One of the motivations frequently cited by Sen and Nussbaum for moving away from a utility metric towards a capabilities framework is a concern about adaptive preferences or conditioned expectations. If utility is related to the satisfaction of aspirations or expectations, and if these are affected by the individual's previous experience of…

This study examines infant temperament (inhibited and uninhibited styles) as a predictor of behavior in the kindergarten classroom. Thirty-one kindergarten children were observed in their classrooms for approximately 1.5 hours on each of four occasions between September and January. Fourteen children (8 girls, 6 boys) had been classified as high…

Employee retention was studied in 48 counselors working at a summer camp for children and adults with disabilities. We hypothesized that attitudes toward persons with disabilities, personality characteristics of counselors, job satisfaction, and previous counselor experience would predict whether counselors would elect to return to work the…

Objective: To study childhood predictors for late adolescence criminality. Method: The follow-up sample included 2,713 Finnish boys born in 1981. Information about the 8-year-old boys' problem behavior was obtained from parents, teachers, and the children themselves. The follow-up information about criminal offenses was based on the national…

Despite a growing body of literature on the causes of heavy episodic drinking, little attention has been paid to this phenomenon in the sociological and criminological literature. This research assesses the extent to which a popular theory of crime and deviance, control theory, can explain heavy episodic drinking. Analysis of data collected from a…

The present work examined the influence of topic interest on the strength of different components of text representation and long-term retention according to the model of text processing by van Dijk and Kintsch (1983). A Series of relevant personality characteristics were assessed to control for alternative explanations of interest effect, A total…

The present study examined relationships between leisure interests and the Big Five personality traits, positive and negative affect, and moods. Regression analysis identified particular personality but not mood or affect variables as significant predictors of leisure factor scores. Further exploration through factor analysis revealed factor…

In a sample of low-income families (N = 239), structural equation models assessed predictors of fathers' involvement with preschool-aged children in instrumental, behavioral, and emotional realms. Results suggest that parental conflict has a strong negative relation with father involvement. Fathers' human capital characteristics, healthy…

The influence of culture on learning and motivation has been the topic of much research in recent years. Educational and psychological researchers are now aware that the findings of their studies may not apply to other cultures, and that in this age of globalization and multiculturalism it is very important to examine the applicability of…

This study examined whether sociocontextual and sociocognitive variables explained the math/science goals of 409 Mexican American youth using a modified version of R. W. Lent, S. D. Brown, and G. Hackett's (1994) social cognitive career theory. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that the hypothesized model explained a significant…

The study in this article investigated how academic preparation, career development skills, parental assistance, and social/environmental barriers predicted inner-city adolescents' psychological preparation to transition into high school. Results showed that academic preparation, parents' instrumental assistance, adolescents' career development…

This study examines the demographic and physical and mental health characteristics of social work clients among cancer patients in Canada as compared with nonusers of social work services, and factors that affect use of social work services among cancer patients. On the basis of data from two cycles of the Canadian Community Health Survey, the…

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the feasibility of accounting for student performance in advanced high school coursework through the adjustment of high school grade point average (HSGPA) while separating out variables that are independently considered in the admission process, e.g., SAT/ACT scores, community affluence, type of…

Objective: To examine the use and impact of a dedicated health information Web site for adolescents. Method: Five hundred fifty-eight (27.2%) of all students in grades 7 through 12 from 4 schools logged onto the Web site; 1775 (86.4%) of all students in these grades completed a year-end health survey, with 455 (81.5%) of the students who used the…

This study investigated the efficacy of noncognitive variables for predicting college student achievement in an introductory psychology course. The sample included 102 new first-year students at a private urban university and 233 new first-year students at a rural public university. Data were collected on self-ratings of overall academic ability,…