Six stages are hypothesized that define the behavior of returning mailed questionnaires: receiving the questionnaire, opening the mail, forming an overall impression, answering the questions, returning the questionnaire, and dealing with nonrespondents. The researcher must provide incentives at each stage if potential respondents are to complete a…

Noting that there is growing interest in systematic, ethnographic studies of mass media and their primary audiences (families), this paper seeks to encourage additional ethnographic study of audience behavior by discussing some theoretical concerns that bear on the qualitative research enterprise. To do this, the paper first introduces a variety…

Available information is reviewed on defining features and diagnostic issues related to autism and related developmental disorders. Controversies over both the boundaries and the heterogeneity within the autism syndrome are evaluated. Diagnostic rating instruments for expediting systematic sample selection are critiqued. (Author/DB)

The past two decades have seen an explosion in research in the fields of violence and trauma and behavior genetics. These two fields came into direct conflict when Lisabeth Fisher DiLalla and Irving I. Gottesman outlined a fundamental conceptual limitation of trauma and violence research: that rather than being causal, the well-documented…

The article identifies three approaches for the study of braille reading, describes some examples of the approaches, and makes some suggestions for future research. (Author/PHR)

This article discusses clinical application of functional analysis in developmental disabilities, reviewing issues related to treatment logic and development. The article then approaches functional analysis as a research method, reviewing three areas of research: analysis of diverse response topographies, analysis of basic behavioral processes,…

Critical Incident Technique (CIT) involves the collection of real-world examples of behavior that characterize either very effective or very ineffective performance of some activity. The principal advantage of the CIT is that it generates data based on actual behavior rather than on a particular researcher's subjectivity. The CIT has much to offer…

Current writings on death and dying are trichotomized into prescientific, quasi-scientific, and scientific. Research findings should not be treated as equally valid; some methods may be used to supply hypotheses, others to test them, and still others to further validate the previous findings. (Author)

Film audience research complements institutional research, verifying scholarship on the meanings films have to viewers and providing broad-based explanations of film images. Most important, such research focuses on the decision and motivation processes people use before they set foot in the movie theater, thereby helping to construct a context…

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,…

One aspect of ethological methodology, behavioral categorization, is applied to the study of young children's social behavior in preschool classrooms. Studies are reviewed and recommendations for future use of ethological methods, with specific reference to categorizing children's play, are offered. (LB)

Noting that the informal communication network or grapevine plays an important role in organizational functioning, this paper reviews research focusing on organizational grapevines from the communication, organizational psychology, and management literature. Among the issues discussed in the review are (1) the speed and accuracy of the grapevine,…

Research on personality and aging has been limited by several factors, including nomethetic assumptions about traits; overreliance on morale scales as measures of adaptation; and the confounding of cohort, time of measurement and age effects. An idiographic approach, which focuses on traits that individuals subjectively feel as important, may help…

Summarizes past and present television and aging research, identifies several methodological concerns or problems of this research, and considers future directions for mass communication and aging investigations. Television portrayals of the elderly, television viewing behaviors, and the role of television are among the research areas discussed.…

Reviews and critiques research that has assessed the effect of infant temperament on caregiver behaviors and concludes that the relationship between temperament and caregiving behavior has not been adequately tested. Offers conceptual and methodological guidelines for future research. (HOD)