The nature of play and an overview of the stages of play in the first 5 years of childhood are discussed. The core features of sensorimotor, functional, and symbolic play are identified. Vignettes describing how play serves a regulatory function punctuate each section. A conceptual framework for the construct of regulation is presented and…

The results obtained in a series of investigations with locus of control used as an independent variable provide evidence in support of the results obtained from situationally contrived studies of perceived control. The impact of stressors seems to be diminished in situations in which participants can exercise some degree of control. Likewise,…

A compound major individual difference variable having a putative physiological basis--arousal and the stimulation-seeking motive, which has not heretofore been intestigated in studies of assortative mating--was the focus of the present study. In addition, three choticism--were included for study. (Author)

It is concluded that research has failed to confirm the causal role of deindividuation in releasing antisocial behavior. Research strategies are suggested which will help more quickly to verify or disconfirm the existence and causal role of the construct. (Author)

Comprehension of film was studied in an ATI (aptitude x treatment interaction) framework which investigated comprehension as a function of the interaction of the stimulation-seeking motive (arousal) and degree of structure in information presented in film. Three levels of organizational coherence of a short film and two levels of the stimulation…

Individual differences in optimal level of stimulation as operationalized by the Sensation Seeking Scale significantly differentiated volunteers for hypnosis and encounter groups from non-volunteers. This confirmed predictions and extended the findings of previous work regarding encounter group volunteers. (NG)

Finds that extraverted children did better than introverted children on both a nonverbal coding task and simple and complex verbal fluency tasks. Notes that anxiety influenced girls' performances on the more complex verbal fluency task, but did not alter boys' performances. Compares these findings to those of similar studies of adults. (RL)