Article adapted from "Signals in the Wind, by Dietrich Burkhardt, et. al.

Based on an M.A. thesis by the senior author submitted to the University of Iowa.

Suggests that death may be so personally relevant that its timing may not be random. Analysis of 1,961 deaths during a six-year period in Athens, Georgia, showed people tended to die at times when others would be near rather than during the night. (Author/JAC)

Responses of nine autistic, nine behavior disordered, and nine normal 6 to 12 year olds to verbal and nonverbal requests formed a cumulative, unidimensional hierarchy based on the individual patterns of responses, with verbal requests for verbal responses eliciting the least compliance and verbal requests for nonverbal responses the most. (Author)

Reviews the stages of the refugee experience: perception of a threat; decision to flee; period of extreme danger and flight; reaching safety; camp behavior; repatriation; settlement or resettlement; adjustment and acculturation; and residual states and changes in behavior caused by the experience. (Author/MK)

Tested the hypothesis that distressed spouses are more reactive to immediate events than nondistressed couples. Couples recorded positive, negative and neutral events and satisfaction levels. Distressed couples reported lower rates of positive behavior and that marital satisfaction depended more on frequency of recent positive or negative events.…

Presents a factor analytic study of the nine New York Longitudinal Study's (NYLS) temperament variables in a sample of 160 Swedish children from six months to two years of age. Asserts that results corroborated some of the NYLS's findings as well as those of other studies. (Author/MJL)

The importance of good interpersonal communication skills is examined. The disadvantages of passive behavior, the importance of self-concept, and the use and evaluation of assertiveness scripts are discussed. (CT)

Contemporary studies of female suicidal behavior show that such women exhibit characteristics corresponding to the behavioral indices of impersonalism, submissiveness, passivity, and obedience producing the lack of individuation characteristic of Durkheim's altruistic/fatalistic suicide categories. The author suggests this supports the contention…

Examined couples' punctuation of their own interactions. Punctuation was defined as a way of grouping sequences of interactions. Results suggested that the nature of relatedness, as defined by degree of distress, was associated with the punctuation of interactions by the communicators. (Author)

Evaluated self-administered relaxation manuals and money deposit in treating recurrent, nonphobic anxiety in college population. Relaxation training groups improved significantly more than self-monitoring-only subjects on self-report, questionnaires, and self-monitored measures of anxiety. Study suggests the value of self-monitoring and relaxation…

To develop information regarding the commercial product purchasing behavior of mildly mentally retarded adults, 11 participants were included in a mock shopping exercise. The results indicated several serious deficiencies in the purchasing strategies of the participants. (Author/SB)

An analysis of national data on newspaper readership revealed that nonreaders differed from readers in age, education, income, occupation, and political, and social participation. (FL)

Crisis is an essential ingredient in the great developmental stages of the natural world and dealing with disruption can result in much that is positive. (Author/JD)