Seventy-nine members of several types of groups responded to questionnaires which detailed their goals and self-perceptions, and their expectations and perceptions of group leadership, norms, methods, and atmosphere. The questionnaires were administered near the beginning and again at the end (posttest N=69) of the group experience. The groups…

This essay provides an analytic development of a philosophy of rhetoric which focuses its concern on social reality. According to this philosophy, the activity of the human mind invents symbolic constructions of reality. Primary socialization is interpreted as a rhetorical process which tends to maintain prevailing reality constructions.…

Investigates the role of social factors and marital status in the use of expletives among married and single American women between the ages of 40 and 55. (AM)

Choice of language style depends on personality, society and culture, or in another view, on personal needs, immediate situation and background situation. Some of the literature on this subject is reviewed. Available from Instituut voor Toegepaste Linguistiek, Vesaliusstraat 2, B. 3000 Leuven, Belgium. (TL)

This experiment was designed to explore the effects of simple and remedial altruism upon children's subsequent self-reinforcement, generosity, and performance quality estimates. (CS)

Narrative observations were made of kindergarten through fourth grade students' challenges of their peers' inappropriate behavior and of the responses made to the challenges. Approximately 90 hours of observation in 10 classrooms yielded 728 occasions in which an interchange began with one child challenging another. Three types of responses to…

In a survey of 940 adult residents of the metropolitan Columbia (South Carolina) area, sense of community attachment proved to be a more important determinant of newspaper reading habits than such demographic factors as age, years of residence in the community, socioeconomic status, family income, or attained level of education. The telephone…

Marxist/Maoist interpretations of sport in China differ significantly from the functional and meritocratic perspectives in the West which emphasize competition and personal reward. The latter school stresses the ability of the upwardly mobile aspirant to prove ability through competition. Individuals with talent are placed in valued positions in…

This study examines behavioral mediators which might possibly be associated with risk taking. Specifically, it is concerned with answering the question of whether there are attributes of a risk taking situation which make it more conducive for males to take greater risks than for females. The situation used in this experiment, a regulation…

This study investigates the interaction of three cognitive (functional, constructive, dramatic) and three social (solitary, parallel, group) dimensions of free play activities and their stability over time among boys and girls in a preschool setting. Subjects were 18 children attending a university preschool in Southwestern Ontario. Data for each…

This report statistically aggregates 230 studies on the effects of television viewing on social behavior. All empirical studies that measured a social behavior or attitude of subjects who had seen a non-educational television film or videotape and which had a program comparison group were considered appropriate. Pre-post comparison studies and…

The papers collected in this volume were originally presented at a conference, funded by the University of Wyoming humanities program, designed to stimulate discussion of the issues surrounding the role of communication in establishing healthy human interaction. Section one contains the major position paper of the conference: John Stewart's "Where…

This study attempts to compare the perceptions and self-reported behavior of high, middle, and low authoritarian advertising executives, business executives, and members of the general public concerning the social effects of advertising. For the advertising sample, a total of 393 men and women were selected according to their executive positions…