Alcohol expectancies have been found to predict later onset of drinking among adolescents. This study examined whether the relationship between level of alcohol use and expectancies is paralleled with cigarette smoking, and attempted to identify the content of smoking expectancies. An instrument to measure the subjective expected utility of…

The present study examined longitudinally the origin of a prior finding that mothers who perceived their infant's temperament as either "easy" or "difficult" exhibited a differential psychophysiological response pattern. Additionally examined were the pattern's behavioral correlates and relation to infant-mother attachment.…

Recent research in achievement has focused on sex differences found in locus of standards, conceptual focus, and expectations for success. To examine the nature of sex differences and their relationship to achievement domains, 439 college students (197 females, 242 males) were asked to write an account of an achievement or failure. They then…

A review of the research on pretherapy education for psychotherapy clients has found that pretherapy training has a positive impact on encouraging clients to remain in individual or group therapy. Pretherapy training has also been shown to contribute to improving client motivation and attitudes toward the therapeutic process. The evidence suggests…

Research into fluctuations in anxiety before and after a threatening event suggests that anxiety may decrease as the anticipated threat draws near. To investigate the experience of actual test anxiety (TA) compared to its anticipation and recollection, 502 college students completed 10-item alternate forms (A and B) of the State Trait Anxiety…

Three papers by the president of the National Federation of the Blind are presented. The first, "A Definition of Blindness," examines definitions of blindness, asserting the advantages of a functional or sociological definition over a physical or medical definition. He cites harm in legal distinctions between partial and full blindness and between…

As part of its school restructuring work with states, the National Governors' Association sponsored a March 1988 working meeting of experts to define common issues confronting educators and policymakers. Besides initiating dialogue between these groups, the meeting concentrated discussion on early state and district efforts. This essay summarizes…

Early research demonstrating an association between success and the male stereotype and between failure and the female stereotype, and the Bayesian analysis of attribution theory provided the bases for predictions about the effects of gender and performance outcomes on probability estimates of future success. The relation between gender…

Organizational socialization is the process by which a person learns the values, norms, and required behaviors that allow an individual to function as a member of an organization. The individual has expectations of job content, job context, and career expectations. Reality shock occurs when a newcomer's expectations differ from experiences in the…

This exploratory study was designed to investigate the explanatory and predictive power of the transaction between affect and cognition in the account of transitions across developmental stages within various domains. Subjects were 21 undergraduate college students from a course on intellectual development taught at Tufts University…

Grandmothering has been described as a "tenuous" role in modern families in that grandparenting is specified as a symbolic linkage but is ambiguous in terms of behavioral expectations. This paper addresses the following question: How do role relational partners modulate their own behavior when there is ambiguity in expectations for…

Evaluation errors may be unintentional, caused by incompetence, or intentional caused by mendacity. This report is concerned, not with incompetence, but with the production of educational assessments flawed by an evaluator's deceit. The purposes of the paper are: (1) to identify conditions under which people purposely distort evaluation reports,…

A summary is presented of a study addressing three major questions concerning student mediation of teacher expectancy effects upon the performance and self-concept of elementary school students. These questions were: (1) Are there developmental differences in children's capacity to perceive differential treatment (toward others as well as…

Both black and white children's reactions to black adults are studies for how the status characteristics of adults and children affect adults' ability to raise a child's expectations of his own performance on school-like tasks. (Author/KM)