This monograph was written to help teachers, counselors, and parents who live and work with adolescents. It explains the psychological tasks of adolescence, separation from parents, and identity formation. Guidelines are provided for adolescent and parental development in several areas. An overview of regressive adaptation focuses on expressions…

Adapted from a series of 20 monthly columns which originally appeared in Highlights for Children, Inc.'s "Newsletter of Parenting," the material in this booklet explores: (1) ways in which television influences viewers; (2) what television teaches; and (3) some positive aspects of television. It also suggests activities for parents which…

Previous research has found that outside events seem to have little effect on happiness. Three studies in New Zealand were conducted to identify mental processes that give circumstances their favorable and unfavorable meanings. The first study examined the gap between aspiration and achievement in terms of income, education, physical fitness,…

Considerable effort has been devoted to investigating various aspects of love and affection, but there have been few studies about direct expressions of affection. Relationships between gender composition of a dyad and the affection/aggression expressed by the dyad were examined as was the possibility of increasing the amount of affectionate…

While little research has been done in the area of shyness and most of that has been descriptive, both theory and research suggest that investigation of expectancy of success and attributional style differences between shy and not-shy individuals is warranted. Very shy (N=49) or not-shy (N=48) female subjects, selected from an initial group of 698…

Research suggests that the perception of personal competence may account for a significant portion of the variance in individual physical and psychological well-being. Yet to be investigated is how people arrive at judgments of their competence, the structure of personal competence perception represented by these judgments, and the relation of the…

Although inconsistent, research findings indicate that men and women self-disclose differently in terms of depth and frequency and interpret disclosures differently during varying stages of their relationships. A review of the literature concerning communication within stable, enduring relationships reveals that, overall, there are no apparent sex…

The utility of a theoretical model of quality of life for graduate students was investigated. Variables that relate to the person-environment fit of graduate students were also examined. The data were collected via a biographical data form and seven psychometric instruments. The 142 subjects from two graduate departments at Peabody College were a…

This paper explores the developmental changes in meaning and purpose across the life course. Thirty males and females at the developmental stages of young adulthood (16-29 years), early middle-age (30-49 years), late middle-age (50-64 years), young-old (65-74 years) and old-old (75+ years) completed the Reker and Peacock (1981) Life Attitude…

This study was undertaken to examine the relationship between "Personality fitness" and academic achievement. One hundred seventy-five subjects from three educational levels--university, vocational technical institute, and high school--were administered the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices and an…

Research partially supported by grants MH-12548-01 and CA-04937-07 from the U.S. Public Health Service and by Bureau of State Services grant NIH-5-107A66.

If the nature of mourning depends on the relationship between the bereaved and the deceased, then parental mourning following a child's death may be different from mourning following the death of an adult. Parents' (N=145) descriptions of their experiences in the first year after a child's death from cancer or a blood disorder were examined to…

The specification in concrete behavioral terms of theoretical constructs is one difficulty associated with behavioral assessment. For example, the construct of heterosocial skill has not been successfully defined in operational terms. A linear modeling technique was used to identify valid behavioral referents of heterosocial skill ratings for both…

Rogers' protection motivation theory that, in a fear-producing situation, stresses cognitive processes rather than emotional ones and emphasizes coping with or avoiding aversive events rather than reducing unpleasant emotional states and Bandura's theory of self-efficacy, i.e., all processes of psychological change operate through the alteration…