Due to similarities in symptomatology, childhood depression has often been misdiagnosed as conduct disorder. Differentiating between the two disorders would help to direct the appropriate interventions for each disorder. Children (N=48) between the ages of 6 and 13 years and their parents participated in a study designed to analyze variables which…

A controlled experiment was conducted to test the extent to which nonverbal behavior between a journalist and a politician in a televised interview influences the way in which they are perceived by a television audience. Nine test films were produced that showed different versions of an interview in which the participants exhibited aggressive or…

This investigation used data from the 28-year-old New York Longitudinal Study to examine the relationship between various negative emotional and behavioral characteristics (e.g., aggression, anxiety, undercompliance, depressive mood) and adjustment. A total of 133 white, middle-class children were rated on these negative characteristics from…

Intended for caregivers, the book provides basic information about the use of medication for children with hyperactivity, learning disabilities, and mental retardation. The main emphasis is on psychotropic drug use for hyperactivity and aggressiveness. Chapter 1 explains fundamental terms and concepts relating to drug therapy. Major stresses…

Considerable effort has been devoted to investigating various aspects of love and affection, but there have been few studies about direct expressions of affection. Relationships between gender composition of a dyad and the affection/aggression expressed by the dyad were examined as was the possibility of increasing the amount of affectionate…

Social and cognitive theories indicate that conflict plays an important role in an individual's psychological development. Research findings bearing on this conundrum provide initial hints about what social conflict in children is like and how it relates to characteristics of the child, but the short and long term positive and negative effects of…

This study of the behavior of a mixed group of male and female preschoolers in an indoor, free-play setting was designed to clarify two general issues: (1) the ratio of aggressive to non-aggressive disputes and the factors in the situation which may be associated with this relationship; and (2) the factors in the conflict episodes themselves which…

During the past 12 years the Oregon Social Learning Center has been studying the application of social learning theory to aggressive children. One result has been the development of a treatment program in which parents are trained to alter their child's behavior. That program has been evaluated on three separate samples of aggressive children.…

Violence in the family is defined as a mode of behavior involving the use of physical force among family members. Such force varies in severity from homicide at one extreme to mild spankings at the other. It also varies by intent. In some cases the intent is to control people's behavior; in other cases it is to vent personal hostility; in still…

The primary purpose of this master's thesis is to describe some therapeutic uses of dramatic play with the mildly aggressive preschool child. The child for whom the suggested play interventions are considered appropriate is characterized by sociality and attachment to both peers and adults, and is not chronically aggressive. After the first…

In order to investigate the relationship between problems in behavioral control and children's capacity to utilize mediational strategies for self control, the responses of a group of disruptive (N=20) and nondisruptive (N=20) kindergarten children were compared in their approach to delay of gratification tasks. Subjects were compared on three…

The correlations between four childhood factors (externalizing, internalizing, asocial, and IQ/school achievement) and adult outcome ratings were investigated with 45 males with a young adult onset of schizophrenia who had been followed into middle age and for whom childhood information was available from a child guidance clinic. Among findings…

Although many studies have concluded that males are more aggressive than females in a variety of situations, significant variation exists among individuals in their willingness to respond to provocation with aggressive behavior. The pervasiveness of the sex role stereotyping of aggressiveness as a masculine trait and passivity as a feminine trait…

This study of the interaction between first- and second-born preschool-aged siblings in a naturalistic setting investigates imitative, prosocial and agonistic (aggressive) behavior in terms of age, sex and spacing variables. Thirty-four dyads of same sex siblings were observed for two 1-hour periods in their homes. The younger siblings averaged 20…

Two studies are described which were conducted at the University of Kansas Center for Research on the Influence of Television on Children to evaluate the effects of form and content independently on the social behavior of young children. In both studies, preschool children were observed during an unstructured play session in a laboratory room…