Discusses characteristics of commercial television as a form of mass media, describes how the public diminishes mass media's influence by use of several psychological devices, although children are more affected by it, and suggests several reasons to be skeptical about the influence of "The Day After" even among children. (MBR)

Results of the study over three years show that LD children fall progressively farther behind their normal peers in reading comprehension. In math, they stay relatively the same distance below their peers. The LD Ss' behavior is suboptimal for classroom learning, with less on-task and more off-task behavior. (Author/CL)

Conducted two studies in which subjects (N=345) read descriptions of stereotypic behavior displayed by a seven-year-old boy or girl and predicted adult personality attributes. Results showed that irrespective of sex, the feminine child was predicted to be happier, more mature, less self-centered, and more expressive. (LLL)

Found significant differences in the communication behavior of public relations professionals within the following organizational variables: profit vs. nonprofit, counseling vs. noncounseling, wide vs. narrow spans of control, and upper vs. lower management levels. Provides an approach for understanding communication activity of public relations…

Relates the miscues beginning teachers made as they read aloud to their peers. (HOD)

Examined whether couples could accurately report on asymmetrical interaction patterns and whether particular patterns were associated with relationship distress. Undergraduate couples (N=55) completed a questionnaire describing interaction patterns. Agreement on pattern occurrence between couples was low but significantly greater than chance.…

Surveyed college student (N=34) and general public (N=48) smokers regarding frequency, onset age, and daily situations associated with their habit. Results indicated no differences in either sample for responses according to sex, and correlations between smoking rate and onset age or years of smoking were not significant. (LLL)

Surveyed 99 adolescents to quantify the behavioral cues used to identify their peers as depressed. The results indicated that social isolation was an important component of adolescents' concepts of depression among their peers. Subjects felt that there was a higher frequency of alcohol and marijuana use among depressed peers. (JAC)

Examined the games played by 561 juvenile offenders in coeducational correctional facilities. The types of games used against staff and peers varied considerably. The games were defined as therapeutic games, material games, psychological games, and physical games. Peer-oriented games included attention-seeking activities and a variety of dominance…

In finding an accurate method of describing school administrators' behavior patterns, draws on script theory from cognitive psychology and speech act theory from sociolinguistics to supplement the structured observation approach. (JW)

This paper reports the satisfaction between several independent variables and marital satisfaction. Adequacy of role performance of both self and spouse and spouse's conformity to expectations emerged as the strongest predictors of satisfaction derived from playing family roles. (Author)

Data were collected primarily through participant observation, open-ended interviews and discussions with selected informants. A description is given of the village, occupants, and traditional patterns of mate selection and marriage rituals. The second section deals with changing patterns, those of young village women with postsecondary education…

Examines the effect on a recipient of another's effort to provide help. Two variables, locus of responsibility for initiating a help attempt and type of outcome resulting from the help attempt, were manipulated in a three x two factorial design. Results indicated that the Requested help condition yielded the strongest obligation to help others.…

The hypothesis was advanced that questionnaire measures of Psychoticism (P) may represent an estimate of randomness in responding, rather than reflecting reactions to item contents. Results showed P did not correlate with measures of random. (Author)

Previous research has shown that thinking about some attitude object results in more polarized attitudes than being distracted from thinking about the object. In this study, 64 subjects indicate their attitudes toward fictitious persons. After thinking about the person or being distracted from thinking about the person, they again scaled their…