A study investigated the interrelationships among warrants, argument dimensions, and perceived argument effectiveness. Warrants were operationalized as analogies, examples, and causal warrants, while argument dimensions were defined as degree of logicality, emotionality, and ethicality. Based upon prior research, weak and strong arguments were…

Television politics, emphasizing emotions over rational decision making, has been accused of warping the political process, especially in the election of the president. In the incomplete medium--the collection of dots--that is television, the viewer completes the circle of communication, filling in the image with his or her own attitudes. The…

A total of 22 girls and 22 boys nearly equally divided between preschool and second-grade levels were asked to give three responses to each of 20 questions concerning what could make them--a same-sex child, an opposite-sex child, and an adult--feel happy, sad, angry, afraid, or surprised. Responses were feel happy, sad, angry, afraid, or…

Child abuse involves more than the use of corporal punishment with a child. Investigators have measured parents' emotional reactivity and attributions in relation to aversive child behavior. A "video recall" procedure has been used for assessing affective responding of adults engaged in marital conflict and has been valid for obtaining…

The death of a parent can cause economic and emotional stress for the surviving family members. As part of a larger survey of widowed men and women, living in Melbourne, Australia, data on needs of children who had experienced a parent's death were collected from 126 widowed parents with at least one child under the age of 18. Parents reported…

Communication, particularly in the form of self-disclosure or emotional expressiveness is important to happy, healthy relationships. Differences in emotional expressiveness between sexes, between socioeconomic groups, and within each of these groups were examined in 48 males and 44 females from high and low socioeconomic (SES) groups. Subjects…

Previous research has consistently demonstrated that variations in physical attractiveness elicit different evaluative and behavioral responses. To assess differences in affective responses to variations in physical attractiveness and the affect of sex on those responses, 76 college students (31 male and 45 female) viewed colored slides of an…

Ways hospitals can promote the psychological and social well being of young patients are explored in this paper. First, the importance of familiarizing the child with the hospital is emphasized. Second, emotions hospitalized children may feel and the possible causes of those emotions are listed. Third, methods hospital personnel can use to help…

A psychologist, who is the father of a child with a neuromuscular disorder, discusses psychosocial services for special needs children and their families. Parents are identified as the key to the family's mental health. Parents' feelings upon learning of their child's handicap include anger, blaming others and self, and guilt. These feelings are…

The perceptions of burden in providing care to the disabled elderly by a family member may be affected by the caregiver's personal and social resources and by the differences in involvement and familial roles between the caregiver and the care receiver. To test this relationship, 41 spouse and adult daughter caregivers involved in a home-based…

This paper presents a meta-theoretical perspective for looking at change and stability in close personal relationships. The theoretical conception of interpesonal relationships is summarized in an intial section, emphasizing interpersonal influence in specific interactive sequences. Next, a five-phase conception of relationship development is…

Past research indicates that people employ different strategies to manage others' impressions; however, conditions which make these strategies effective remain unclear. Using a sample of college students (N=345), the effectiveness of self-presentational strategies on influencing others' attributions of causes for expected and unexpected helping…

Sibling relationships are not only maintained throughout life in most cases, but assume considerable importance in old age. Siblings provide psychological support for each other as well as more tangible forms of helping and caregiving. In order to investigate variables leading to sibling help in the area of psychological support, a path model…

A review of current guides for and advice on preparing distance education materials suggests that such aids are inadequate to help solve the problems faced by course developers because of several underlying assumptions: (1) there is no need for advice on the preparation process--establishing an ideal of the desired product is enough; (2) good…

Knowledge of individual differences of victim responses to and recovery from rape is necessary in order to provide for each victim's individual needs. Black women may be exposed to more violence in their culture and may be treated differently than white women. These differences may lead to different recovery patterns between black and white rape…