Charges that although the potent influence of the peer group on the psychosocial development of adolescents is undisputed, most clinical writings portray it in a one-sided vein. Proposes a more balanced view of adolescent group life with emphasis on the adaptive and growth-promoting aspects. (JAC)

A peer extinction procedure in which students refrained from laughing at or attending to a targeted student's inappropriate behavior decreased the adolescent learning disabled student's obscene language. (CL)

Resident advisers and their peers were compared regarding their alcohol use and its consequences, their perceived norms, and their helpfulness as sources of information and referral. Implications for alcohol education and resident adviser training programs are given. (Author/BL)

This article gives insight into why individuals become committed to a sport role. Commitment may be attributed to intrinsic and extrinsic rewards and satisfactions. A typology of sport roles is presented utilizing a three-dimensional model of commitment to explain identity within a sport role. (Author/DF)

Indicates that highly anxious preschool children reduced anxiety levels through play. Compared with low-anxious subjects, highly anxious children engaged in more dramatic/fantasy play forms. Imaginative qualities which children introduce in their play are more essential to the resolution of the conflict than social forms of play.(Author)

A study was conducted to see whether peer effects could be observed among 102 undergraduates at Williams College, an elite four-year liberal arts school. The study explored whether students in the bottom third of their class, with average Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) scores of about 1300, would perform better in writing about newspaper…

Certain unpleasant emotional states do alter cognitive information processing strategies. High arousal negative moods and very high arousal positive moods seem to make people more attracted to higher risk. This actually leads to a higher rate of misfortunes or negative outcomes. Low arousal negative moods, on the other hand, seem to make people…

The transition from elementary school to middle-level or from middle-level to high school is very difficult for many students. While some students are mature enough to deal with their fears on their own or ask for the help they need, many struggle through these transitional times. They may manifest their difficulties with sudden outbursts of…

Assessed the effects of peer and authority social pressure on evaluative responses of 44 graduate students in counseling. Subjects were assigned randomly to three research groups. Results indicated that both pressure conditions produced significantly greater distortion (conformity) than controls. Authority pressure was not significantly more…

The effect of peer approval and disapproval on improvement in pitch intonation performance and on the approval/disapproval behavior of fellow students was investigated. The data replicate findings that peers may be effective behavior modifiers and aides to the learning process. (Author/AM)

Nonassertive junior high school students were assigned randomly to assertion training involving drug-use peer pressure. At posttest and at a three-year follow-up point, students continued to display high levels of assertiveness and less willingness to use alcohol and marijuana. (Author/PN)

High school teachers were separated into groups of four to complete educationally related or noneducationally related ranking tasks. While no significant differences were found between the number of initial suggestions which the group accepted, males made significantly more accepted final arguments for items on the ranking tasks. (Author)

Examines possible intended and unintended effects on adolescents of two dominant socialization strategies for preventing premarital pregnancy: (1) the moral absolutes strategy, represented by perceived sexual permissiveness of parents/friends, religiosity, and sex-guilt; and (2) the relative consequences strategy which emphasizes pregnancy…

The effect of free- versus no-talk conditions between target and peer subjects under vicarious reward conditions was examined. Data collected from fourth graders on an alphabet reproduction task showed that vicarious reinforcement effects occurred when verbal communication of reward enjoyment to nonreward subjects was possible. (Author/BW)

Examines the relationship between self-evaluation and social comparison in adolescent males during their last two years of high school. The question is empirically examined in two realms that capture primary features of the adolescent transition: physical transformation and social role reorganization. (Author/RH)