Parents are the most affective human environmental resources to children. Although the influences from parents continue even after parents passed away, very young children (up to age 3) get the biggest impact from their parents. According to children's independency to parents, parents ' psychological well-being determines children's emotional-social development. However, in parenting stress, chi ldren also have their own influence to parents in the family context. Regarding parenting stress, many studies have been dedicated to defining the occurrence, co-occurrence, and predictors of parenting stress of parents in various conditions. This longitudinal research conducted from surveys with 20 I Early Head Start families reexamines the stressors and tests measures to find the most effective identifying variables. Also, the aim of this study is whether fathers' and mothers' parenting stress is different or similar with a child at the ages of I 0 months and 36 months. From the results of this study, stressors, parenting stress, and child attachment were related and influenced each other. Because the amount of fathers' and mothers' parenting stress was different, and because parenting stress was affected by different stressors according to parents' gender, the Early Head Start program should consider the differences in parenting stress due to the gender of parents. Additionally, as the children grew, the relations among stressors, parenting stress, and child attachment changed. Children 's development can change all circumstances including parents' physical and psychosocial well-being. Further studies need to identify additional sources of parenting stress and the impact of intervention programs on the stressors affecting families raising young children. Also, the Early Head Start program had an effect on the context of parenting stress, so results may have implications for staff of the program.

This study utilized archival data collected from mothers of 82 Head Start children. Relations among the following were examined: a number of parenting strategies taken from the "Home Survey" subscale of the American Guidance Services (AGS) Early Screening Profiles "Home-Health Questionnaire"; parenting stress (the Parenting Stress Index- Short Form or PSI-SF); scores in two dimensions of psychological well-being (the Center for Epidemiological Studies Measure of Depression or CES-D, and the Pearlin Mastery Scale); and the ratings parents gave their children in four domains of competence (the AGS Early Screening Profiles "Self-Help Social Profile"). Data from the AGS measures were collected by the Head Start staff as part of the normal educational process. Data from the other measures were collected by telephone interview as part of the Head Start Family Service Center Evaluation Project (principal investigator, Dr. Lori Roggman). Relations of the ratings of child competence with other variables were explored.

For the past number of years, in attempting to diagnose maladjustment, psychologists have made and used a great number of tests. These tests have ranged from the simple question-answer test up to complicated projective tests. In any personality test an inescapable question is its validity. Especially is this question important in the so-called personality inventories where the person taking the test merely answers yes or no to a number of questions about himself. In this stuation it is easy to see how a person could, if he wished, make himself appear to be "better" than he actually is.

The present era in the United States finds the people leaning more and more toward automation. The use of automatic machines in merchandising products is becoming increasingly important in meeting competition and in developing new outlets for dairy products.

Similarities between adolescent friends have been established for many characteristics, including the physical, behavioral, psychological, academic, and social domains of development. Past research and theory also support the notion that psychological and behavioral characteristics are likely related to ego-identity characteristics. This study was primarily a test of the logical extension of the previous statements: Best friends are more similar than nonfriends on identity characteristics. It was also hypothesized that best friends are more similar than nonfriends on behaviors, attitudes, and intentions expected to be related to identity. A sample of 1,159 grade 10-12 students responded to a survey that included a measure of identity status levels, based on a modified Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status. The self-response survey also contained additional items that assessed behaviors, attitudes, and intentions. When comparing 198 pairs of mutually identified adolescent best friends and like numbers of pairs of non mutual best friends and randomly paired non friends, several tests of similarity indicated that best friends shared distinct similarities in ego identity. Magnitudes of similarity indicators were greater for measures of identity in specific content areas than for the global identity status levels or interpersonal and ideological domains. In addition, best friends were more similar than nonfriends on many behaviors, attitudes, and intentions expected to be related to identity. However, similarities of best friends were not related to the duration of the friendship. Weak relationships between identity and academics across grade levels suggested a possible reduction of identity similarities in friend pairs over time. No clear relationships were found between friends' similarities and friends' friendship strength. Finally, only inconsistent differences between females and males were found in the relationships of identity status levels, behaviors, attitudes, and intentions with friendship duration, friendship strength, and grade level.

This study was designed to assess the concurrent validity of the Family Profile II (FPII). The FPII is an instrument designed to measure 13 areas of family functioning. Matches for II of the 13 subscales of the FPII were identified from the literature. These comparison subscales were used to confirm the concurrent validity of the FPII. The sample consisted of 229 undergraduate students enrolled in summer classes at Utah State University. The factor structure of the FPII was also assessed. Four of the 13 subscales factored exactly as previously reported. Five factored with only minimal differences. The remaining four subscales were substantially different. All of the correlations between the FPII subscales and the comparison subscales were statistically significant. Five of the pairs shared 42% or more of their variance. Results indicate that the FPII has promise as an easy-to-score-and-interpret measure of the 13 aspects of family functioning it assesses.

The specific problem investigated in the study was to determine the effects that small growth groups would have on the self-concepts of the participants. The Tennessee Self Concept Scale was used as a measure. The experimental group (N=30) and the control group (N=30) were comprised of college students enrolled in Introductory Psychology classes at Western Kentucky University. The group members participated in ten sessions over a five week period. An analysis of variance of the split plot design was conducted to measure the hypothesized change in self due to the treatment. The conclusion of this study is that participants in the group sessions did not significantly enhance their self-concepts as a result of treatment as measured by the Tennessee Self Concept Scale.

In an attempt to assess the effect of relaxation training on anxiety levels, a population of 350 students enrolled in Introduction to Psychology classes at Western Kentucky University were administered the Institute for Personality and Ability Testing (IPAT) 8- Parallel- Form Anxiety Battery to screen for 36 high anxiety subjects. These subjects were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: biofeedback, deep muscle relaxation, or control. The biofeedback group received electromyograph training over a three-week period, while the deep muscle relaxation group listened to relaxation tapes. Alternate forms of the IPAT were administered to all subjects at specified intervals to observe changes in the anxiety levels for each group as a function of training. Analysis of the results indicated that no significant differences existed among training conditions. However, significant results were found across training sessions irrespective of training conditions. Discussion centered on the impact of individual differences in performance, differential rates of mastery and motivational differences of each subject. Additional discussion focused upon the apparent abilities of subjects to achieve physiological relaxation without achieving anxiety reduction.

In a Taffel-tyne erbal conditioning task, the conditionabilitv of Internals (I's) and Externals (E's) was investigated under two types of influence (Hi vs. Lo) involving Ss who were either aware or unaware of the correct responsereinforcement contingency. A 2 X 2 X 2 X 7 repeated measures analysis of variance conducted on both the conditioning and extinction data revealed that aware Ss used the operant to a significantly greater degree during conditioning and significantly less during extinction. No significant differences in the rate of responding during conditioning and extinction were found for the main effects of locus of control or influence. Locus of control, influence, and awareness did not significantly interact during conditioning, however, they did interact to effect level of responding during extinction. A Sandler's A conducted on the three factor interaction found that during extinction, aware I's under Lo influence reacted against conditioning by increasing their use of the operant. All other groups were found to decrease their use of the operant from conditioning to extinction. Implications are drawn from this study as pertaining to the effectiveness of behavior modification programs, psychotherapies and the generalization of experimental findings as a result of internal vs. external attitudes. Suggested revisions for future studies include the use of a larger population, modification of the I-E Scale, and more personally relevant experimental conditions in which to study the conditionability of I's and E's.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the interactions between direct care staff and the mentally retarded (MR) clients that they served in an institutional setting. It was hypothesized that (a) most of the staff-client interactions, regardless of quality (i.e., positive or negative) and/or level of intellectual functioning, would be instructional rather than conversational or no response interactions; (b) there would be an insufficient amount (i.e., duration and frequency) of conversational interaction, regardless of quality, across intellectual functioning levels; and (c) there would be a greater number of negative no response interactions (i.e., ignoring an appropriate client verbalization) than positive no response interactions (i.e., ignoring an inappropriate client verbalization). The impetus for these specific hypotheses was a concern that overall, in institutional settings, insufficient stimulation through direct care staff-client interaction occurred for proper implementation of individualized habilitation plans across IQ levels. The subjects were 45 clients currently residing in an institutional setting in Kentucky. The criterion variable was IQ. The predictor variables were twelve possible combinations of type (i.e., conversational, instructional, and no response), quality (i.e., positive and negative), and amount (i.e., frequency and duration) of staff-client interaction. An experimenter-developed instrument was used to record the observational data of staff-client interactions. The experimenter-developed instrument yielded interobserver agreement, among six observers, ranging from .81 to 1.00; intraobserver stability, over a two-week period, ranged from .86 to 1.00 across the six observers. Subjects were observed four times for six minutes each on a varied schedule across four days. Data were analyzed using a stepwise multiple regression procedure to determine the most significant model of staff-client interaction for Predicting 10. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were also calculated between each of the 12 predictor variables and the. criterion (IQ) since the number of subjects (n = 45) was small in comparison to the number of predictor variables. Results of the data analyses supported the experimenter's hypotheses. The stepwise procedure indicated that the single significant predictor of IQ was duration of positive instruction. That is, a significant inverse relationship existed between level of intellectual functioning and duration of staff-client positive instructional interaction (F = 6.72, p <.01). A Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (r = -.37) confirmed the results of the stepwise multiple regression procedure indicating a significant inverse relationship between IQ and duration of positive instruction (IPD). Pearson coefficients also indicated significant inverse relationships between IQ and frequency of positive instruction (r = -.35), frequency of negative instruction (r = -.33), and duration of negative instruction (r = -.32). Frequency of positive instruction (IPF), frequency of negative instruction (INF), duration of negative instruction (IND), and IPD shared significant amounts of variance indicating that instructional interactions, regardless of quality or amount, account for the only significant variance across IQ levels. Assuming linearity of the data, the hypothesis that negative no responses would exceed positive no responses across IQ levels was confirmed.