Discusses a model that suggests that popularity and friendship are linked to different forms of adjustment and emotional well-being and emphasizes that friendship is an important mediator between popularity and loneliness. Results of a study that involved 169 early adolescents in fifth and sixth grades supported the model. (BB)

The author addresses and critiques the recent controversy between Bandura (1983) and Phillips and Orton (1983) over Bandura's recent article on modes of causation in social learning. The proper role of formal models in the analysis of social dynamics is also discussed. (Author/EGS)

Responds to Staddon's critique of the author's earlier article and addresses issues raised by Staddon's (1984) alternative models of causality. The author argues that it is not the formalizability of causal processes that is the issue but whether cognitive determinants of behavior are reducible to past stimulus inputs in causal structures.…

Stage-state analysis of the life course is presented as useful in identifying types of life courses and their relative frequency, in estimating the likelihood of moving from a given state through a sequence of future states, and in analyzing routes and processes connecting initial states with potential outcomes. (Author/DB)

This paper argues that efficacy of early intervention must be assessed in relation to both program and extra-program variables. A framework outlining five classes of independent variables and two classes of outcomes to be considered in efficacy research is presented, and regression and path analytic techniques are suggested as tools for addressing…