This paper presents a summary of behavior concepts that together provide the outline of a possible developmental theory of prosocial motivation. These concepts, based on human role-taking capacities, include empathic distress, sympathetic distress, personal guilt, and existential guild. At first, a child cannot discriminate between himself and…

This study examined the perceptions of and expectations for the role of paid aides in the Cupertino, California Differentiated Staffing Project. The study focused on a) the expectations of the roles played by 69 aides, 64 teachers, and 6 administrators; b) the ability of each group to perceive the role expectations of another group; and c) each…

An investigation was conducted to determine the effects of instruction upon the dental health behavior of university students. The experimental group of 68 subjects, all elementary education majors, were exposed to a three--stage dental health motivational model: Dental Health Skills Instruction (four hours of laboratory instruction), Cognitive…

A series of studies on observer biases revealed that simply informing observers of experimental hypotheses does not produce observational data consonant with those hypotheses. However, questionnaire responses following an experiment with different induced expectations does produce global data consonant with experimental hypotheses. In addition, if…

The Cross-National Study of Coping Styles and Achievement was designed to develop a conceptual system for describing effective coping behavior in several cultures; to develop measures of coping style and coping effectiveness which would be uniformly applicable in the various cultures; and to determine the relationship of such coping behavior to…

This paper presents a research method derived from the functional analysis of behavior currently common among operant behavior therapists. Naturalistic observation, the method used, encompasses behavioral-level description of events, systematic observation and recording by means of codes, assessment of inter-judge reliability, as well as targeting…

Investigators compared the emotional adjustment, intellectual functioning, scholastic performance, and social behavior of 54 children who became schizophrenic mental patients with that of 143 matched controls. The following conclusions were drawn: indications of potential schizophrenia include behavioral and emotional deviation in childhood, death…

The methodology discussed is used in ongoing research to contrast the effectiveness of several patterns of parental authority with the same children at different ages. The first characteristic of these methods is the use of trait and behavior ratings to assess dispositional tendencies. The construct of a dispositional trait is used to account for…

In Study I, reading disability children were tested on perceptual encoding speed with a visual reaction-time task requiring same-different judgements. Performance of disabled children deteriorated as testing progressed, and recovered after a rest. In Study II, the poor readers of Study I were rated by their teachers on a 15-item inventory of…

VARIATIONS IN THE PROPERTIES OF INSTRUCTIONAL REINFORCEMENT WERE STUDIED UNDER TWO ASPECTS OF TEACHER BEHAVIOR, PUNITIVENESS AND EXPERTISE, TO IDENTIFY TECHNIQUES FOR AFFECTING OPERANT RESPONSE RATE IN A VERBAL CONDITIONING SITUATION. PUNITIVENESS AND EXPERTISE WERE MANIPULATED BY USING PREARRANGED TAPE RECORDINGS OF A SIMULATED SOCIAL STUDIES…

THIS DOCUMENT STATES THAT BETWEEN 1952 AND 1961 APPROXIMATELY 50,000 RESERVATION INDIANS WERE ASSISTED BY THE BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS TO RELOCATE IN MANY OF THE LARGER METROPOLITAN AREAS OF THE UNITED STATES. THEIR SUCCESS IN CITY LIFE HAS BEEN LARGELY DEPENDENT UPON SATISFACTORY ADJUSTMENT TO THE LOCAL URBAN COMMUNITY LIFE SO FOREIGN TO THEM.…

This paper explores the effects of infant predominant state of arousal upon very early mother-infant interaction, through observation of a group of 20 healthy 3-day-old nursery roommates and their mothers during hospital feeding sessions. In an experimental procedure involving a modified time-sampling technique, two observers simultaneously…

The convergent validity between the following measures was investigated: use of accomplices, imaginary accomplices, feltboard, disguised questionnaire, and undisguised questionnaire. The first four measures yielded corresponding results. Subjects' awareness proved to be an important methodological consideration. Results were not affected by the…

The study focuses on the interaction between moral development and situational factors as it affects prosocial behavior. Three experimental conditions varied the permissibility of interrupting a task to help an "ailing" confederate. A situation by moral judgment interaction was predicted. Stage three and four subjects, defining right action in…

Thirty-six subjects were administered the 16PF and participated in a brief, unstructured interview. Paralinguistic behavior (fluency, duration and speech rate) were scored from tapes of the interviews and correlated to personality characteristics. Four significant relationships emerged revealing that fluency is related to adventurousness; duration…