Teaching social skills to emotionally disturbed adolescent inpatients

A social skills training program was evaluated with emotionally disturbed adolescent inpatients. The targeted social skills required an action or reaction within six skill areas. The program was adapted from a commercially available social skills training game that features the use of response specific feedback, self-monitoring, individualized reinforcers, and individualized performance criteria. A peer conducted the baseline and posttraining sessions while the training was conducted by an adult who had no previous interactive history with the subjects. A multiple baseline design across groups demonstrated that the program increased appropriate responding in all skill areas and that these effects generalized during the posttraining peer conducted sessions. A generalization test indicated that the subjects used their newly learned skills with a novel adult outside the training setting. The program appears quite applicable to emotionally disturbed adolescents since it targets skills in a variety of areas and employs standardized procedures to enhance replicability.     

Observers’ sensitivity to dynamic anomalies in collisions

The present study examined observers’ ability to discriminate canonical and dynamically anomalous collisions that were presented in either frictionless or frictional systems. Whereas previous research has provided qualitative demonstrations that dynamic information can be extracted from visual events, the current study provides a parametric assessment of observers’ sensitivity to dynamic invariants. Our findings indicate that observers are competent when viewing both familiar, terrestrial (frictional) systems and unfamiliar but computationally simpler, 0-G (frictionless) systems. Thus, our sensitivity to these dynamic invariants in visual events is robust in natural systems whose dynamic properties differ from those of the environment in which we evolved and developed.     

Difficulty and familiarity norms for 192 single-solution word fragments

Normative data are presented for the probability of successfully completing 192 single-solution word fragments. Normative data on the familiarity of college students with the solution words are also given, along with estimates of word frequency from existing norms. Regression analyses were performed in order to predict fragment completion difficulty from familiarity, frequency, and several structural characteristics of the fragments. Familiarity, whether or not first and/or last letters appeared in the fragment, and the ratio of letters to missing letters in the fragment were included in the regression equation as significant predictors of difficulty for this fragment set.     

Containment theory and juvenile delinquency: a reevaluation through factor analysis

All seven variables of containment theory were operationalized for questionnaires. Data were collected from 677 adolescents in a variety of high schools and correctional institutions, and divided into categories by race and sex. Factor analysis indicated that the structure of the relationships among the seven containment variables and delinquency was substantially different among black females.     

Shyness, group dependence and self-concept: attributes of the imaginary audience

The imaginary audience of 328 early and late adolescents was studied from the viewpoint of providing educators and clinicians with insight into its attributes--those which both facilitate and hinder youths' development. Early adolescents (about 14 or 15 years of age) displayed a greater awareness of an imaginary audience which probably contributed to their observed, elevated group dependence. Unexpectedly, the shyness of adolescents highly sensitive to an imaginary audience increased with age, possibly because they are unwilling to provide themselves with the social experiences necessary for decentering. Likewise, those highly sensitive to an imaginary audience projected low self-concepts and thus imply that their audience is relatively critical; thus, they probably validate a self-fulfilling prophecy, oblivious to a possible contradictory external reality. The anticipated fact that females appeared to be less socially bold and more group dependent than males might account, in part, for females' greater responsiveness to an imaginary audience. It is suggested that educators and clinicians encourage youth to validate social hypotheses in order to promote the dissolution of the imaginary audience, especially of those who are shy and display self-deprecatory tendencies.     

Students' attitudes toward university health services

This study measured students' attitudes toward a university's student health services (SHS) and identified factors that were related to their attitudes. A questionnaire surveying students' attitudes was administered to a sample of 150 students at the Oxford Campus of the University of Mississippi. Analysis of the data revealed that students' attitudes had a statistically significant correlation with the following variables: perceived medical care cost, amount of health information/education received during medical encounters, time spent in the waiting room of the SHS, sex of the student, and income of the student. There was no significant relationship between attitude and age.     

Adolescents' perception of aspects of the home environment and their attitudes toward parents, self, and external authority

Although there is extensive literature on the home environment as a socializing agent and on the perception of self and others, research relating home environment variables to adolescents' perception of themselves and others is not common. The present study, using a survey of 480 students, attempts to define and relate these two domains. Factor analyses of 16 semantic differential scales generated three dimensions--evaluation, understandability, and potency--for specifying attitudes toward self, parents, and certain external authority figures (teachers and police). In addition, factor analysis of 20 variables relating to adolescents' perception of their home environment suggested five factors: (1) extent of punishment, (2) amount of chores at home, (3) perceived parental control, (4) absence of parents, and (5) parents' attitude toward authority figures. Controlling for sex and age, these home environment factors were found to account for sizable portions of variance in certain components of the person perception domain. Particular relevance for several of these factors are discussed.     

The effects of service activities on adolescent alienation

This research evaluated the effects of involvement of adolescents in community service activities on levels of alienation. It was proposed that alienation could be reduced through the implementation of a model which utilized community service activities to facilitate adolescent access to adult society, development of responsibility, collaborative and cooperative work, and control over planning and outcomes. It is suggested that adolescent involvement in service activities can produce positive benefits, among which are reduced levels of alienation, improved school behavior, improved grade point average, and acceptance by the adult community. These findings also suggest that females respond more positively to school when allowed to problem-solve collectively and collaboratively.     

The new MAACL scales with adolescents: preliminary reliability and validity determinations

This study reports on the reliability and concurrent validity of both the trait and state forms of the Multiple Affect Adjective Check List (MAACL) with a high school population, age range of 14-16 years and educational range of 9th and 10th grades (N = 403). Alphas of the four scales (anxiety, depression, hostility, and positive affect) ranged from .67 to .91. Correlations with a check-list of stress-related symptoms and an inventory of the number of extracurricular activities in which the students participated were significant and in the expected direction. Means and standard deviations on the MAACL scales were similar to those of college students. Sex differences were found on some of the scales. The findings indicate that the MAACL is sufficiently reliable and valid to warrant additional use with an adolescent population.