Characteristics of the situation in which a fear-arousing communication is received affect the effectiveness of the communication. The influence of situational factors affecting a recipient's interpretation of the arousal induced by communication were investigated with smokers (N=37) who were exposed to a fear-arousing anti-smoking movie. Prior to…

The relationship between self-control and role-taking deficits as exhibited by 37 female institutionalized juvenile delinquents was assessed by Chandler's measure of social egocentrism. Subjects, matched on the basis of their scores on the Matching Familiar Figures (MFF) Test, were randomly assigned to treatment or control groups. The treatment…

People's cognitive maps (images of self, beliefs and values, evaluations of relationships with individuals and groups) determine attitudes and behavior, provide the basis for communication, and determine in part their response to events. The cognitive map of an organization performs the same function for groups. Thirty-five newspaper employees…

Cheating behavior has been found to relate to emotion-attribution explanations. Prior research with second-grade children has indicated that increased self-control occurs in a watching task when the child's emotional response is attributed to internal rather than external actions. In the present study, freshman women (N=221) took a reading…

The process of assertive behavior change of college women who received assertion training (AT) and cognitive restructuring was examined to assess the relative effects of different durations of exposure to cognitive restructuring. Undergraduate and graduate women students (N=27) at a state university volunteered and were screened for AT groups.…

The use of discourse analysis in examining the classroom language interactions between English teachers and their students builds on the basic concepts of language function and language sequence. The four language functions are eliciting, informing, directing, and boundary marking (marking the divisions of discourse units). The three language…

An exploration of writing anxiety suggests that it is a normal form of behavior rather than a pathology, but that it varies in degrees of its dysfunctionality. Excerpts from the log books of college students in a writing anxiety workshop illustrate four broad categories of writing anxiety: procrastination, feeling emotionally distressed, thinking…

Data on 36 autistic, 30 mentally retarded (MR), and 22 normal children (23-65 months old) was collected to develop a method of objective behavioral assessment for diagnosing autism and documenting symptom changes over time. Ss were observed and rated on the Behavior Observation Scale, an instrument which contains 67 objectively defined behaviors…

The relationships between feedback, its source, and the increases or decreases of the behavior associated with it were investigated to apply predictions of the credibility gap regarding the effects of feedback on the acquisition of an individual skill. Subjects (N=45) were randomly assigned to one of five treatment conditions and provided…

Using a specific teaching model as the criterion, three groups of elementary school teachers with differing levels of teaching experience were observed with a microcomputer recorder while teaching in their classroom settings. A step-wise discriminant analysis isolated specific motivational and instructional techniques from the model which produced…

The instructional materials and program described here are designed to increase the analytical ability of users in relation to role theory concepts. The program deals with sociological concepts of role conflict; conformity; concensus; and position, role, status, and identity. The concepts are to be presented in four separate filmstrips.…

The psychological and social adjustment patterns of 809 Indochinese refugee heads of household in Illinois were examined by collecting data on their intrapersonal and interpersonal communication patterns. Four of five propositions derived from an interactive communication theory of the acculturation process were supported. The Indochinese…

The National Crime Survey measured the occurrence of an estimated 3.8 million violent crimes among intimates, i.e., acquaintances or relatives, during 1973 to 1976, in which three-tenths of the crimes involved persons married or otherwise related to each other. The data collection focused on identification of crime location, time of day or night,…

Empirical studies that demonstrate probable gender biased perceptions resulting from the use of man-linked words and third-person, singular masculine pronouns are reviewed in this paper. Among the findings revealed by the review are: (1) there is a tendency for people to perceive man-linked words as more likely to refer to men than to women; (2)…

The curious association between romance and adverse circumstances is based on an extension of emotional attribution theory, which postulates that romantic notions are evoked when nonspecific physiological arousal is attributed to another person or to an interpersonal relationship. Data from a survey on stressful life events was examined to…