Multidimensional scaling (MDS) offers a rigorous approach to many problems in perception, emotion, personality, and cognition, where the stimuli are too complex to be quantified by other means. In these procedures similarity ratings of the stimulus objects are modeled as points in multidimensional space, such that perceived similarity is…

Orientation to time, place, and person is a central aspect of cognitive functioning. Measures of orientation, as employed in the psychiatric mental status examination, evaluate the accuracy of orientation in present awareness, and are applicable only to severely disturbed psychiatric populations in whom obvious deficits would be expected. The…

This study had two purposes: to test the usefulness of partial order scalogram analysis with multivariate response data; and to illustrate the multidimensional nature of suicide risk. A detailed introduction describes partial order scalograms, which locate respondents' profiles in a two-dimensional space (rather than on a unidimensional Guttman…

The impact of divorce on children seems to vary according to the child's age. Previous studies on the impact of divorce on children have generally focused on pre-schoolers and elementary-age children. Since more long-term marriages are ending in divorce, attention should also be given to adolescent and adult children of divorce. Subjects (N=26)…

Although role or perspective taking has been considered important for the development of mature social thought and behavior, and training for perspective taking has been used to remediate deficient behavior, few studies with either normal or disturbed populations have examined naturally occurring behaviors expected to correlate with…

The purpose of this study was to determine how cognitive style instructions to respondents of a survey instrument affected the resulting psychometric properties of the scale. It was hypothesized that a group which is instructed to carefully respond will have a mean score further from the neutral point, a larger standard deviation, and a higher…

To investigate the effects of mutual perceived understanding on the communicators, 86 undergraduate students in a speech communication course were asked to use a 382 item checklist to identify those feelings and sensations that described their own experiences of intense communication. Analysis of subjects' responses showed that 63 items were…

Listening to an intimate self-diclosure does not always generate attraction for the revealer. One factor which may influence the relationship between disclosure and attraction is emotional empathy (i.e, an observer's reacting emotionally because he/she perceives that another is experiencing an emotion). To investigate whether emotional empathy on…

Research has sought to establish a connection between positive psychological state and physical health and longevity. It has been suggested that persons with a sense of purpose or meaning in life are better able to withstand stress, and enjoy better health. To study the link between a sense of meaning and a sense of physical well-being, 28 college…

A major area of concern in divorced families is compliance with child support payments. Aspects of the former spouse relationship that are predictive of compliance with court-ordered payment of child support were investigated in a sample of 58 divorced persons all of whom either paid or received child support. Structured interviews and…

The Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) was used to assess the level and intensity of burnout in 165 California State University at Long Beach college seniors preparing for the human services professions, specifically teaching, nursing, criminal justice, and social welfare. A comparison group of 80 engineering seniors was also assessed. The 40-item…

A synthesis of findings from 38 studies on group-based applications of mastery learning strategies are presented. Meta-analytic procedures were used to combine the results of the studies and to calculate overall estimates of the effects of group-based applications. Results show that such applications yield consistently positive effects on both…

A cognitively-oriented course of economics instruction will affect student attitudes toward economic issues. This was the finding of a study designed to ascertain economic attitudes in adolescents. Economic attitudes were measured by an instrument which used eight moderately reliable multi-item scales. The measure was applied in a…

This study was designed to explore the concurrent validity of the Spiritual Well-being Scale (SWB). Ninety first-year student volunteers at an evangelical seminary served as subjects. As part of a larger study, the students completed the SWB and the Interpersonal Behavior Survey (IBS). The SWB Scale is a 20-item self-report scale. Ten items…

This paper reviews literature documenting gender differences in beliefs related to mathematics achievement. The areas included in the discussion are: (1) gender differences in mathematics achievement and self-referenced cognitions, (2) the effect of confidence and anxiety on mathematics performance and expenditure of effort, and (3) confidence and…