Frequency of aggression in 5- to 8-year-old children was examined in relation to frequency of helping, comforting and sharing. Subjects (39 boys and 40 girls attending a summer day camp) were each observed for two hours and their aggressive and prosocial behaviors recorded. This study differed from previous investigations of this issue in two…

The relation of prosocial behavior of 53 preschoolers to different modes of vicarious emotional responses was examined. Videotapes were used to elicit empathy, whereas vicarious emotional responses and defensive behaviors were assessed by means of self-report, facial, and heart-rate indexes. (SH)

Psychosocial adaptations are sometimes affected by experiences that are ordinarily considered to be amusements. In 1974, a field study was undertaken by the Program on Psychosocial Adaptation and the Future to determine if it is possible to measure the effect of television on adult viewers. A sample of 260 couples, controlled for demographic…

The paper defines and discusses various social learning theories. Central to most theories of how an individual acquires socially acceptable behaviors are the processes of imitation, or observational learning, and identification, or modeling. The effectiveness of each process is noted. (SB)