism and to enhance the probability of relapse after treatment, the actual coping responses to specific events among alcoholics remain largely unexplored. Efforts were made to operationalize and classify coping responses and to explore their relationship to…

Results suggest that characteristics of the marital lifestyle may impede or facilitate adjustment to marital separation, although salient characteristics may vary for men and women, and change with age. The existence of separate avenues for self-expression constitutes a major resource in coping with the transition to singlehood. (Author)

Although acknowledging stressful aspects of dual-career living, most participants defined their life-style positively. Achieving a balance between the advantages and disadvantages of the lifestyle appears to be the overriding concern of most dual-career couples. (Author)

Identified several different patterns of adaptation over first 18 months of bereavement represented by levels of subjective stress and depression in 131 widowed men and women. Anticipatory grief, concurrent stressors, social support, and spiritual support correlated with single significant function which discriminated between different courses of…

The course of psychosocial adjustment to cancer was examined in 105 adults with cancer of the lung, breast and skin. Half of the patients received a program of systematic psychosocial rehabilitation plus evaluation, and the other half received only an evaluation, consisting of a series of psychometric instruments and a problem-oriented structured…

Ninety-three families of children with developmental delays were interviewed, to investigate the functional accommodations made to sustain daily routines for a child with a disability. Results found a downward trend in accommodation intensity from age 7 to 11, while types of accommodations increased from age 3 to 11. (CR)

A sample of 218 college students investigated associations between coping responses, drinking motivations, expectations of meeting social and academic goals, and family of origin problem drinking and measures of college students' quantity/frequency of alcohol use and social complications of alcohol use. (KW)

In a study of African-American (n=119) urban high school students, coping with life stressors was positively and negatively associated with the use of substances. This study focused on how grade point average (GPA), psychological adjustment, and coping styles contribute to the reported use of substances as a way of dealing with stress. The results…

This case study describes a 39-year-old intellectually gifted man with learning disabilities who demonstrated symptoms of amnesic-semantic aphasia at age 13, leading to placement in a class for students with mental retardation and to dropping out of school. The man's remarkable behavioral and cognitive adjustments led to a fulfilling life and…

The impact of a child's learning disability on the family system is explored using Feuerstein's concept of mediated learning experience. Four prototypical patterns of family response are identified, with descriptions of the mediational restrictions and potentialities embedded within them. (DB)