The purpose of this study was to characterize the behavior of 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old children engaged in improvisational musical tasks. Ten subjects from each of the four age levels participated in the 4-year investigation, which lasted until the 2-year-olds reached 5 years of age. Children met individually with the investigator for 15 minutes…

This paper presents a study of empathy in 6- to 9-year-olds. Although empathy is primarily defined as the response of one individual to the emotional state of another, definitions and assessment can be further differentiated depending on the empathizer's response and on the source of the empathizer's knowledge of the other person. Is the…

This paper explores some themes which emerge frequently in lesbian relationships as both members of the couple strive to realize their unique potential. Some of the areas discussed are: (1) roles and the decision making process; (2) emotional expectations; (3) time alone and time together; (4) issues that arise when both persons value their work;…

This paper concerns the variety of responses women commonly make to provocation--to frustration, thwarting, hurt, deprivation, and other conditions which usually lead to some kind of emotional arousal, the experience of anger, and possibly aggression. Gender differences (culturally shaped) are reviewed where relevant, and a brief review of the…

This subcommittee report presents a history of congressional action regarding violence on television and then outlines conclusions and recommendations for legislative consideration. Acknowledging that excessive viewing of violence may have harmful effects on children, the report places responsibility for program content on the networks and…

The results obtained in a series of investigations with locus of control used as an independent variable provide evidence in support of the results obtained from situationally contrived studies of perceived control. The impact of stressors seems to be diminished in situations in which participants can exercise some degree of control. Likewise,…

Explains a study designed to consider the influence of positive and negative affect induced by cognitive mediation on behaviors thought to reflect depression. Concludes that results show fairly strong support for Velten's (1968) methodology and suggest that affect can be manipulated in the laboratory. (Author/EJT)

The contribution of a structured procedure designed to facilitate the generalization of assertive behavior was examined. Subjects solicited from the community (N=48) were assigned to an assertion training plus generalization instructions (AT Plus), an assertion training only (AT Only), or an attention-placebo control condition. Both behavioral…

Characteristics of the situation in which a fear-arousing communication is received affect the effectiveness of the communication. The influence of situational factors affecting a recipient's interpretation of the arousal induced by communication were investigated with smokers (N=37) who were exposed to a fear-arousing anti-smoking movie. Prior to…

Cheating behavior has been found to relate to emotion-attribution explanations. Prior research with second-grade children has indicated that increased self-control occurs in a watching task when the child's emotional response is attributed to internal rather than external actions. In the present study, freshman women (N=221) took a reading…

Examined were the subjective reactions to group counseling of 176 black remediation students at a predominantly black Eastern university. The data was obtained through the use of a 13-item evaluation instrument administered during the 11th week of the 15-week program. The data were analyzed in terms of chi square analysis of response rates to…

Two studies of a total of 17 preadolescent emotionally disturbed children were undertaken to observe children's reflective and naturalistic social cognition, and to utilize a developmental sequence of levels of interpersonal understanding to evaluate the interpersonal problem solving skills of emotionally disturbed children. Individual interviews…

The psychosomatic theory of obesity assumes that binging, eating in response to emotional distress, is characteristic of obese individuals, yet experimental attempts to demonstrate binging have yielded weak support for this assumption. The incidence of binging was investigated by means of structured interviews on food habits with 41 male and 39…

Most empirical data suggest that interpersonal attraction is caused by a single emotion known by different names (liking, romantic love, jealousy). Since all of these studies used dating or married couples as subjects, it is possible that liking, romantic love, and jealousy are separate emotions which converge only when their target is a dating…

The Situational Self-statement and Affective State Inventory, a research inventory comprised of five hypothetical situations involving interpersonal conflict, and a series of self-report measures of psychopathology were administered to 224 undergraduates to examine the correlational relationship between specific cognitions and affective states in…