Identification of factors contributing to the timing of first contraceptive use by girls is an important consideration in structuring primary prevention programs to reduce teenage pregnancies. Interviews with 120 girls aged 12-19 in a study of sexual, contraceptive, and pregnancy decision making covered six areas: (1) demographic information; (2)…

The role of affect in information processing has recently received attention, and several possible influences of affect have been suggested. The informational and directive effects of affect were investigated with subjects (N=61) who either described events in their recent past that made them feel good, described events that made them feel bad, or…

A typical assumption has been that women and men possess distinct power orientations: women have expressive characteristics, such as interdependence and cooperativeness, while men have instrumental characteristics, such as self reliance and competitiveness. An inventory assessing expressive and instrumental power orientations (PVO's) was developed…

The relationship between women's perceptions of rape controllability and their fear, worry, concern, and perceived risk associated with rape is examined from in-person interviews with women (N=58) in Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. Women's response to descriptions of the "typical rape" were used to divide them into those with high rape…

This study was designed as a partial replication and extension of the research on interpersonal problem solving in preschool children by Shure and Spivack. Fifteen well-adjusted and 14 impulsive children from Head Start Centers were administered the Preschool Interpersonal Problem Solving test (PIPS) under either incentive or no incentive…

The influence of student personality on the effects of the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) was examined. Three testing systems (midterm and final exams; bimonthly tests; and PSI) were examined along with three personality dimensions (internal-external locus of control, need for achievement, and need for autonomy). There were no…

The relationship of locus of control to undecided college students' satisfaction with a self-administered vocational counseling treatment and an interview-oriented counseling treatment was studied. It was predicted that internally oriented students would be more satisfied with the self-administered treatment, while externally oriented students…

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the following questions: (1) Do students who participate in disruptive activities obtain scores on Dean's Alienation Scale that are significantly different from those of students who were not participants? (2) Do students who participate in disruptive activities obtain scores on Gurin's…

This study explores the effects of controlling influence attempts on social face and constructive conflict resolution. It also investigates the role of social face in how persons respond to evaluations by their peers. A sample of 90 college undergraduates randomly assigned to six conditions. The group's evaluation of the representative's relative…

This study explored the relationship between young children's affective states and general expectancies for rewarding or punishing events. Subjects were 24 children, ages 4 and 5, from middle-class families. Positive, neutral, or negative affect was induced by having the children think happy, neutral, or sad thoughts for a short period. Two tasks…

Performance is affected by cognitive learning skills, but also by the reasons people perceive as causes of their successes and failures. People with high achievement needs perceive their successes as caused by their own ability and effort, and their failures as caused by lack of effort. People with low achievement needs blame their failures on…

Psycho-social factors in successful age-group swimmers were explored in this study. The subjects were 50 female and 39 male participants in the 1975 Amateur Athletic Union National Junior Olympics who were asked to answer a set of questions from an open-ended questionnaire. The results support a picture of young persons who invest a great deal of…

This paper reviews the author's research on the role of certain aspects of alienation in education. The first part of the paper discusses similarities between anomie and locus of reinforcement control, as they assess the normlessness and powerlessness aspects of alienation. The second part reports results from studies attempting to modify one's…

The Career Development Responsibility scale was designed to measure the extent to which students feel that reinforcement in terms of success in preparation-acquisition performance situations in a career are considered to be contingent on the student's own behavior. The 30-item instrument was written so that two items represent each cell of a 3x5…

This study investigated the effects of sex, status of occupational choice, and career development responsibility on the career maturity of ninth-grade students from an urban, industrial, integrated community. The instruments used were the Career Maturity Inventory (Crites), and the Career Development Responsibility (CDR) scale (Thomas). Results…