“Heroic struggle”: A medieval and modern dilemma

In the medieval tale ofSir Gawain and The Green Knight there is a portrait of an archetypal hero who succumbs to the pressures of living up to his reputation by resorting to behavior which compromises the code of ethics of knighthood. The lives of contemporary men and women are much more complex by comparison, though not always quite so dramatic. The pressures we face on a daily basis are cumulatively greater. Choices we make may be determined by our need to filter the realities of our world through a characterological lie which we have fashioned in ourselves as a way of protecting a vulnerable psyche from the truths of existence. Events in this fourteenth-century narrative are reexamined in the light of Dr. Ernest Becker'sThe Denial of Death, which strongly implicates the confrontation between the individual and the environment.William A. Paris is a freelance writer who also works with mentally handicapped students in Georgia's Dekalb County School System. This paper is part of a lengthier study presented in the 1978 Ohio Conference for Medieval Studies, John Carroll University, Cleveland. Mr. Paris is completing a novel based on this research. For their editorial supervision, the author is grateful to Dorothy Ann Saye and David M. Moss, of Coventry Associates for Pastoral Psychotherapy in Atlanta.     

An analysis of the relationship of teachers' reported use of classroom management strategies on types of classroom interactions

The results of an investigation to determine teachers' reported use of classroom management strategies and their relationship to teacher and student interactions are presented. We interviewed 20 teachers to determine how they developed and used classroom management strategies, and then observed the interactions of these teachers with children with serious behavior disorders (SBD). Results identified two groups of teachers: one that scored high on planned use of the strategies, and one that scored low. Comparisons between the two groups of the interaction patterns revealed small, but statistically significant differences in the mean length and total percent time involved in positive interactions. The group reporting higher use of the management strategies engaged in positive interactions which were longer in duration than the interactions of the group reporting lower use. The results are discussed in terms of further research needs and implications for teacher training programs.     

Links Between Early Personal Characteristics,Longitudinal Profiles of Peer Victimization in School and Victimization in College or at Work

Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology - This study used a longitudinal design from age six through age 19 (N?=?1206 (603 girls)) to examine the associations between...     

Methodological Problems in Operant Learning Research with Human Infants

A great number of the recent studies on infant operant learning use the mobile conjugate reinforcement paradigm with 2- and 3-month-old infants. This paradigm has proved to be adequate for the study of learning and the transfer of learning. However, difficulties linked to the high attrition rates of subjects, and the variability in performance are frequently observed in studies using other paradigms or in studies with older infants (4–5-month-olds). The problems noted in a group of studies seem to be related to important methodological issues such as the brevity of the learning sessions, the choice of dependent measures, and the management of variability in performance. The use of single-subject designs and the use of variables encountered in infants' daily learning experiences may be the solution to some of the problems.     

Adolescent perception of mothers' parenting strengths and needs: a cross-cultural approach to curriculum development for parent education

Black, Hispanic, and White American early adolescents (N = 573) were administered the Parent Success Indicator. The performance of their mothers was rated for 60 items, included within six subscales, that consider Communication, Use of Time, Teaching, Frustration, Satisfaction, and Information Needs. Each racial group described favorable attributes of mothers and noted realms of learning where further growth seemed warranted. Statistically significant main effects for race, time spent together, and presence of an adult at home when the adolescent returned from school were reported. No significant main effects for child gender were reported. Based on perceptions of the participants, topics were identified for a common parent curriculum that can serve mothers of each racial group. Additional topics, based on the ratings within each race, were recommended to meet the distinctive learning needs of Black, Hispanic, and White mothers of early adolescents.     

A five-year follow-up of patients with borderline pathology of childhood

Borderline pathology of childhood (BPC) may be a precursor of personality disorders. There is a lack of data concerning outcome in adolescence. A group of 59 adolescents, who had been treated as children in a Child Psychiatry Day Hospital five to seven years earlier, was evaluated. Using the child version of the Retrospective Diagnostic Interview for Borderlines, 28 participants had been diagnosed with BPC while the remaining 31 participants who did not have a history of BPC served as the comparison group. The youth and their parents were given a battery of measures assessing current psychopathology and functional status. The group with a history of BPC was more likely than the comparison group to exhibit a combination of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Adolescents with a history of BPC were more impaired than the comparison group on a global measure of functional status. Compared to children with no history of BPC, children diagnosed with BPC are more likely to display poorer functioning as adolescents and continue to be at risk for psychopathology during adolescence. Future directions for research are discussed.     

Atom Exchangeability and Instantial Relevance

We give an account of some relationships between the principles of Constant and Atom Exchangeability and various generalizations of the Principle of Instantial Relevance within the framework of Inductive Logic. In particular we demonstrate some surprising and somewhat counterintuitive dependencies of these relationships on ostensibly unimportant parameters, such as the number of predicates in the overlying language. Supported by a UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Research Studentship.     

DAPP-BQ: factor structure in French Canadians

Personality traits may be involved in predisposition to a range of clinical and behavioral phenotypes. Given their importance, it is necessary to establish the extent to which different levels of personality traits are applicable to and reproducible across cultures and sexes. In a well-characterized, longitudinal sample of young French Canadians, we examined structural equivalence of broad personality traits using the Diagnostic Assessment of Personality Pathology-Basic Questionnaire (DAPP-BQ). We also investigated sex-based patterns of item-endorsement, scale reliabilities, and factor solutions. Our four-factor solution closely resembles the structure reported in the source population of British Columbians, especially in terms of Factors I through III. In contrast to the original study, however, together with compulsivity, rejection rather than passive aggression, defined Factor IV. We, furthermore, observed sex-based differences in item endorsement and both broad and narrow personality trait scores. Subtle differences notwithstanding, our results offer additional evidence for structural stability of broad DAPP-BQ personality traits across sociodemographic and cultural contexts.