Despite the rapidly rising divorce rate and the importance of the divorce settlement agreement for the spouses' financial and emotional well-being, factors influencing the effectiveness of divorce negotiations have received very little attention. To assess the major determinants of successful divorce negotiations between divorcing spouses and…

This study, with 15 individuals having intellectual disabilities, found that each participant's social skills moderately predicted the average social stability achieved by all of his/her social network members, but poorly predicted average social stability achieved by the participant's three most stable social network members. Social network…

As large numbers of women enter the labor force, decision making and power processes have assumed greater importance in marital relationships. A sample of 51 (N=101) dual-career couples were interviewed to assess independent variables predictive of process power, process outcome, and subjective outcomes of decision making in dual-career families.…

Spouse abuse has emerged as an extensive social issue. Although many studies have examined characteristics of abused wives, there has been a dearth of literature examining the relationship between victim and perpetrator levels of aggression. The purpose of this study was to explore those variables that are related to female victims' own level of…

Violence is an integral part of American family life, yet little research exists concerning abuse among dating couples. To determine possible predictors of violence in college students' heterosexual relationships, 116 males and 388 females, or 94 percent of those contacted in psychology, sociology and nursing classes at Eastern Kentucky…

Longitudinal research has shown that communication deficits (negative interaction) precede the development of relationship distress. To investigate the antecedents of relationship stability and adjustment 31 couples who were seriously considering marriage participated in a longitudinal study. The couples initially completed the Marital Inventories…

Studies employing the Mooney Problem Check List (MPCL) have found that counseling center clients indicate more problems on the MPCL than nonclients. Domino and DeGroote identified 42 MPCL items concerned with self-satisfaction and a need for social contacts which further differentiated counseling seekers from nonseekers. In order to further…

A major area of concern in divorced families is compliance with child support payments. Aspects of the former spouse relationship that are predictive of compliance with court-ordered payment of child support were investigated in a sample of 58 divorced persons all of whom either paid or received child support. Structured interviews and…

The Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviors (ISSB) appears to be a satisfactory measure of social support with good reliability and some evidence of validity. To investigate the dimensionality of the ISSB through factor analytic procedures and to predict social support from social network variables, 179 college students (97 male, 82 female)…

Recent research suggesting a link between loneliness and social networks and a difference between males and females in both the quantity and quality of relationships support the view that loneliness can be predicted by gender from social network variables. In one study, two samples were used to explore gender differences. Sample 1, 97 males and 82…

Social support has been found to be positively related to well being in elderly individuals. To examine the effects of social integration (social resources, social interaction, and perceived adequacy of resources), and health, age, marital status, and socioeconomic status (SES) on mental health among urban elderly individuals, 1,727 persons from…

Recent national surveys have found marked increases in the use of illicit drugs and alcohol among adolescents. To investigate differential prediction of alcohol versus hard drug use amoung youths, 6% of the youths, aged 10-19, from a Pennsylvania county school system (N=1,689) were assessed on the HEW Community Youth Program Impact Scales. The 12…

Intrinsic motivation can be predicted from participants' perceptions of the social environment and the task environment (Ryan & Deci, 2000)in terms of control, relatedness and competence. To determine the degree of independence of these factors 251 students in higher vocational education (physiotherapy and hotel management) indicated the…

The continuing inability of measures of personality to predict communicative or other types of behaviors has forced researchers to seek alternative ways of measuring. One alternative consists of a measure of four types of causal attribution in hypothetically crucial situations in five types of relationships of humans. The type of relationship in…

Research on helping behavior has focused on help to elderly individuals rather than help by elderly individuals. To investigate the determinants and consequences of helping by older adults, 117 adults, from five Detroit senior citizen residences, with a mean age of 75.6 (67 percent female) completed a personal/demographic questionnaire, including…