This review examines three theories of alcohol abuse by American males: (1) the sex role theory which states that men drink heavily because American culture accepts and encourages that activity in males; (2) the dependency theory, which interprets drinking as a means by which men secretly gratify their dependency needs while manifesting an…

Research has indicated that female models are important for female college students in their career decisions. To examine the effect of female role models on the career choices of college females, 57 freshmen students were provided with role models through interaction with female faculty advisers, and through exposure to female career women in a…

Self-concept is an important element in the growth and developmental process for individual human beings. Adult learners in institutional programs need assistance in probing their inner selves to be able to move ahead in their lives. David Kolb's work with the experiental learning model is especially appropriate in dealing with adult learners. In…

This document begins by noting that during the first half of this century, the relationship of mothers and daughters existed under a cloud of suspicion, and that only recently has this relationship been deemed worthy of reflection and study. It surveys the research and theoretical literature on the mother-daughter relationship, delineates the…

There is increasing acceptance of the premise that growth and development continue throughout adult life and, as life expectancy has lengthened, there is a much expanded mid-life period. Yet, middle adulthood has been neglected as an area of theoretical and empirical examination. Adults (N=251) in middle adulthood (age 35-55) completed instruments…

Educators must create learning opportunities to stimulate older adults and allow them to develop. These educators must also operationalize self-fulfillment in adult education. Research and theory indicate that cognition is an adaptive process and elders who practice learning activities will maintain their abilities. Further, research and theory of…

Recent studies of contextual attributes thought to be automatic have reported deficits among the elderly, raising the question of whether automatic memory processing does require some effortful attention and if so, whether such effort is needed during encoding, storage, or retrieval. This study used a secondary task methodology to examine these…

This paper presents a model that offers strategies for enhancing quality relationships across the family life cycle. The materials support the identification of characteristics of strong families and describe the course of marital development. The model includes a description of the need for an educational and/or intervention framework to enhance…

The fulfillment of the need for intimacy is believed to be central to adult life satisfaction, particularly in young adulthood. To explore the development of intimacy in women and to assess the relationships among intimacy status, locus of control, and self-disclosure, 97 college women with an average age of 30 were placed into 1 of 5 intimacy…

There is a common perception that stresses tend to increase and accumulate with age, but there have been no definitive studies of differences in perceived life stress among different age groups. To study these differences, a quasi-random sample of 215 adults completed a 41 item life-stressor questionnaire, modified from the Paykel (1971) and…

This study examined separation-individuation development issues for young adult women, from the perspective of object-relations theory. Its purpose was to explore a woman's perception of her relationship with mother as it is affected by age and request for psychotherapy as well as the relationship between mother-daughter bond and personality…

Retirement may have a negative effect on a person's health, and may even accelerate death. To determine the validity of this effect, time intervals between reported retirement date and death date were tabulated for retirees from a large petroleum corporation. A regression analyses was performed to control for physiological factors, job status, and…

Age is often used to explain performances by older people that may be judged substandard in comparison with those of younger people. To explore age as a possible causal attribution, descriptions of task performances by young (aged 30) and old (aged 70) women were judged by young (N=352) and old (N=96) female subjects on four attributions, i.e.,…

The current data on the incidence and predilections of adult students fall into "good news" and "bad news" categories for educators in the humanities. The good news begins with the sheer numbers of potential adult students. In 1975, about 17 million adults were engaged in continuing education, and this figure has probably increased dramatically…

Socio-psychological variables that influence the extent to which older people (age: 50+) will be consumers of education are examined to arrive at criteria for programs appropriate to the developmental needs of this group. Research indicates that two primary influences are changes in learning abilities and interests. Secondary influences include…