Explains how many schools are abandoning the middle school model and returning to kindergarten through eighth grade schools. Notes that one of the professional organizations committed to middle schools believes academic rigor is only feasible in middle schools. Concludes that in the future, the presence and popularity of middle schools will depend…

Discusses the social development of infants in terms of a set of tasks which include identity, culturation, and reproduction. Focuses on the task of identity, the role of self-awareness in relationships, and the relationship between identity and emotional life. (RJC)

The Gestalt dream approach is a practical way to explore personal issues. This article demonstrates how dream work can be adapted by counselors to focus clients to direct forms of personal exploration. A four-step strategy is described. (Authors)

Entry-level counseling students (n=74) were surveyed to investigate the relationship between resolution of Erikson's psychosocial stage of intimacy/isolation and counselor trainee empathy. Results revealed a significant positive relationship between measures of psychosocial stage resolution and counselor empathy and a significant main effect for…

Emotional characteristics of gifted children are examined. Frameworks developed by G. Betts and M. Neihart and by A. Roeper, which classify children by features of their characteristic emotional response, are described. Gifted children's unusual levels of sensitivity and intensity are noted and illustrated with a case example. (JDD)

Assessed effects of maternal employment on socioemotional development of young children. After controlling for differences at time of child's birth, found that children whose mothers worked full-time beginning in child's first or second year scored more poorly on composite measure of adjustment than did children of mothers who were not employed…

The study compared the nonverbal emotional expressions of five young children (ages three through five) with autism and five typical children. Although frequency of emotional displays was similar in both groups, children with autism displayed happy, sad, and angry faces during incongruent contextual events. (Author/DB)

Study compares the object relations and language functions of 15 physically abused and 15 non-abused adolescents. Results reveal no significant differences between groups on overall measures. The findings do not support the view that physically abused adolescents experience developmental lags, instead suggesting that they organize and use…

Discusses Vygotsky's ideas in art psychology on the role of emotion in art, the nature of the aesthetic experience, the semiotic nature of psychological processes, and the foundation of a Marxist psychology and a Marxist aesthetics. Central to all of his ideas was his critique of Russian formalism. (MMU)

Explores the educational implications of cognitivism and Aristotelianism in the field of emotional research and discusses attempts to translate these ideas into educational practice. Uses a "post-Kohlbergian" perspective (L. Kohlberg, 1971, 1981) to consider the feasibility of moral education and emotion education in a school setting.…

Notes the heterogeneity of focus in the articles in this issue (PS 525 026-031) and their relation to emotion theory. Explores the implications of the articles' socioemotional themes for early intervention. (HTH)

A recent paper has demonstrated a relationship between suicide during the teen years and the age, relative to one's classmates, at which these individuals entered school. This represents the latest, and perhaps most important, of a series of studies that have focused on the effects of grouping children by age of entry into particular activities.…

This article discusses why children tell a lie and how to help a child develop morality and responsibility for his or her actions. When viewed as part of a child's emotional and intellectual development, it is found that telling lies doesn't condemn a child to a life of betrayal or serious behavior problems. Recent research has shown that lying…

Darwin's ideas about emotion are known from his published scientific writings [e.g., Darwin, 1872/1998, 1877], which focus primarily on the evolutionary origins of emotional expressions. The present paper offers an analysis of a personal document--Darwin's memorial of his daughter Annie, who died at age 10 [Darwin, 1989]--which reveals additional…

The individual's capacity to be alone is the necessary condition for the experience of solitude. The capacity to be alone, a major sign of emotional maturity, enables the child to simply exist without having to react to external stimuli or act with a purpose; only in this way can the child discover his or her own personal life--that is, his or her…