Causal attributions of shy students (N=36) were compared with those of a comparison group of students (N=36) in ten situations. Significant differences between the two groups emerged when explaining outcomes of situations considered to be problematic for shy individuals. Causal attributions may reflect realistic and situation-specific…

Mothers' ability to decode their children's nonverbal expressions of four affects (happiness, sadness, fear, and anger) was contrasted with the decoding ability of a matched group of nonmothers. Results indicate that mothers were accurately able to decode expressions of happiness but had relative difficulty with decoding expressions of sadness,…

Examined the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), and the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (TMAS) for specificity and validity as measures of anxiety and depression with 170 undergraduate students. The BDI, SDS, and TMAS were intercorrelated significantly with the Eysenck Personality Inventory scale. Item content…

An alumni association dues program has these benefits: operating funds, program expansion, identification of committed alumni, and association independence from the institution. Its problems can be: possible competition with the annual fund, possible competition with constituent associations dues programs, and negative reaction to direct mailings.…

Effects of affective and behavioral interview styles on client environmental contingency, goal-related, action-step-related, self-reference affect, and time oriented statements were examined with 24 female subjects. Counselor interview styles differentially prepare clients to describe their behavior in specific behavioral terms and engage in goal…

Twenty-one autistic and 21 nonautistic retarded adolescents and young adults were compared on British Picture Vocabulary Scale items considered emotion-related or highly abstract. Autistic subjects' lower scores on emotion-related items suggest autism-specific impairments in grasping these concepts. No differences were found for abstract/concrete…

Examined empathy and conservation abilities of nonretarded children with autism and compared their performance to that of normally developing children. Autistic children performed surprising well, but not as well as normal children. There was a closer association between cognitive abilities and affective understanding among the autistic children…

Using data from the High School and Beyond survey, compares junior and senior year performance and other variables in Catholic single sex, Catholic coed, and public schools. Finds Catholic school students are urged to take more academically demanding courses; this accounts for public/Catholic differences in achievement and university attendance.…

Compared attention, behavioral reaction, facial affect, and cardiac responses of 22 autistic and 22 mentally retarded preschoolers to emotional displays. Found that both groups looked more at the experimenter and displayed more interest and concern when the experimenter showed strong distress than when she showed neutral affect. Autistic…

Examined preschoolers' judgments regarding affect experienced by four participants in three social events. Found that preschoolers expected actors across all events to feel happy and recipient-observers in moral and conventional, not personal, events to feel unhappy; teachers witnessing the acts to feel happy in personal, not moral and…

Reports on two experiments comparing the adequacy of naturalistic procedures in emotion-display research with standard procedures. The first experiment explored samples of naturally-occurring emotional speech with free-choice emotion labels, and later with labels from a standard set. The second compared valency ratings of words presented…

Examined correspondence between second-graders' use and knowledge of anger display rules. Found that children's responses were moderately related across two contexts. Following live interactions, compared to hypothetical vignettes, children reported feeling and expressing less anger, intending to hide their anger more, and dissembling their anger…

Examined emotion regulation decisions and outcome expectations following emotionally expressive behavior in fifth, eighth, and eleventh graders as a function of goals, age, and gender. Found that participants distinguished between vignettes characterized by prosocial versus self-protective goals. Goal type influenced emotional regulation decisions…

How well do early school entrants adjust socio-affectively when compared to their regularly admitted peers? Despite numerous publications on the subject, much controversy remains, mainly because of methodologically fragile studies. To assess the impact of a new early entrance policy in Quebec, 36 kindergarten and 42 Grade 2 teachers who had at…

Relationship satisfaction, affect, and stress were examined in 313 same-sex couples who had had civil unions in Vermont during the first year of this legislation. Similarity between partners on age and on positive/negative affectivity was related to relationship satisfaction whereas there was no association with similarity in income, education,…