People with drinking problems are overrepresented in counseling settings. Counselors have been unable to identify accurately the problem drinker, resulting in a decrease in counselor effectiveness. Describes seven variables that help identify problem drinking and two variables that help diagnose alcoholism. Suggestions for conducting the…

By being exposed to others with different backgrounds, children can develop open, flexible personalities that will allow them to cope with change and to assimilate changes into a satisfying personal lifestyle. (CB)

Investigated relationships between mothers' perception of infants temperament at 6 months and their behavior toward their infants at 6 and 12 months of age among 40 firstborn Israeli infants. Temperamental intensity ratings were related to auditory stimulation and contingent positive vocalization for girls and to increased physical contact for…

Historical comparison of Sultan Abdul Hamid of Turkey and King Philip II of Spain with Adolph Hitler revealed similar personality traits, possibly characteristic determinants of individuals prone to undertake genocidal measures. Commitment to bureaucratic detail coupled with opportunistic belief in Messianic destiny are key factors in these…

Using a version of the "learned helplessness" paradigm, assesses mothers' performance on a solvable task following pretreatments that involved exposure to an infant cry but that differed in the mothers' ability to exert control over termination of the cry. Proposes that learned helplessness models are relevant to the study of…

Discriminated three groups of neuropsychiatric outpatients (N=138) using a measure of aggression formed by summing subscales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. Results indicated that the group differences cannot be attributed to more general factors such as age, sex, education, IQ or degree of overall psychopathology. (LLL)

Examines the ways in which Parsons's systems analysis of sociology differs from those proposed by personality theorists. Uses analogies from Parsons's systems analysis of society to elaborate the systems analyses of personality. (LLL)

Derived replicated Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory clusters for both inpatient alcoholic men and women (N=300). Subsequent multivariate analyses employing several alcohol-use scales revealed significant differences among subtypes of alcoholic women but relatively poor differentiation among subtypes of men by these measures. (BH)

In a preliminary study of a single group of suicide attempters, male and female subjects did not differ in temperament characteristics. Data from both sexes indicated that suicide-prone individuals have unpleasant, arousable, and submissive temperaments, with arousability a strong discriminator of suicide attempters relative to the general…

A total of 114 infants at three age levels (11, 18, and 28 weeks) were rated by their mothers on a termperament questionnaire and subjected to a habituation procedure. Results suggest that subject loss in habituation studies may be the result of nonrandom individual difference factors and not just the result of temporary fluctuations in state.…

Recorded activity level was not related to parental perception of activity level and did not differentiate children with differing behavioral styles. Parental perceptions of activity level significantly differentiated children's behavioral style. (Author/RH)

Examined personality characteristics of female American Indian alcoholics using the Eysenck Personality Questionniare. Results indicated that in comparison with a sample of normal women, the women in the detoxification group tended to be more tough-minded, emotional, and introverted than did those women in either an extended treatment program or…

Issues related to the selection of assessment procedures, the scaling of assessment devices, the computation of difference or change scores, and the translation of these scores into common indexes of outcome are explored. Suggestions are provided for refining the measurement of inferred states. (Author/BL)

Developing leadership potential is a new challenge to educational organizations as the number of women and minorities increases. The author provides a model assessment instrument that includes scales for evaluation, observation, and personalized training opportunities. (MD)

The Personal Competence Profile was administered to 30 male adults with Down syndrome and 30 without Down syndrome matched on age, IQ, and years of instituionalization. Down syndrome subjects rated higher on attention, calmness, and niceness but lower on sensation, language, and boldness. (Author/CL)