A population sample consisting of 110 college students was placed into one of three principled reasoninig groups (low, medium, and high) based on individual P scores on the Defining Issues Test. Based on previous research, it was predicted that individuals low in principled reasoning would score high on measures of deference (conformity) and affiliation (social approval) and low on measures of autonomy, intraception (analytical ability), and abstractness. Those individuals in the high principled reasoning group would have opposite need structures. They should be low on measures of deference and affiliation and high on autonomy, intraception and abstractness in comparison to the low group. Those individuals with medium pricipled reasoning scores should be higher on measures of intraception and abstractness than the low principled reasoning group. Personality variable scores were obtained using the Edwards Personal Preference Scale and the Abstract Orientation Scale. None of the comparisons were significantly different on affiliation for any of the groups. In addition, none of the group comparisons between the low and medium groups were significantly different from one another. The results indicated the high group was significantly higher on deference and abstractness compared with the low group. The high group was also signigi(:antly higher than the m.dium group on measures of ibtraception, autonomy and abstractness. The groups were also evaluated using the discriminant analysis procedure. The analysis combined the personality variables into two discriminant functions both of which contained significant discriminating power and were able to discriminate between the three principled reasoning groups. The first function contained 78% of the total discriminating power and was primarily composed of abstractness, deference, intraception and autonomy. The second function was composed of autonomy, deference and affiliation and contained the remaining U% of discriminating power. In addition, the derived functions were able to correctly classify the correct principled reasoning group of (40 of the subjects.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how parent training reduced the level of depression and increased the level of sense of competence experienced by parents who perceive their child to have at least one behavior problem. Twenty-five mothers participated in 3 training groups. Two of the groups served as experimental groups and the third group served as a control group. The materials presented to the experimental group were a combination of behavioral and humanistic/Adlerian approaches to parenting (Clark, 1985). The participants were administered the Parenting Stress Index (PSI) (Abidin, 1986) before and after treatment. The data for the experimental groups were combined and compared to the control group using the Student's t-Test for differences between means for correlated data and a t-Test for differences between means for independent groups. A significant difference did occur on sense of competence scores within the experimental group. However, when compared with the control group no significant differences were found. These results indicate that the change in parents' Sense of Competence scores are a trend and not a significant difference.

Because of the attempt by our culture to deal with isolation and alienation in contemporary life, the small group process has become a significant force in many parts of American society. It has been known under many names: encounter group, T-group, sensitivity group and developmental group. Since this phenomenon generally grew outside of the "establishment," those scholars and behavioral scientists who have in the past been charged with the evaluation of such practices only recently have begun to explore its effects. Perhaps because the group process was not first explored intensively in an academic setting, colleges have been among the last institutions to explore the effects of the group experience (Rogers 1972). Little research has attempted to investigate the feasibility and effects of conducting such groups on a university campus. One such study was attempted by Enfield (1972). In order to further explore the implications of such processes, this present study was designed to replicate the portion of Enfield's project that studied the quantitative effects of the group experience on personality structure. Such research is vitally needed to provide the bases for rationally evaluating the effects of the small group process on personality variables.

In the past decade researchers have demonstrated that organisms do not always perform according to Hull's "law of less work" (Hull, 1943). In certain situations, some Ss prefer to perform an operant (e.g., bar press) rather than freeload to receive reinforcement (e.g., food). Though it can be argued that this is not behavior typical of all Ss (Taylor, 1972), lack of generality is not the point. As Metze and Craig (1973) point out, data from deviant individual Ss may prove to be the most interesting. There are two research objectives for the present study. First, an attempt was made to replicate the findings of Jensen (1963) ond others (e.g., Neuringer, 1969: and Carder and Berkowitz, 1970). They found that a number of the Ss studied preferred to work for reinforcement rather than receive it free. Therefore, it was expected that when given the choice, Ss would prefer to earn the food they consumed rather than freeload. Second, an attempt was made to investigate the effect of stress on the behavior of Ss who preferred to work. Incidental observations in the laboratory would suggest that the preference for work would be depressed and an increase in freeloading would be observed upon the introduction of stress into the situation.

A set of categories for the analysis of definitions of social group and a set of categories developed by the author were compared to determine which set had the greater parsimony and utility. The sets of categories were compared in order to specify the areas of agreement and disagreement. The sets of categories were applied to a sample of early European and American sociologists' conceptions of social group and a sample of 22 introductory sociology text definitions. Smh's inclusion of non-human individuals, one-way communication, and noncontemporaneous group members in his set of categories was unsupported by the samples of definitions. The combination of Smith's categories, "shared goal dispositions" and 'norms regarding means," into the author's category, "shared goal dispositions," and Smith's categories, "role differentiation" and "intergroup relations and group representative roles," into the author's category, "role differentiation," received some support from the samples of definitions. Smith's categories, "mutual need satisfaction," "face-to-face interaction," and "socioemotional relations among group members" were not cited in any of the samples. The author's category, "social structure," received some support from the samples of definitions.

The purpose of the present research was two-fold- (1) to investigate competence, using the Protestant Ethic Effect (PEE) paradigm, in institutionalized, elderly subjects and (2) to determine the viability of an alternative task such as problem solving to motor tasks in the PEE situation. Two groups of patients, who differed in functioning level, performed a cognitive and a motor task in a situation with four response/reinforcement alternatives. Three dependent variables were used to evaluate subject's performance Analysis of tokens obtained in experimental situations indicated tow functioning patients, carrying out the cognitive task, preferred position-, where tokens were available without responding, while the higher functioning group obtained more tokens where reinforcement was contingent upon responding. Both groups showed a preference for obtaining tokens from the reinforcement contingent position during the motor task. In terms of responding at choice location, the data showed that all subjects, irrespective of classification, performed more responses at the reinforcement contingent position of the motor task than at a similar position of the cognitive task. Finally, results indicated more time was spent by all subjects around the position where reinforcement was contingent upon responding than any other experimental position.

Researchers acknow]edge a problem with the transfer of learning from the training situation to the job situation, suggesting a need to go beyond traditional methods used to increase transfer of training. fhe study presented here extends the research conducted by Erffmeyer (1987) and investigates whether a post-training strategy is an effective technique to increase the maintenance of behaviors learned in training to the transfer context. The study used a post-training strategy consisting of 1) goal setting, 2) specific behavioral feedback, and 3) summative feedback to increase the percentage of freethrows made by an intercollegiate varsity women's basketball team. The results presented graphically demonstrate an improvement in performance of the treatment group. A post hoc analysis using the sign test revealed the treatment did in fact facilitate the transfer process. The results of the study suggest that post-training strategies can increase the transfer of behaviors learned in training to the applied context.

A study of 100 subjects over the ape of 60 was reported which investigated the correlation between purpose in life as defined by existential philosophy and death anxiety. It was designed to examine the effect of group affiliation and sex on subjective self-appraisal death anxiety and purpose in life questionnaires. The results indicated that: (a) the greater perceived purpose in life, the lower the death anxiety, (b) females in the socially oriented group had a greater negative correlation between death anxiety and purpose in life, (c) there were variables associated with the occurrence of both sex and group affiliation which greatly influenced scoring on the death anxiety measure (d) females affiliated with the socially oriented organization had much larger death anxiety scores, and (e) there was little difference between subject's scores which indicated having purpose in life.

This study attempts to determine the influence of age and education on the consistency of one's responses to items on various personality inventories. It was hypothesized that with increased age and education, people develop more stable and coherent personality structures. This results in more internally consistent responses to the personality measures used in this study (e.g., the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, the Dogmatism Scale, and the Private Self-Consciousness Scale). Alpha reliabilities showed that only three of the eight scales gave a positive relationship between age and internal consistency, while only two of the eight scales were supportive of a positive relationship between education and internal consistency. Possible moderators of the age or education and internal consistency relationship, such as sentence difficulty, words not understood, and self-reflection, were found to have no influence on the relationship. The correlations between both age and education with internal consistency were moderate in strength, r = .23 and r = .37, respectively. When the mean standard deviations for each age or education group on each personality scale were analyzed by one-way ANOVA's, most of the scales showed significant group differences with the older and more educated subjects showing more consistency in their responses.

This study investigated tne effects of students' intelligence, locus of control, and creativity on teachers' perceptions of students. Sixty-three fourth graders and two teacners from a local school participated. :he Verbal Scale of the WISC-R, the Circles Test from the Torrance Tests of Creative fhinking, and the Nowicki-Strickland I-E Locus of Control Scale ior Children were administered to the subjects. The teachers were requested to complete the Teacher Perception of Student Role Performance Scale (TPSRP) on each child. This instrument yielded scores on three factors of student role-- Competence, Sociability, and Social Conformity. rultiple regressions were performed to determine the effects of the variables on teacher perceptions for the total sample, High Intelligence (HI), Low Intelligence (LI), and Average Intelligence (Al) groups. Intelligence was the single best predictor for the total sample. Intelligence and fluency contributed to the HI group's ratings on the three factors of the TPSRP whereas intelligence and elaboration were contributors for the LI group. In addition, the 'HI children were perceived as the least conforming (low SC scores) by their teachers and the LI children as the most conforming (higher SC scores) to the traditional, highly structured classroom environment.