Research has shown that children who are socially rejected exhibit classroom behavior problems and are at risk for adjustment dificulties in later life. To examine the relationship between locus of control for social relationships and peer social status, 413 fifth grade students completed positive and negative same-sex peer nominations, a same-sex…

Noting that recent research and theory from the expanding field of psychobiology have not been integrated into the study of human communication, this paper offers a synthesis of principles from several leading psychobiological scientists as a step toward a possible unifying approach to communication philosophy, theory, and research. The paper…

A study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of direct mail appeals in a heart health campaign and to explore the effects of three appeal types (positive, negative, and informational) on knowledge levels and behavior patterns. Seven-hundred fifty randomly selected households were mailed brochures representing one of the three appeal types.…

Research examining alcohol consumption by using Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale has reported conflicting results, possibly related to comparisons of clinical groups of alcoholics with nonclinical light drinkers or to an overuse of correlational statistics and a lack of appropriate controls. This study sampled a wide range of ages…

The manual details an observational code designed to track a child during an entire day in a preschool setting. The Eco-Behavioral System for Complex Assessments of Preschool Environments (ESCAPE) encompasses assessment of the following three major categories of variables with their respective subcategories: (1) ecological variables (designated…

Alcohol researchers have sought to characterize the relationship between cue responsivity and alcohol consumption by alcoholics. This study used the beverage tasting paradigm to test for differences in cue responsivity in adolescent sons of alcoholics. It was hypothesized that, compared to sons of nonalcoholics, sons of alcoholics would be more…

Data from observations, parent questionnaires, and child interviews were collected from 36 preschool children and their parents for this investigation of the relationships between preschool children's play patterns at home and at school, and variables from the home environment. In addition, comparisons were made between: (1) mothers' responses to…

To assess whether communication behaviors differ between high and low consensus groups, a study considered the comparative interaction of the first meetings of high and low consensus groups, the first and final meetings of high consensus groups, and the first and final meetings of low consensus groups. Subjects, 84 students in a small group…

The concept of place identity is a theoretical necessity for understanding the impact of the urban environment on the individual. Place identity refers to clusters of perceptions in the form of images, memories, facts, ideas, beliefs, values, and behavior tendencies relevant to the individual's existence in the physical world. These clusters are…

Considerable attention has been paid to the question of whether altruism increases with age through the years of childhood and early adolescence. The relationship between age and helping was examined for 128 boys and 128 girls in the first experiment. A second sample of an additional 256 participants was then studied to investigate factors which…

Forty-one college students participated in a study designed to gather validity and reliability information on a procedure used to measure communication competence, the Communication Competency Assessment Instrument (CCAI). The study, in confirming operationalization validity, found that self-report measures correlated only slightly with…

A literature review of communications, psychological, physiological and other sociobehavioral research literature reveals a number of paradoxes regarding the emphasis by information gatekeepers, media, and audiences on messages that are negative, critical, pessimistic, conflict-and-tension-producing, skeptical, punitive, threatening,…

A survey of 222 grade school children indicates that sex differences in emotional response to failure might further explain the fact that boys have learning difficulties more often than girls, and that girls' relatively more advanced cognitive development is thought to partially account for the situation. (Author/MC)

This study assumes that all suicidal and self-destructive behavior can be placed on a continuum from hopeful (H) to hopeless (S). The author attempts to show that there is an underlying continuum of hope corresponding to what we know about the statistics of suicidal behavior. He employs two operational hypotheses as tests of his ideas: (1) a group…

There are Hispanics who reject their ethnicity. This process may be obvious or it may be subtle. The rationale for this behavior is that by rejecting "Hispanidad" and adapting linguistic styles, dressing habits, and other behavior patterns they become Americans, the more acceptable mainstream group. An Hispanic person does not need to stop being…