Four experiments were conducted to assess the effects of certain stimulus variables on children's discrimination learning. In general, it was found that word frequency was negatively related to discrimination learning as long as the words were meaningful to the subjects. Moreover, the relationship between word and performance reversed in…

A preliminary review of the literature indicates that previous research undertaken to identify communication competencies by those in business produced a wide range of findings. The studies may be placed in one or more of the following categories: geographically limited in population, limited solely to business executives, or concerned only with…

Infant's crying may have an important mediating role in the formation of attachment behavior. The earliest vocalizations are discussed in terms of an acoustic communications model in which the baby's vocal repertoire becomes incorporated into a closed-loop, feedback system with his mother. Certain pre-lingual "signals" may be associated with those…

This study investigated: (1) the differences in competition-cooperation behavior of male and female children in a two-person game; and (2) whether sex differences in behavior were affected by either the sex of the game partner or by instructions. Subjects were 72 urban, middle class boys and girls. Their mean age was 7 years 11 months. Children…

Certain asymmetries of perception in the right and left visual fields of American college students have been described as the effect of a reading habit which predisposes the subjects to scan or organize material in a left-to-right direction and thus to identify more accurately the items in the left field. The purpose of the present work was to…

Evaluated was the effectiveness of the Columbus, Ohio, tutoring program for neurologically handicapped children by investigating the relationship between tutored (129 children) and non-tutored (117 children), two instructional approaches, IQ level and academic success, disability patterns and success probabilities, and parent awareness and student…

This paper presents a summary of behavior concepts that together provide the outline of a possible developmental theory of prosocial motivation. These concepts, based on human role-taking capacities, include empathic distress, sympathetic distress, personal guilt, and existential guild. At first, a child cannot discriminate between himself and…

This study examined the perceptions of and expectations for the role of paid aides in the Cupertino, California Differentiated Staffing Project. The study focused on a) the expectations of the roles played by 69 aides, 64 teachers, and 6 administrators; b) the ability of each group to perceive the role expectations of another group; and c) each…

An investigation was conducted to determine the effects of instruction upon the dental health behavior of university students. The experimental group of 68 subjects, all elementary education majors, were exposed to a three--stage dental health motivational model: Dental Health Skills Instruction (four hours of laboratory instruction), Cognitive…

A series of studies on observer biases revealed that simply informing observers of experimental hypotheses does not produce observational data consonant with those hypotheses. However, questionnaire responses following an experiment with different induced expectations does produce global data consonant with experimental hypotheses. In addition, if…

The Cross-National Study of Coping Styles and Achievement was designed to develop a conceptual system for describing effective coping behavior in several cultures; to develop measures of coping style and coping effectiveness which would be uniformly applicable in the various cultures; and to determine the relationship of such coping behavior to…

This paper presents a research method derived from the functional analysis of behavior currently common among operant behavior therapists. Naturalistic observation, the method used, encompasses behavioral-level description of events, systematic observation and recording by means of codes, assessment of inter-judge reliability, as well as targeting…

Investigators compared the emotional adjustment, intellectual functioning, scholastic performance, and social behavior of 54 children who became schizophrenic mental patients with that of 143 matched controls. The following conclusions were drawn: indications of potential schizophrenia include behavioral and emotional deviation in childhood, death…

The methodology discussed is used in ongoing research to contrast the effectiveness of several patterns of parental authority with the same children at different ages. The first characteristic of these methods is the use of trait and behavior ratings to assess dispositional tendencies. The construct of a dispositional trait is used to account for…

In Study I, reading disability children were tested on perceptual encoding speed with a visual reaction-time task requiring same-different judgements. Performance of disabled children deteriorated as testing progressed, and recovered after a rest. In Study II, the poor readers of Study I were rated by their teachers on a 15-item inventory of…