Anger and consciousness of rights may play a significant role in victimization prevention. In an attempt to examine how personal defense and assertiveness training would alter women's feelings of fear, helplessness, and anger, as well as their judgments of what rights they have, three studies were conducted. The first study, a participant…

To investigate whether political assertions were interjected into American sports coverage of the 1984 Olympic games and which direction those assertions took, a study examined the Los Angeles Times' coverage of the games in its award-winning special supplement sections. The "Times" included these special supplements in its papers from…

Empirical and conceptual issues in the delineation of the construct of assertiveness can be viewed from the perspectives of social, personality, and clinical psychology. Results from a social psychological research program aimed at defining the nature and determinants of assertiveness suggest a need for replication to other subject populations,…

A review of communication research was conducted to (1) describe and clarify the nature of empathy, (2) investigate the construct of assertiveness, (3) posit a possible relationship between empathy and assertiveness, and (4) provide possible suggestions for future research. The literature indicates that conceptualizations of empathy primarily…

This paper describes the results of a study to: (1) design and evaluate three clinically practicable (e.g., non-analogue) regimens which emphasize treatment components of either behavioral rehearsal and feedback, anxiety management, or a combination of anxiety management and behavior reversal/feedback, and (2) examine the relative effectiveness of…

The argument that the personality structures obtained from retrospective ratings reflect semantic similarity structures has been as provocative as a red cape in the bull ring. High congruence between those two kinds of structures seems well established. What is less clear is how and why those structures differ from that for immediate judgments of…

The psychological (expectancy) and physiological (dosage) effects of alcohol on aggressive and assertive behavior were investigated. The expectancy manipulation was accomplished by informing subjects that the beer they were to receive was either half as strong or twice as strong as commercially available beer. The dosage manipulation involved…

A number of the historical and contemporary games of black children reflect an attitude of resistance and assertion on the part of the players. Older game songs, dating from the days of slavery, express a recreative anger against slave masters or a contempt for the theater image of the jolly plantation slave, Jim Crow. Post-Civil War songs and…

The study investigated the effectiveness of group assertive training with nonassertive, noncollege age women. Twelve women, ages 22 to 53, participated in the assertive training program. Participants received six training sessions consisting of stimulus film vignettes; behavior rehearsal; peer, video, and trainer feedback; homework assignments;…

Little empirical study has been done on the efficacy of the variety of psychological approaches used to treat depression. The author reviews theoretical points of view: psychoanalytic, cognitive and behavioral, and constructs an experimental design to compare the relative effectiveness of cognitive therapy, assertiveness training and insight…

In order to evaluate the efficacy of a human relations training program for parents of personality-disorder preadolescent boys, families were randomly assigned to four experimental groups. Significant differences between groups at post-testing were found on four dependent variables: (1) empathy, (2) warmth, (3) genuineness of parents, and (4)…

Seeks to establish the relationship of specific verbal and nonverbal behaviors to judgments of overall assertiveness in a college sample. Also examines the effects of varying the social context in which the situation was role-played (i.e., male vs. female role partner; expression of positive vs. negative assertion) and assesses the relationship of…

Lee Canter is an instructor on the extension faculty of California State University at Fullerton. He mixes pep talks and common sense with a course of behavior modification and body language designed to change teachers into "assertive" teachers. At the Bridge International School in Denver foreign students learn English and also how to…

Examined type of situation and sex of the counselor in assertive training. Female subjects were given training in making complaints, small talk, and saying no to unreasonable requests. Significant improvement occurred. Subjects seen by a male counselor changed significantly more than subjects seen by a female counselor. (Author)

When interpersonal problem-solving (IPS) ability, assertiveness, and self-esteem were assessed for 241 fourth- through sixth-graders and related to competence with peers, teachers, and academic subjects, assertiveness was a distinct factor with overlap between IPS and self-esteem. Positive correlations were found between each factor and grade…