Developmental changes in attentional skills: the effect of irrelevant variations on encoding and response selection

The present experiments examine how irrelevant variations within a stimulus set interfere with performance in a selective attention task. Second graders, fifth graders, and adults were administered a discrete trial version of a selective attention task in which they were required to search for an object that matched the prime on the targeted dimension. The stimuli in the first experiment were constructed from spatially integrated dimensions whereas the second experiment used spatially separated dimensions. The results indicated that while the spatially separated dimensions were perceived independently by all age groups, developmental differences in perceived structure were evident with the spatially integrated dimensions. Problems associated with response selection were a major source of interference with both types of stimuli, but the severity of the interference varied with the age of the perceiver and the nature of the stimuli. The developmental implications of these findings were considered.     

Drinking and Driving: Perceptions and Evaluations as a Function of Level of Intoxication and Weather

Over the past decade, drinking and driving has been a major social problem causing deaths and injuries. The present study examined factors that may encourage this potentially self-destructive behavior. Three hundred and seventy-eight subjects were presented with scenarios describing a night of drinking with friends. Scenarios differed with respect to three levels of intoxication (not at all, slight, and very) and two levels of weather (clear and rain). Subjects were asked to estimate the proportion of their peers who would drive home or choose an alternative form of transportation. Subjects were also asked to evaluate the target who drove home or took an alternative in terms of likability, cautiousness, skillfulness and independence. Driving home was found to be the most common mode of transportation, regardless of state of drunkenness or weather conditions. Alternatives to driving home were seen as being utilized only under extreme conditions (e.g., very intoxicated and rainy weather). Moreover, persons taking one of the more cautious alternatives were perceived as overly cautious and also low in skillfulness. The practical implications for the findings are discussed with respect to enhancing education efforts.     

The Systematic Measurement of French and Raven's Bases of Social Power in Workgroups

A typology of five bases of social power developed by French and Raven (1959) has been used to study small-group behavior in field settings by various researchers but interpretation of these data is limited by several methodological shortcomings. This study describes the development and testing of questionnaire measures for the Legitimate, Expert, Referent, Reward, and Coercive bases of social power and attempts to correct some of the scale format confounds that have affected previous empirical efforts. Analyses of Likert-scaled responses from the 23-item questionnaire show for the first time that these five constructs are factorially identifiable and orthogonal. Scale responses are shown to accurately reflect hierarchical status differences in an organization and to correlate significantly with such common leader behaviors as Initiation of Structure and Consideration.     

Differences Between Personal Estimates of Body Fatness and Measures of Body Fatness in 11- and 12-Year-Old Males and Females

This study was designed to assess the accuracy of perceived levels of body fatness as indicated by 11- and 12-year-old children. Using a rating scale ranging from 1 (extremely lean) through 9 (extremely overweight), 50 males and 50 females estimated personal levels of body fatness. Using a 2 × 2 between-and-within-groups ANOVA, these estimates were compared to individual skinfold sum percentile scores derived from comparisons with national skinfold norms. The results revealed that the females tended to overestimate personal levels of body fatness, whereas estimates given by the male subjects were interpreted as not significantly different from skinfold sum percentile scores.     

Behavioral and sociocognitive correlates of ratings of prosocial behavior and sociometric status

Although peers' and teachers' evaluations of children's prosocial behavior and peers' sociometric ratings frequently have been used in studies of social development, the validity of young children's ratings of others has been questioned, as has that for teachers' ratings of prosocial behavior. In this study, preschoolers' ratings of peers' sociometric status and prosocial behavior, as well as teachers' ratings of children's prosocial dispositions, were obtained. These were correlated with children's naturally occurring prosocial or social behavior; ratings of prosocial behavior also were correlated with children's prosocial moral reasoning and prosocial self-attributions. Peers' sociometric ratings were positively related to children's sociability whereas prosocial ratings were related to helping (but not sharing) behavior. Teachers' ratings of prosocial behavior were not related to frequency of prosocial behaviors, but were positively related to developmentally mature moral judgments and self-reported motives.     

Preventing Substance Abuse Among American-Indian Adolescents: A Bicultural Competence Skills Approach

Tobacco, alcohol, and drug use are problems for American-Indian people. We reviewed these problems and the explanations for them and described a bicultural competence skills approach for preventing substance abuse with American-Indian adolescents. Data from a study of that approach suggest its efficacy with American-Indian youth. At posttest and a 6-month follow-up, American-Indian subjects who received preventive intervention based on bicultural competence skills concepts improved more than did American-Indian subjects in a no-intervention control condition on measures of substance-use knowledge, attitudes, and interactive skills, and on self-reported rates of tobacco, alcohol, and drug use. Our findings have implications for future substance-abuse prevention research with American-Indian people.     

Systemic crisis intervention as a response to adolescent crises: an outcome study

The present study demonstrates the safety and effectiveness of an outpatient program designed to respond to adolescent-precipitated crises by mobilizing and restructuring the family's kinship system. Families of 75 adolescents at risk for hospitalization were followed up to 24 months after treatment with Systemic Crisis Intervention. Measures of offspring and family functioning, suicidal behavior, institutional use, and treatment costs are presented. Results clearly demonstrate the safety, effectiveness, and economic viability of Systemic Crisis Intervention.