It has been suggested that people engage in nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) because they (a) experience heightened physiological arousal following stressful events and use NSSI to regulate experienced distress and (b) have deficits in their social problem-solving skills that interfere with the performance of more adaptive social responses. However,…

Objective: This study investigated whether a universal school-based life skills program--IPSY (Information + Psychosocial Competence = Protection)--against substance misuse exerted the same effectiveness for young adolescents (10.5-13 years) from distinct alcohol use trajectories characterized by late childhood risk factors (temperament,…

Compared problem-solving therapy (PST); problem-focused therapy; and wait-list control for treatment of depression. Results indicated that PST subjects reported a significant decrease in their depression, which was also found to covary with concurrent increases in problem-solving effectiveness and the adoption of an internal locus of control…

Intimate partner violence is a serious and pervasive social problem with deleterious consequences for survivors' well-being. The current study involved interviewing 160 survivors 6 times over 2 years to examine the role of social support in explaining or buffering these negative psychological consequences. The authors examined both between- and…

Demonstrates that approach gradients can be steeper than avoidance gradients. An individual with an avoidance-approach conflict, placed on the goal side of the intersection of the gradients, would enthusiastically approach a goal previously avoided. Implications of avoidance-approach conflict are discussed. (Author/BEF)

Outlines the therapeutic process in social skills training with 22 socially dysfunctional outpatients who met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders criteria for avoidant personality disorder. Measured performance of prosocial target behaviors and associated subjective anxiety during baseline, treatment, and follow-up periods.…

Effects of a 52-lesson, class-taught, social-problem-solving training program for third-grade children were assessed. Program children improved more than controls on several cognitive skills, including problem identification, alternative-solution thinking, and consequential thinking as well as on behavioral problem-solving performance.…

This study examined associations between televised news regarding risk for future terrorism and youth outcomes and investigated the effects of training mothers in an empirically based approach to addressing such news with children. This approach--Coping and Media Literacy (CML)--emphasized modeling, media literacy, and contingent reinforcement and…

The results support Gould's (1969) contention that alienation has important psychological, in addition to sociological, correlates. (Author)

Evaluates a multivariate model of youthful marijuana use. The model includes the symbolic-protest function and the peer-acceptance function, marijuana use for gaining acceptance from permissive peers. Support for the model comes from close correspondence between observed and predicted correlations and the low, nonsignificant value of the…

To investigate the interactive process of changes in social anxiety and depression during treatment, the authors assessed weekly symptoms in 66 adult outpatients with social phobia (social anxiety disorder) who participated in cognitive- behavioral group therapy. Multilevel mediational analyses revealed that improvements in social anxiety mediated…