THE INFLUENCE OF INFORMATION AND DAILY CONTACT ON CHILDREN'S ATTITUDES TOWARDS APHASIC CHILDREN

Summary . The influences upon attitudes towards aphasic children were studied when ordinary children (ages 9–14) were given explanations of, and contact with, children with motoric aphasia. Subjects were 191 elementary school pupils. In one group no explanation about aphasia was given, and no contact with aphasic children was maintained. In a second group, an explanation was given but no contact was maintained. In the third group, a special class of aphasic children was incorporated within the ordinary school. As a result, daily contact between the ordinary and the aphasic children was maintained. A questionnaire for measuring attitudes towards aphasic children was built and its test-retest reliability was found to be 0.91 (df=37, P<001). The attitude scores were analysed by analysis of variance. A significant main effect of treatment method was found (F (2, 173) = 5.38, P<005). As hypothesised, the attitudes of children exposed to daily contact were less negative than those of children exposed to explanation only. The attitudes of children who were exposed neither to explanation nor to contact were the most negative. A significant main effect of age was found (F (2, 173)= 10.84, P<001). It was revealed, as hypothesised, that attitudes towards aphasic children were more negative in younger children than older ones, and only the attitudes of the 13- to 14-year-old children were in the positive region. A significant interaction between age and treatment method was also found (F (4, 173) = 3.81, P<005). The contact was found to be most effective with the youngest children. The implications of the findings for the general question of attitude formation in children and for the specific question of aphasic children's rehabilitation were discussed.     

Family Characteristics and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Follow-Up of Israeli Combat Stress Reaction Casualties

This study assessed the role of family status and family relationships in the course of combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The sample consisted of 382 Israeli soldiers who suffered a combat stress reaction episode during the 1982 Lebanon War. Results showed that one year after the war married soldiers had higher rates of PTSD than did unmarried soldiers. Furthermore, higher rates of PTSD were associated with low expressiveness, low cohesiveness, and high conflict in the casualties' families. Theoretical, methodological, and clinical implications are discussed.     

Global self-evaluations and perceived instability of self in early adolescence: A cohort longitudinal study

A cohort longitudinal design with four adjacent cohorts of students ( n = 1689) followed over two years was used to study key issues identified in the research literature on the development of self-evaluations in early adolescence. There was no clear relationship between age/grade and self-evaluations. We found no support for a "stressful periods" hypothesis with respect to self: Possible changes were very gradual and quite small. However, there was a consistent "relative age" effect implying that younger students within a grade had more negative self-evaluations. There were small but consistent sex differences in self-evaluations in favor of the boys; more detailed analyses of very negative self-evaluations suggested that the early adolescent years are the period in which a sex difference in depression related symptomatology begins to emerge. Finally, the usefulness of some kind of effect size measure and advantages and problems associated with a cohort longitudinal design were discussed.     

A Comparative Analysis of Entrepreneur and College Business Student Values

ABSTRACT Both entrepreneurs and senior-level college business students were surveyed to determine similarities and differences in their values, under the premise that students who share similar values with those held by entrepreneurs may have promise of entrepreneurial potential. All respondents were administered the Rokeach Value Survey which, through a process of rank-ordering, is used to determine two hierarchies of value importance for individuals. The first hierarchy reflects an individual's terminal value system, or those values associated with end-states of existence. The second hierarchy reflects an individual's instrumental value system, or those values associated with modes of conduct. The resulting data provided a tabulation of medians, rank order composites and levels of significance for the terminal and instrumental values, respectively, of both samples. Rank order composites were used as general indices in comparing the position of a particular value in the total hierarchy of values and for comparing the position of a particular value across the two groups. Emphasis was placed on those values which were ranked very low or very high by the entrepreneurs. Comparisons of student value rankings relative to those values the entrepreneurs held highest and lowest were then conducted. The findings indicated that there were value differences between the total sample of entrepreneurs and students, as well as between female entrepreneurs and female student values, but there were few differences between male entrepreneur and male student values. In addition to the above comparisons, median analysis between entrepreneur and student terminal and instrumental values were conducted. An examination of the general population of entrepreneurs and students revealed that twelve of the eighteen terminal values of the entrepreneurs and students were significantly different at the (.05) level Only four of the eighteen instrumental values were significantly different (.05) level between the entrepreneurs and students. The median analysis between male entrepreneurs and male student values showed no significant differences. However, the median analysis between female entrepreneur and female student values showed that seven of the eighteen instrumental and eleven of the eighteen terminal values were significantly different at the (.05) level. Although not examined, it is likely that individual students in the sample do share the value profiles of the entrepreneurs. If so, and if generally accepted value profiles are established for entrepreneurs, such students might be counseled to consider the entrepreneurial life.     

Family Functioning and Mental Illness: A Comparison of Psychiatric and Nonclinical Families

The primary objective of the present investigation was to examine adaptive functioning in the families of patients with a wide range of psychiatric disorders. Seven dimensions of family functioning, as measured by the Family Assessment Device (FAD), were compared across families of patients with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder (n = 61 ), bipolar disorder (n = 60 ), major depression (n = 111 ), anxiety disorder (n = 15 ), eating disorder (n = 26 ), substance abuse disorder (n = 48 ), and adjustment disorder (n = 46 ). Families in each psychiatric group were also compared to a control group of nonclinical families (N = 353 ). Results indicated that regardless of specific diagnosis, having a family member in an acute phase of a psychiatric illness was a risk factor for poor family functioning compared to the functioning of control families. However, with few exceptions, the type of the patient's psychiatric illness did not predict significant differences in family functioning. Thus, having a family member with a psychiatric illness is a general stressor for families, and family interventions should be considered for most patients who require a psychiatric hospitalization for either the onset of, or an acute exacerbation of, any psychiatric disorder.     

USING THE UNMATCHED COUNT TECHNIQUE (UCT) TO ESTIMATE BASE RATES FOR SENSITIVE BEHAVIOR

Many areas of personnel research are "sensitive." We provide an empirical assessment of the unmatched count technique (UCT) to determine the base rate for a number of proscribed behaviors for professional auctioneers. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical application of a UCT technique in organizational studies. Advantages of the UCT are discussed including: (a) a more accurate estimate of the base rates for sensitive behavior, (b) absolute anonymity to subjects, (c) "legal immunity" to the researcher, and (d) facilitation of complete disclosure to subjects with no deception.     

Client,Treatment, and Therapist Variables Related To Outcome in Brief,Systems-Oriented Family Therapy

Client, therapist, and treatment characteristics were examined with respect to how much of the variance they could account for in a variety of outcome measures. Multiple regression analyses were used to examine relationships among each of the client, therapist, and treatment characteristics studied and the various outcome measures. For the 219 families that were treated with brief family therapy, only a relatively low amount of variance in any of the outcome measures could be accounted for. The amount of explained variance, however, varied considerably from one outcome measure to the other. When the more homogeneous groups of clients (single parents or adolescent identified patients) were considered, the amount of explained variance generally showed an increase. Different sets of client, therapist, and treatment variables accounted for the variance in these outcome measures across client groups, demonstrating both the complexities of the relationships and the relative independence of various outcome measures. New variables are suggested for future research.