By monitoring skin conductance and heart rate of 19 psychopathic, 21 neurotic, and 26 normal juvenile delinquents, it was concluded that the psychopathic autonomic characteristics resides in lower initial reactivity and not in more rapid adaptation, at least in response to a simple auditory stimulus. (Author/KJ)

Two concepts of some importance to mental health are rationality and assertiveness. This study attempted to discover which of the two concepts is more central to good mental health. It was concluded that rationality is a more central concept to good mental health than assertiveness. (Author)

Children of ages 8-14 at the borderline of mental retardation (IQ of 60-85) who present serious behavior problems have been variously described as impulsive, lacking facility with concepts of time, overinvolved in fantasy, depressed, and hyperactive. This study sought to test the appropriateness of such descriptive terms. (Author)

The Sensation Seeking Scale was given to felons, juvenile delinquents, and adult mentally ill. Among the findings were: age was negatively correlated for both sexes; mentally ill females were significantly different from felons and from juvenile delinquents; and the personality picture corresponded well with expectations from studies with normals.…

New items were written for the sensation seeking scale in an attempt to develop new scales representative of hypothesized dimensions of sensation seeking. Four new factors were thrill and adventure seeking, experience seeking, disinhibition and boredom susceptibility which was retained as a subscale for males only. (Author/CG)

The results indicated that subjects with internal control orientations described their mothers as more nurturant, having more predictable standards for their children's behavior and using more achievement pressure. External control orientation subjects described mothers as more protective and more inclined to use deprivation of privileges. Other…

Sex differences in aspirational and psychological variables related to achievement motivation were investigated among high school seniors. The sample consisted of 218 boys and 241 girls. Sex differences in fear of success imagery was not found. Results indicated when girls were compared to boys that girls: (1) have earlier plans for marriage; (2)…

This study examines the Rotter Internal-External locus of control Scale to determine if it differentiates people according to the degree of control they feel they have over behavior. The results support Rotter's claim that reinforcement value has to be taken into consideration in Locus of Control studies. (EJT)

The various relationships of stress arousal and stress-prone personality traits to menstrual distress were investigated in order to quantify psychophysiological arousal differences between high and low menstrual distress symptom reporters and examine differences in stress-prone personality traits between high and low menstrual distress symptom…

The study makes use of Rotter's (1966) hypothesis that there are consistent individual differences between people who believe in the internal control of reinforcement and those who believe in the external control of reinforcement. Students who are "internals" will believe that their behavior controls academic successes and failures and may,…

Among the results were that boys only showed negative" types of traits occurring with low and high levels of altruism, and that positive" types of traits occurred with in-between levels of altruism. Also, both rational-altruistic and conscientious-altruistic types of behavior were presented in the data obtained. (Author)

Studies of personality integration in children and adults show that certain personality characteristics that predict effective behavior appear to be remarkably continuous regardless of differences in age, gender, race, or socioeconomic status. The studies point to the importance of self-esteem for effective behavior. (PP)