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The lifespan developmental framework views aging as a time of continued personal change and development. Death is perhaps the most salient developmental challenge older persons face. The relationship of self-transcendence, spirituality, and hope to personal death perspectives was the focus of this research. A descriptive correlational approach was used to study the relationships between these variables. Interviews were conducted with forty healthy adults aged sixty-five and older. Findings revealed that self-transcendence and spirituality were significantly correlated with positive death perspectives in this sample. Findings also revealed significant relationships between age and death perspectives, gender and self-transcendence, and gender and spirituality. No significant relationships were found between hope and death perspectives and hopelessness and death perspectives.

The purpose of this study is two-fold: (1) to determine whether students of either sex, or of any particular college class or subject matter major, make greater adjustment progress than students of the opposite sex, or of another college class or major field; and (2) to study the influence of these factors on the adjustment of college students of social fundamentals.

This is a study to determine a sound method of pre-service education for teachers of life adjustment schools. For many years some of the leading educations have seen the need to revise the public schools to improve the quality of living in a democratic society. With the assumption that this change is necessary in order to quip the individuals with the tools for making adjustments to existing and impending life situations, a new type of teacher may be required. For the improvement of teachers and leaders, the schools, colleges, and departments of education must assume major responsibilities, for through them will come practically all of the teachers and administrators who will have a part in determining the course of education.

The problem of this study was an investigation into the relationships between personality adjustment and perceived behavior in school and dormitory life of the residents of Boys Ranch, Texas.

The relationship between psychological hardiness and individuals' coping with two life events, involuntary job loss and post-parental launching of adolescent children, was investigated in a sample of 146 adults, 83 of which had experienced job loss and 61 of which had experienced the empty nest. Volunteers completed questionnaires which measured hardiness, distress, coping strategies, neuroticism, and extraversion. Multivariate analyses were performed, both with and without covariates, for overall hardiness as well as the hardiness subscales of control, commitment, and challenge. Significant hardiness by life event interactions on escape-avoidance coping were found in both sets of analyses. Main effects for hardiness, however, disappeared when controls for neuroticism and extraversion were utilized. Findings underscore the necessity of employing neuroticism controls in future hardiness research.

Male and female college students were administered scales assessing their daily hassles, negative life events, control, commitment, challenge, psychological symptomatology, psychological distress, and physical symptomatology. Stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that control, commitment, and challenge act in an additive (rather than multiplicative) manner in relation to psychological and physical outcome measures.

Some salespeople cope with the chronic stress that accompanies sales jobs better than others. That is, while all salespeople possess some ability for coping with job stress, some coping mechanisms work better than others. Thus, it is critically important to identify the coping mechanismwhich are associated with the most positive organizational outcomes (i.e., higher performance, increased retention). Research on the coping mechanisms of salespeople is in its exploratory stage. Increased knowledge concerning how salespeople cope with chronic job stress would help researchers and managers to clarify why certain job outcomes occur instead of others (i.e., performance, retention, and burnout). This study proposes and tests a set of relationships pertaining to the dimensionality and the outcomes of salespeople's coping styles. The model identifies the antecedents of coping style and proposes three types of coping style salespeople employ to reduce job stress- emotion focused coping (EFC), problemfocused coping (PFC) and action oriented coping (AOC). It also elucidates the outcomes associated with EFC and PFC styles. The empiricalfindingssuggest that among salespeople, those who use PFC possess a more pronounced internal locus of control, perceive higher social support, and project higher continuance commitment, and higher self efficacy than those who use EFC. The findings also suggest that salespeople who use PFC tend to be more satisfied and express greater well being than those who use EFC. Additionally, salespeople who use EFC tend to exhibit greater propensity to burnout and greater tendency to withdraw than those who use PFC. The model holds considerable promise froma managerial standpoint. Because the model partially predicts whether the outcome of a particular coping style will be positive or negative, managers can train their salespeople to cope with job stress more effectively. Additionally, it may be significantly helpful to those who recruit salespeople. Sales recruiters ought to be able to identify applicants with a greater orientation toward an internal locus of control. Internally driven individuals are more likely to use a problem focused coping style. In the context of hiring salespeople, this knowledge can be of crucial importance.

Predictors of institutional adjustment for juvenile offenders were examined using a sample of 120 males in a detention facility. While demographic information failed to differentiate between well and poorly adjusted juveniles, psychological measures appeared to be more effective. Several MMPI-A clinical scales were useful predictors with the overall elevation in clinical scales being one of the strongest predictors. In addition, the Psychopathy Checklist - Clinical Version (PCL-CV) was a strong predictor of adjustment. Major ethnic differences occurred in the prediction of adjustment, with the MMPI-A and PCL-CV scales predicting infraction rates for the African American group but not Anglo American or Hispanic American groups.

This research study investigated the effectiveness of child-centered group play therapy with children experiencing adjustment difficulties. Specifically, this study determined the effectiveness of child-centered group play therapy in: (a) improving self-concept, (b) reducing externalizing, internalizing, and overall behavior problems, (c) enhancing emotional and behavioral adjustment to the school environment, and (d) increasing self-control of kindergarten children experiencing adjustment difficulties. Also investigated were child-centered group play therapy effects on reducing parenting stress of the parents of kindergarten children experiencing adjustment difficulties. The experimental group consisted of 15 kindergarten children who received one 40-minute child-centered group play therapy session per week, for twelve weeks. Group facilitators were play therapists who were doctoral students at the University of North Texas. The control group consisted of the 14 kindergarten students that had been assigned to the control group in Baggerly's (1999) study. Before the group play therapy sessions began and after termination of the sessions: the researchers administered the Joseph Pre-School and Primary Self-Concept Screening Test; parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist-Parent Report, Self-Control Rating Scale, Filial Problem Checklist, and Parenting Stress Index; and teachers completed the Child Behavior Checklist-Teacher Report, Early Childhood Behavior Scale, and Self-Control Rating Scale. Although the general results of this study did not show statistically significant change due to child-centered group play therapy sessions, positive trends in the children's behavior, self-control, and self-concept were observed by the researcher, play therapists, and teachers. These trends and observations support the continued application of child-centered group play therapy with children experiencing adjustment difficulties. Several factors may have contributed to the lack of statistical significance demonstrated within this study. These factors include a) a small sample size; b) the sample was drawn from only one school; c) a minimum of interactions between therapists and teachers, and therapists and parents; d) two unforeseen and unfortunate events; and e) pre-existing strength and resilience of the children comprising the control group.