The middle school originated out of an understanding for the need of a learning environment geared specifically to the needs of the early adolescent. The transition from concrete to formal operational thought and the affective and psychomotor developmental stages demonstrate the uniqueness of the early adolescent experience. (JN)

Examined the death orientations of Australian adults at different "distances" from death. Evaluated the performance of scales designed to measure cognitive and attitudinal components of death orientation. Found the Death Threat Index to be problematic. Results suggest death attitudes are idiosyncratic and only minimally affected by…

Students participated in dyadic disclosure exercises over a five-week period. Results indicated members of high functional similarity dyads evidenced greater attraction to one another than did members of low functional similarity dyads. "Friendship" pairs of male undergraduates displayed greater functional similarity than did…

Provided is a review of how values education has been defined, the three general categories of methods used to teach values education (values clarification, values analysis method, and Kohlberg "moral development" theory), and applications to the biology classroom in textbook selection and topic inclusion. (CS)

Assessed the relative contributions to the happiness of elderly people of three components of the happiness construct: affect, disposition, and affect X disposition interaction. The relative contributions of the components to happiness were found to rank: affect .lg. interaction .lg. disposition. Implications for counseling practices are…

Abilities of physicians to express emotions through voice tone were assessed and related to physician personality and patient ratings. Aspects of expressive ability were correlated with personality traits, and expressive ability was related to patients' satisfaction with their physicians. (Author)

Describes systematic desensitization as a form of behavior therapy for reducing anxiety. Examines its rationale and clinical practice and explores two features of the technique (relaxation and anxiety hierarchy) as they may be applied to classroom speech instruction for reticent students. (JMF)

Significant interaction was found between conceptual level and type of affect. Females were more empathic than males, and responses to nonambivalent affect statements were more empathic than responses to ambivalent affect statements. (Author)

Examines the response of counselors when the degree of affect was varied. Male clients were perceived to be in greater need of help in the high affect state than female clients. Male counselors also perceived more need for help for clients in high-affect states. (Author)

Home, socioeconomic, and process characteristics obtained from a single interview with mothers of high, average, and low achieving third-grade children accounted for a large percentage of the low achievers' scores in arithmetic computation and reading comprehension. (JD)

Examines mathematics anxiety among female participants in a program to help overcome their fears. Mathematics anxiety is correlated with other academically relevant anxiety scales. Test anxiety and self-estimated mathematics ability are the most important variables in the prediction of mathematics anxiety. (Author)

To demonstrate the utility of Rational Emotive Therapy in pre-marital counseling, examples of specific irrational beliefs which clinicians can use to help couples are presented. Mental health practitioners are encouraged to apply these principles to other specific irrationalities they may discover in their own work experience. (Author)

Examines various kinds of linguistic and psychological information for their pertinence to the arrangement of grammatical information in teaching beginners in English as a Second Language. It is claimed that the psychological information on learning processes is as important as linguistic analysis of the target language. (Author/AMH)

Course evaluations analyzed to discover factors affecting learning indicate that expectations, learning style, and personality are major factors. It is suggested that learning is strongly influenced by these student characteristics and parallel factors in courses and teachers. (MSE)

Abused and nonabused boys were interviewed to determine their perceptions of parental characteristics, discipline techniques, and emotional acceptance/rejection as well as attributions for parental treatment. Wide variations between abused and nonabused children's perceptions were found. (Author)