Shares an experience of a 13-year-old boy as he begins to understand the social behaviors of his age group. (MG)

Two studies examined the relationship between maternal responsiveness, child compliance, and mood in 54 mothers and their 4-year-old children. Responsive play increased positive mood but did not affect arousal levels. Children induced into positive moods complied more and with shorter latencies than children induced into negative moods. (RJC)

Discusses the problems of values education and posits that curriculum itself is a value offered to learners by teachers and by the social and cultural milieu in which it takes place. Discusses three orientations to curriculum theorizing: the intellectual theorist, the social behaviorist, and the experientialist. (JOW)

Investigated the development of social referencing (children's looks toward parents, instrumental toy behaviors, affective expressions, etc.) in 40 infants aged 6-9, 10-13, and 14-22 months. Results indicated that looking behavior of younger children may function differently from that of older children, and social referencing involves a number of…

Two studies examined the relationship between children's perceived social control and their visual reactions to videotapes of positive, neutral, or fearful child-doctor interactions. Found that children with high levels of social control showed high visual engagement when viewing the fearful scenes, whereas low-control children showed relatively…

Reports on a study that asked undergraduate students from a large, public midwestern university to identify specific dating behaviors that indicate an interest in sex, as well as perceptions of what women do that lead men to justify raping them and perceptions of what men say to justify having raped. (Author/JPS)

Adults and adolescents listed possible consequences of either accepting or declining opportunities to engage in various potentially risky behaviors, such as drinking and driving, and skipping school. Response patterns were similar for both groups. (MM)

Generated empirical, statistically based typology that used both symptom data and social functioning dimensions to define subtypes of 218 seriously and persistently mentally ill patients. Data were factor analyzed and then submitted to cluster analysis that yielded five meaningful patient subtypes. There were significant subgroup differences on…

Data from the Youth Development Study, a prospective longitudinal study that followed approximately 1,000 Minnesota ninth graders for seven years, indicate that performing volunteer work as a teenager had a strong negative relationship to being arrested as a young adult. Age dependencies in the nature and effect of volunteer work are discussed.…

Discusses the sexual acts and behaviors that may constitute or be considered sexual harassment in hopes of reducing the stress of investigating harassment reports. Information is based on 10 years of supervision of an office with responsibility for investigating all complaints of discrimination at a large public institution, and personal…

Examined the relationship between vagal regulation and infant social behavior. Assessed 1-year-olds' social responses toward an unfamiliar adult, then measured their regulation of cardiac vagal tone during a later test of mental development. Results suggest that infants capable of regulating vagal tone have a greater capacity for social…

Studied the relationship between life satisfaction, social interest, and participation in extracurricular activities in 321 high school students. Higher social interest was significantly related to higher levels of overall satisfaction, and adolescents who participated in more structured extracurricular activities reported higher school…

This study compared judgments of social appropriateness to videotaped scenes by children and adolescents with (n=19) and without (n=19) autism. The non-autism group detected inappropriate behaviors significantly more often than the autism group for verbal but not nonverbal scenes. Groups also differed in the reasons given for their judgments in…

Analyzed first, second, and third graders' invented games for type, complexity, and rule knowledge; compared game-rule knowledge to classroom-rule knowledge. Found two types of rules: conduct and procedural, indicating children perceive need for rules that tell how to play and that specify appropriate behavior (conduct rules resembled classroom…

Reexamined the standard scoring structure of the revised Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) Social Introversion Scale with Rasch measurement using data from 2,600 nonpsychiatric subjects from the restandardization sample. Discusses how to use Rasch measurement to understand and improve personality measurement. (SLD)