Examines people's behavior in the Monty Hall Dilemma (MHD), in which a person must make two decisions to win a prize. In a series of five studies, found that people misapprehend probabilities in the MHD. Discusses the MHD's relation to illusion of control, belief perseverance, and the status quo bias. (RJM)

Experimental phonological synthesis (sound blending) and analysis (rhyme detection) tasks were administered to children (n=76) preceding kindergarten entry. Measures of beginning reading were administered after kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. The sound blending task was significantly related to most interim and outcome measures. The…

Suggests that models of parenting style, such as Baumrind's popular model, are insensitive to variations in parenting resulting from characteristics of the different situations in which the parenting is expressed. Argues that considering parenting in context adds greater specificity to the model and enhances the potential for predicting child…

Five affective and personality instruments were completed by 126 urban Hispanic working women, aged 18-65. Dysphoria was positively related to role conflict and negatively related to masculinity (instrumentality), life satisfaction, and self-esteem (the latter 3 having positive correlations with each other). Educational attainment was negatively…

Tested a triple-interaction hypothesis predicting problems of adolescent adjustment. Data obtained from Japanese 14-year-olds, parents, and teachers provided measures of parent-adolescent cohesion, parent socialization values, and 4 personality clusters. Found that lowest Resilient Impulse Control and Interpersonal Warmth scores were obtained for…

Data from the Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1982-84, were used to examine lifetime prevalence (LTP) of childhood asthma among Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans. LTP was related to Puerto Rican ethnicity, birth outside U.S. mainland, low weight for age, male gender, poverty, urban residence, and single parenthood. Implications…

Considers sexual harassment from the perspective of abuse of power, and discusses the possibility of having power within a situation that automatically and nonconsciously triggers a sexuality schema, just as racial or gender features automatically trigger stereotypes of that group. The possible origins of the automatic power/sex linkage and its…

Examines the development of normative sleep-wake state characteristics in full-term infants, and atypical state characteristics as presented in several clinical populations including preterm and autistic children. Reviews and critiques the literature on the usefulness of infant state parameters in predicting developmental outcomes of infants at…

A national survey of 355 licensed pharmacists investigated their perceptions of themselves as lifelong learners, participation in various professional and leisure activities, attitudes predicting lifelong learning behavior, and respondent characteristics. The two analytical models used arrived at different demographic and other variables…

Reviews research related to humor, especially the role humor can play in the instructional process. Highlights include theories of humor; variables associated with humor; health benefits derived from humor; developmental stages and humor; effects of humor in children's educational television; and humor in the college environment. (25 references)…

Study examined self-motivation and selected physiological characteristics as predictors of whether employees would complete a structured corporate exercise/fitness program. Researchers surveyed employees regarding physiological health, self-motivation, and adherence. They found no significant positive relationship between self-motivation scores…

Examined the degree to which African-American mothers took a parent- versus child-oriented approach to disciplinary practices. Found associations of maternal education and age with mothers' use of physical punishment; mothers' age and concerns about child victimization with mothers' use of social control; and maternal education with restrictive…

This study found that personality characteristics (including locus of control and self-esteem) of 33 maltreated adolescent females interacted with maltreatment status in predicting depression, suggesting that they are protective factors. Adolescents first experiencing maltreatment during childhood were less likely than those first experiencing…

Examines the role of increasing use and heavy first-time use of alcohol and cigarettes in multisubstance abuse patterns for 4,192 secondary school students surveyed 3 times over a 4-year period. A history of licit substance use with increasing use levels is likely to precede use of other substances. (SLD)

Examined the relationship between the strategies used by parents during family conflicts in the child's early life and the child's social standing among peers in kindergarten. Parental and spousal conflict strategies, and particularly aggression, predicted children's social standing among kindergarten peers. (BB)