The creative and accurate interpretation of phenomena is central to achieving an understanding of the world and our fellow man. However, the process of interpretation is little understood by behavioral scientists and educators. Hermeneutics promises greater insight into the nature of interpretation of phenomena since the foundation of a…

The multivariate effect of task sequence, memory support, and state anxiety was investigated using a nonverbal concept acquisition task. Ninety-five Indian college students were randomly assigned to four treatment conditions resulting from the task sequences of 1) easy-to-hard and 2) hard-to-easy and from memory support versus nonmemory support.…

Reviews of research in the area of creativity have consistently emphasized the importance of the criterion problem while simultaneously documenting its neglect by contemporary investigators. The failure to explicitly place the criterion problem within an appropriate conceptual model is perhaps a major reason for the failure to confront directly…

Test anxiety is of particular significance in education in light of its debilitative effect on test scores and the implications and longranged effects of test results on the individual lives of the school children. This research is concerned with test anxiety of children under different test conditions. Subjects were 4th and 6th grade students who…

Attribution theory predicts that actions seen as specifically directed toward a person have greater impact than those not so directed. It was hypothesized that agreement between self-evaluation and another's evaluation increases personalism of received evaluations, increasing both impact and tendency to reciprocate liking or disliking. In a 2 x 2…

Attribution Theory has led to predictions that the use of material reward may impair intrinsic motivation in the rewarded activity (decreased play effects). A review of the pertinent literature reveals, however, (a) that attribution research has failed to reliably demonstrate that decreased play effects occur in minimal-trial studies (b) that for…

The present experiment investigated memory attribute dominance in young children by measuring false recognition responses to associatively and acoustically related words. Second- and sixth-grade children, half of whom were high SES and half low SES, served as subjects. Following Underwood (1969), a shift from acoustic to associative memory…

Three studies of behavior therapy by a therapist who was also the clients' instructor are reported. All of the clients defined target behaviors, collected data, and implemented procedures to modify the behaviors. The data were brought to each session for analysis and revision each week. Case 1 reported modification of stealing behavior, where both…

This exploratory study involving 108 undergraduates investigated effects of equivocation, order of agreeable and disagreeable issues, source credibility, and time on the receiver's agreement with and recall of messages. Results indicated that both equivocated messages and high-credibility sources produced significantly more agreement. Recall was…

Samples of 98 fourth graders and 111 sixth graders participated in a study of the relationships between operational thinking and reading comprehension of texts involving operational structures. Tests of operational thinking, reading comprehension, IQ, and vocabulary were administered in class groups. Results from correlational and factor analyses…

Three stories were presented via audiovisual media to each of three classes in grade two, three classes in grade four, and three in grade six. Children were interviewed individually after the presentations and were asked which misdemeanor in the stories was naughtiest, whether the punishment was fair, what punishment would be fair, and why.…

Investigated was the lateral asymmetry in children's hemispheric brain functioning during performance of Piagetian and curriculum related tasks. Six subproblems were investigated. Eighteen right-handed children, ages six to eight years old, were given electroencephalograms while performing a battery of tasks: Piagetian conservation tasks,…

This research was an ex-post-facto analysis to determine underlying causes, events and variables in the psychological and social driving forces behind outstanding achievement of a selected group of American sportswomen. (Author/RK)

The results of this research indicate that positive attitudes toward the self are reflected on positive attitudes toward generalized others, specific others, and ethnically different others. For journal availability, see SO 504 736. (DE)

An analysis of two paradigms suggests that predictions in regard to the effects of stimulus preexposure must take into account not only the novelty of the stimulus, but the relationship of that novelty to that of the environment at the time of testing. (Editor/RK)