The principle thesis of this paper is that an understanding of the functions of fantasy activities is critical to an understanding of the influence of television and other media upon behavior. (Author)

Author describes a class discussion and class activities in which students considered the rituals people develop to help themselves concentrate and do serious work. (RW)

Smokers (N = 90) were assigned to 10 treatment conditions; another 20 smokers were included in a no-apply control group. The treatment effects of aversive conditioning were negligible, and in some instances they were surpassed by the effects of controls for nonspecific treatment factors and placebo effects. (Author)

High and low general-self-esteem subjects performed a series of anagrams on which they either appeared to succeed or fail or received little evaluative feedback. Their persistence at a subsequent set of anagrams was assessed. Following initial failure low-self-esteem subjects persisted less than high-self-esteem subjects. (Author)

Verified the relationship between affective states and visual behavior in nonpsychotics. Elated individuals engaged in more total eye contact and had longer but less frequent eye-contact gazes than normals and depressed subjects had less total eye contact and had fewer eye-contact gazes than individuals in a neutral affective state. (Author)

Nurses in long-term care facilities indicated that about 30 percent of residents presented noise-making behavior. From descriptions, typology of noise-making was identified: purposeless and perseverative noise-making, noise-making in response to environment, noise-making to elicit response from environment, "chatterbox" noise-making,…

Children's ability to produce integrated sequences of discrete behaviors was examined as a function of age and task demands for several behavioral domains. Results are discussed in terms of possible age-related constraints on combinatorial skills that operate at a general, cross-domain level during toddlerhood. (RH)

The practicality of three appraisal instruments was measured in terms of user preference, namely, behavioral observation scales (BOS), behavioral expectation scales (BES), and trait scales. In all instances, BOS were preferred to BES, and in all but two instances, BOS were viewed as superior to trait scales. (Author/ABB)

Argues that children's responses to the literature in their classroom need not always be formal and structured and that spontaneous, informal responses are equally meaningful. (DF)

An approach is outlined involving ratings on bi-polar "temperament" dimensions of behaviors which a child may display. These data are then subjected to a cluster analysis which displays correspondences graphically, in a form which can be discussed directly. An example of coping with crying babies is provided. (Author/CL)

Investigates 57 three- to five-year-old children's sharing of preferred and nonpreferred food with same-sex peers as a function of (1) whether or not the children had previous experience as recipients and (2) whether or not the child was shared with during the experience as a recipient. (HOD)

This article critically examines the evidence for interpersonal complementarity according to four recent theories. The only prediction found to be regularly supported is that friendly-dominant and friendly-submissive behaviors are complementary. A repeated finding is that hostile-dominant acts are frequently responded to with further…

With deinstitutionalization of the retarded, there is greater opportunity for them to be subjected to possible misuse of alcoholic products. Findings indicated that the mentally retarded population under study did not differ significantly from the general public as far as the number of problems associated with consumption of alcoholic beverages.…

The development of a scale to assess drug and other treatment effects on severely mentally retarded individuals is described. Separate factor analyses of the data from two samples resulted in a five-factor scale: (1) Irritability, Agitation, Crying; (2) Lethargy, Social Withdrawal; (3) Stereotypic Behavior; (4) Hyperactivity, Noncompliance; and…

Reflection-impulsivity was studied in preschoolers to clarify underlying behavioral dimensions, sex differences, and contribution of activity level, mental age, and socioeconomic status. Analyses replicate a previous finding that dimension of behavioral impulsivity characterizes children with long response latency and high error scores, not…