In this digest the problem of underachievement among gifted students is examined. Gifted underachievers manifest three behavior patterns in the school setting: non-communication and withdrawal, passive compliance, and aggressive/disruptive behavior. Gifted underachievers have been identified in greater numbers recently. Some of the causes of…

Research has consistently shown that among the non-institutionalized elderly, prevalence rates of heavy alcohol use and problem drinking are relatively small in comparison to younger age groups. This study examines how maximum annual alcohol consumption and problem drinking change as a concomitant of the aging process. This study of alcohol-use…

Teachers in a private special education school for students with learning and/or adjustment difficulties completed Bristol Social Adjustment Guides (BSAGs), an observation scale for identifying maladaptive classroom behaviors, for 157 students (7-21 years old). Rorschachs were administered to the same group of students. Data from each test were…

The information digest on emotional disturbances provides basic information on definition, incidence, patterns of behavior, and educational implications as well as suggested additional resources. The definition of "emotional disturbances" in P.L. 94-142, The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, is given and briefly discussed.…

Few follow-up studies of parasuicides in the literature focus on changes in underlying psychopathology. This study compared a group of parasuicides who mastered their presenting problems within 3 months after the key episode with a group who had not and examined some of the underlying psychopathology and its relationship to repetition of suicidal…

Research has revealed a considerable degree of stability of Type A behavior from adolescence to adulthood. Other research has reported an association between anger and certain dimensions of cardiovascular risk in adolescent subjects. Such findings suggest that further study of the Type A phenomenon as it is expressed in adolescents may enhance…

Although research has examined the content of alcohol-outcome expectancies and also the role of alcohol use in aggressive and sexual behaviors, few studies have linked the two lines of inquiry. To examine the efficacy of outcome expectancies for predicting actual behavior, 64 male social drinkers, aged 21 to 25 years, completed questionnaires and,…

To examine the impact of ethical ideology, i.e., situationism (high relativism and idealism), subjectivism (high relativism/low idealism), absolutism (low relativism/high idealism), and exceptionism (low relativism and idealism), as well as the saliency of moral norms, and the situational consequences on moral behavior, 112 male and female college…

Longitudinal studies of mother-child interactions for the third trimester of pregnancy to age 4 are described. The effort is aimed at analyzing early childhood data to determine stability of mother-infant interaction, correlations among mothers' character as defined by adaptive and maladaptive defenses, major conflicts, sense of reality, and…

Noting that considerable research has been conducted in the area of political communication, this paper points out that little attention has been given to direct legislation techniques--means by which citizens participate in the legislative decision making process. To establish a rationale for the study of direct legislation efforts, the paper…

The proposition that individuals process social information in terms of existing cognitive schemata has generated considerable research suggesting that behavioral descriptions of leaders reflect individually held prototypes of leadership rather than descriptive reports of behavior. While plausible, evidence of such claims is difficult to show…

Two studies examined the hypothesis that sexually coercive behavior is part of a larger constellation of non-sexual deviant behaviors. The first study considered the relationship between various antisocial intentions and self-reported levels of sexual aggression. As a part of a larger study, college men (N=108) responded to the Sexual Experiences…

This booklet provides a behavioral analysis of child molesters. The terms child molesters and pedophiles are defined and distinctions are drawn between the two. The second section develops a law enforcement typology differing from those of mental health professionals, focusing on pre-arrest behavior or pre-identification behavior of child…

The final report presents progress of a project investigating compliance and noncompliance among severely handicapped students. Details are reported for each of the project's three years: from initial conceptualization of compliance and noncompliance, to training on the Microprocessor Operated Recording Equipment (MORE), to studies on the effects…

Research shows that people comply more frequently to threats when the credibility of the source is high rather than low and that compliance is directly related to punishment magnitude. To examine the impact of an advisor on a target of threats, male college students (N=74) participated in an experiment that included high or low threatner…