Adolescent Social Structure and Drinking Behavior

The study examines adolescent drinking customs in the context of the informal social structure of the high school. Teenage drinking behavior was also examined in relationship to demographic variables and parental use of alcoholic beverages. The study identified a mosaic adolescent society consisting of eight informal social status subgroups with contrasting and often hostile values, attitudes, and leisure-time patterns. A highly significant (p < .001) relationship was found between the students' subgroup membership and drinking category. Parental alcohol use also was related to teenagers' use (p < .001), and interesting variations were identified when teenage drinking behavior was studied in relationship to demographic factors.     

My current views on Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET) and religiousness

Comments on W. B. Johnson's (1992) Rational Emotive Therapy and Religiousness: A Review. Outlines the author's current views on regular religion and on dogmatic, absolutist, devout religiosity, in order to clarify how rational-emotive therapy (RET) and rational-emotive psychology (REP) actually hold, and do not hold, certain attitudes toward religion. Albert Ellis, Ph.D., is the founder of Rational-Emotive Therapy, President of the Institute of Rational-Emotive Therapy in New York, and the author of over fifty books on RET and Psychotherapy.Albertt Eillis, Ph.D., is the founder of Rational-Emotive Therapy, President of the Institute of Rational-Emotive Therapy in New York, and the author of over fifty books on RET and Psychotherapy.     

Multiple uses for longitudinal personality data

Most longitudinal studies are designed to serve fairly narrow purposes, such as the prediction of life outcomes from theoretically relevant antecedent variables, or the documentation of age-related changes in the level of personality or cognitive variables. However, the accumulation of data on a single group of people observed over a period of many years permits a variety of other types of analyses. Creative use of a longitudinal archive can amply justify the costs of maintaining the sample and should encourage investigators to initiate more longitudinal projects. Findings from the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging are used to illustrate both traditional and alternative uses of personality data, including (a) development of nomological nets for the interpretation of personality measures, (b) evaluation of state effects in personality measurement, (c) validation of retrospective reports, and (d) heuristic exploratory analyses. Current knowledge on the stability of personality in adulthood, the correspondence of observer ratings and self-reports, and the comprehensiveness of the five-factor model can enhance the design of future longitudinal studies.     

A comparison of children with serious emotional disturbance served in residential and school settings

The National Adolescent and Child Treatment Study (NACTS) was designed to study children identified and served by the public mental health and special education systems as seriously emotionally disturbed. Children (N=812) and their parents (N=740) participated in the first wave of data collection in this longitudinal study. Subjects lived in six states, with approximately half in psychiatric residential treatment centers and the other half in public school special education programs. A multi-method, multi-source methodology was employed. The sample is characterized by externalizing problems, poor adaptive functioning, and substantial academic deficits. Residential children were more likely to have blended families, were more likely to have previously received residential treatment, and had higher rates of conduct disorder, anxiety, and attention deficit disorder, as measured by the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children. The two groups did not differ on intelligence, age of onset, or rates of schizophrenia or depression. The data suggest the presence of greater at-risk factors in the residential group and different paths of entry into special education and residential treatment programs.     

A model theoretic approach to ‘natural’ reasoning

A general framework is proposed for accommodating the recent results of studies into ‘natural’ decision making. A crucial element of this framework is the notion of a ‘partial structure’, recently introduced into the semantic approach to scientific theories. It is through the introduction of this element that connections can be made with certain problems regarding inconsistency and rationality in general.     

Folk Concepts, Natural Language, and Psychological Constructs: The California Psychological Inventory and the Five-Factor Model

ABSTRACT Both the California Psychological Inventory (CPI; Gough, 1987) and the five-factor model of personality have roots in folk concepts of personality. The present article offers a conceptual analysis of CPI scales in terms of the five-factor model. In the first study, judges rated the item content of CPI scales in terms of the five factors. In the second, CPI scales were correlated with the factors as measured by the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI; Costa & McCrae, 1985b) in a sample of 348 men and women ages 19 to 92. Both studies showed meaningful links between CPI scales and four of the factors; Agreeableness appeared to be underrepresented in CPI scales. The utility of systematic rational item analysis in terms of the five factors and the evolving relation of folk concepts to psychological constructs are discussed.     

On Russell's principle of induction

An improvement on Horwich's so-called pseudo-proof of Russell's principle of induction is offered, which, we believe, avoids certain objections to the former. Although strictly independent of our other work in this area, a connection can be made and in the final section we comment on this and certain questions regarding rationality, etc.The authors would like to thank the two anonymous referees and Jeff Paris for their helpful and encouraging remarks. It goes without saying, of course, that the responsibility for any further errors, ambiguities or whatever, is entirely ours.We would also like to acknowledge the support given by the Centre of Logic. Epistemology and History of Science of the University of Campinas and, in the case of French, the Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), in the preparation of this work.     

The formalization of Interpretability

This paper contains a careful derivation of principles of Interpretability Logic valid in extensions of I₀+₁.