Understanding the dynamics of premature termination from treatment would be useful for practitioners working with clients requiring prolonged treatment. Compliance in weight management was examined in three studies in order to explore the broader issue of compliance. In study 1, a standard 10-week cognitive behavioral weight management program was…

Four years after a study of paternal involvement among intact, middle-class families with an infant, a follow-up was conducted of 26 of the still intact families to determine the stability of paternal involvement and the psychological predictors of fathers' behavior at the time. Paternal involvement was assessed at both times in terms of care,…

The primary purpose of this investigation was to ascertain for a group of prospective teachers (N=563) the extent to which selected measurements of their cognitive, affective, and personal characteristics accounted for or explained the variance of the "scores" associated with 15 of their motives or reasons for becoming teachers. From a…

Although the differences in supportive resources for males and females have rarely been studied, it seems reasonable that these differences exist because socialization for males and females typically emphasizes different traits. To explore gender differences in the nature of social support, 97 male and 82 female undergraduates completed the…

Both the social and physical aspects of the environment have been examined as causes of work behaviors and attitudes, but recent studies concerning the effect of open plan offices have shown inconsistent results. To assess the relative contributions of organizational level and the social and physical work environment in explaining employee…

Psychological researchers continue to debate the relative contribution of ability and effort to feelings of self-worth. To investigate student preferences for ability or effort and their relationship to self-worth, and to assess the relative contribution of ability and effort to affective experience, two separate studies were undertaken. In the…

Based on the assumption that differences in personal meaning and in the social significance of loss predispose widows and divorced individuals to different, specific vulnerabilities during grieving, 410 separated, divorced, and widowed women, aged 23 to 76 years, with at least one child, completed the Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist, the…

Although marital dissatisfaction and social contact factors have been related to depression, the impact of these variables on a heterogeneous population is unclear. To determine risk for depression resulting from the absence of social support variables, 267 married adults (131 males, 136 females), with a mean age of 47 years, completed the Marital…

Two telephone surveys of adults living in North Carolina were conducted to determine the effects of various demographic and psychological characteristics on attitudes toward microcomputers. Results indicated that computer experience, income, education, and having children all predicted a positive attitude toward computers. In addition, findings…

Little evidence exists about either the short or long-term effects of coping strategies on the reduction of emotional distress or the lessening of problems. To examine the predictors and effectiveness of four marital coping efforts (negotiation, optimistic comparison, selective ignoring, and resignation), data derived from a panel study of 758…

The usefulness of L. Guttman's partial order scalogram analysis is investigated in this study of the structure of a set of items that measure attitudes toward legal abortion. These items, drawn from the National Opinion Research Center's "General Social Survey," have been the focus of considerable applied research investigating…

Findings of research seeking predictors of mature creative achievement in the early artistic development of the Swiss painter, Paul Klee; the French painter, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec; and the Spanish painter and sculptor, Pablo Picasso are presented. Discussion is organized into four sections. The first section offers an overview, rationale, and…

Values are a central concept in understanding and predicting human behavior. Value priority differences have been shown to predict important political, social, and economic attitudes and behaviors. The purpose of this study was to identify differences and similarities among the value hierarchies of adolescents who have never tried alcohol,…

A study was conducted to examine the usefulness of importance ratings in predicting the relationship between: (1) overall self-esteem and more specific subscale scores of self-esteem; and (2) domain-specific self-esteem scores and domain-specific self-concept scores. Subjects were 70 children attending third, fourth, and fifth grades of a public…

There is increasing acceptance of the premise that growth and development continue throughout adult life and, as life expectancy has lengthened, there is a much expanded mid-life period. Yet, middle adulthood has been neglected as an area of theoretical and empirical examination. Adults (N=251) in middle adulthood (age 35-55) completed instruments…