Height is one important variable among many in the elicitation of the submissive response. In addition to overt behavioral components, the submissive response involves a cognitive component, in which oneself is perceived as smaller and weaker, and an affective component, consisting of a feeling of intimidation by the other. Submission is a…

The purpose of this paper is to account for some of the results from a contrastive study of Spanish and Danish communicative behavior, where the focus of attention has been directed towards the microlevel of discourse in order to find recurrent patterns in the local management of conversation. The use of speaker and hearer references, topic…

Focusing on humor as a powerful instructional resource, this booklet addresses a variety of issues regarding humor in the elementary and secondary classroom. Thirteen ways in which humor can help teachers to achieve educational goals are presented, specifically that it (1) attracts attention and provokes thought, (2) liberates creative capacities,…

Aware of some educators' concerns that computers isolate children and are too abstract for chilren under the age of eight, two studies investigated young children's use of LOGO and their interactions with the computer. Data were collected on kindergartners working in a public school computer lab and on preschoolers using computers in a…

This study surveyed students in grades 7-12 in eight Alaskan school districts. The study was designed to obtain information on the use or nonuse of a broad spectrum of chemical substances, ranging from legal, socially sanctioned drugs for those of legal age such as alcohol and tobacco, to illegal and unsanctioned drugs taken for nonmedical…

The study examines and compares free/spontaneous play behaviors of 20 Hispanic (from Ponce, Puerto Rico) and 20 Anglo (from State College, Pennsylvania) 5-year-old children from middle class socioeconomic strata. Within each of the groups there were 10 boys and 10 girls. Each child was observed in a group play setting in four observational…

A review of studies on black youth indicates a need for more attention to research concerns such as theory development, carefully constructed methodologies, and sensitivity to the interrelatedness among and between demographic variables. Some topics, like the well-adjusted black adolescent, are rarely handled in empirical studies. In this document…

Research has revealed relationships among a wide range of substance use behaviors, including smoking, alcohol use, and drug use. To investigate whether a substance use factor emerges when different indicators of substance use, different samples, and three health related issues, (i.e., meal regularity, exercise and hours of sleep) are examined, the…

Models of well being and human functioning have traditionally been based on empirical studies done with children and young adults. As part of an ongoing research program to develop and test a model of effective functioning and positive health in older adults, 31 elderly individuals (7 males, 24 females), with a mean age of 73.58 years, completed…

Interviews with 19 adults participating in adult basic education or literacy programs were conducted to ascertain the strategies they used to compensate for reading and writing difficulties. Although the project intended to secure this information from adults diagnosed as learning disabled, it had to rely on self-reports and educational history to…

Self-schemas are knowledge-structures that organize information relevant to the "self." Research has demonstrated that persons who are schematic (versus aschematic) for a particular trait process self-relevant information on that dimension more efficiently. To determine whether individual self-schemas are organized into relatively…

This paper discusses the concept of stress by drawing from social-psychological, occupational, family, and medical perspectives. A model of stress based on an integration of these perspectives is developed and then applied to the family relationship over time. The components of the model consist of: (1) a stressor stimulus, any situation that may…

One means of making undergraduate instruction more relevant to students' needs and interests has been to use popular media to illustrate concepts in psychology courses. College students (N=54) in a theories of personality course wrote brief essays explaining the behavior of television characters in terms of theories taught in the course. The…

Social science perspectives on black maternal childrearing practices have traditionally ignored the cultural-historical, socio-political, and economic realities. Interviews were conducted with 62 black mothers to study their perceptions of racism and its effects on their childrearing practices. Results indicated that educational status alone did…

Sexual harassment is widespread on college campuses across the United States and is a subject that merits sensitive and sensible discussion. Once they acknowledge the problem, speech communication professionals can become better informed about sexual harassment and ways of dealing with it, and commit themselves to responsible communicative action.…