Past research has shown that the way one walks reflects one's personality traits and mood states. A study was conducted to examine whether the way one walks can reciprocally affect one's mood. The study tested the hypothesis that walking vigorously would cause a person to feel happier, and that a shuffling walk would cause a person to feel more…

The literary field offers an especially rich array of examples of the insight phenomenon and demonstrates that insight experiences occur outside the problem-solving paradigm of cognitive science. Analysis shows that the seemingly unitary moment of insight is actually a microgenetic sequence (a rapid sequence of developmental change) deeply…

The relationship between attitudes and behavior has been a topic of considerable debate. Accordingly, this paper reports a meta-analysis of 83 attitude-behavior studies. The analysis suggests that attitudes significantly predict future behavior (combined p<<.000000000001); the average attitude-behavior correlation (ABC) is r=.38. Methodologically,…

Affective disorder is characterized by maladaptive changes in mood, attitudes, energy level, and physical status. These changes constitute the basic dimensions of depression. Depression results from a combination of genetic and experiential factors. There are sex differences and age differences with regard to depression, and there is a high…

This paper presents a dynamic perspective of some of the major issues surrounding the eating disorder of bulimia. The focus is specifically on the relationship of the bulimia nervosa syndrome to the historical dynamics of the developmental process of the individual. Three major aspects of bulimia are discussed. First, there is a discussion of…

Stress is a part of the normal process of growing and developing for children. A stress situation is composed of anxiety and stress. If coping strategies are inadequate, depression can result. Four categories of stress include time, anticipatory, situational, and encounter stress. It is important to recognize unsuccessful defense mechanisms…

One unified aspect of men's gender role conflict is the fear of femininity, which can produce six conflicts: restrictive emotionality; homophobia; socialized control, power, and competition; restrictive affectionate behavior; obsession with achievement and success; and health care problems. To measure these constructs 85 items were generated from…

Rubin and Peplau's Just World Scale is based on the belief that a just world is a unidimensional construct in which individual beliefs are polarized according to immanent justice or ultimate justice. To investigate the effect of personal style on just world view, 109 male and female college students (who previously had completed the Just World…

Psychological researchers continue to debate the relative contribution of ability and effort to feelings of self-worth. To investigate student preferences for ability or effort and their relationship to self-worth, and to assess the relative contribution of ability and effort to affective experience, two separate studies were undertaken. In the…

Based on the assumption that differences in personal meaning and in the social significance of loss predispose widows and divorced individuals to different, specific vulnerabilities during grieving, 410 separated, divorced, and widowed women, aged 23 to 76 years, with at least one child, completed the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist, the…

While there is growing awareness of the special needs and problems of older adults, little research has focused on differentiating groups within the older population. To determine whether different types of problems are more likely at specific ages within a range typically served at geriatric facilities, geriatric clinic patients in three age…

An exploratory study investigated the relationship between loneliness, coping strategies, and cognitive styles in a sample of 52 gifted students from rural Nebraska (mean age 17.25 years). Assessment measures consisted of the Woodward Loneliness Inventory, the Kalyan-Masih Coping Inventory I, and the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT), which…

The reluctance of depressed people to try hard may result not from their low expectancy for success, as Learned Helplessness Theory suggests, but rather from egotistic motivation to preserve whatever self-esteem they still have. Two studies were conducted using a paradigm which permitted a direct comparison of Learned Helplessness Theory and…

A study was conducted to explore the generality of reconstructive processes of memory for social information. Sixty college students divided evenly into six experimental and control groups were asked to read one of two versions of a story: one in which a couple happily agreed not to have children, the other in which the man's desire to remain…

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…