PREVIOUS THEORIES OF THE AGING PROCESS HAVE DERIVED BEHAVIOR AS NECESSARY FUNCTIONS OF SOCIAL OR INDIVIDUAL VARIABLES. AN INTERMEDIATE THEORY, PERSONAL ORIENTATION, ALLOWS THE INDIVIDUAL THE POSSIBILITY OF CHOICE WITHIN HIS CAPACITIES AND SOCIAL SITUATION. THIS THEORY IS BASED ON A DISENGAGEMENT THEORY OF AGING THAT SUGGESTS THAT A PERSON…

Burnout can be a serious problem for those in the leisure service professions. Symptoms of burnout, job-related factors which contribute to it, characteristics of high-risk persons, and personal and professional strategies to combat it are discussed. (PP)

Excessive television viewing in the formative years can complicate, if not paralyze, children's psychological development and educational achievement. It distorts their perceptions of reality and it causes them to be overactive, overanxious, and inattentive. (Author/SJL)

A behavior therapy program based on a self-control model of depression was evaluated against a nonspecific group therapy condition and a waiting list control group. Depressed volunteer female subjects (N=36) were randomly assigned to one of the three experimental conditions. Self-control subjects improved on specific measures of self-control…

This article identifies typical problems that gifted students face in social and emotional adjustment, including anxiety caused by advanced knowledge or understanding; heightened sensitivity to feelings of others; perfectionist tendencies; and feelings of being alone, isolated, and different. Resources to help students, parents, and teachers are…

Among 110 Mexican-American adolescents with varying drug use histories, self-reported physical health problems were not related to inhalant use history, but blood analyses indicated a relationship between extensive inhalant use and liver problems. Psychological distress symptoms were related to inhalant use and physical symptoms. Contains 23…

This study compared 28 preadolescents, either with or without learning disabilities (LD). Students with LD had less effective monitoring skills, lower attributions to effort, and a wider range of depressive symptoms. Results are discussed in relation to Borkowski's model that relates behavioral patterns of children facing school tasks with…

This study examined the structure and symptom correlates of perfectionism in a sample of 6th-grade, urban, African American children using the Child and Adolescent Perfectionism Scale (CAPS; Flett, Hewitt, Boucher, Davidson, & Munro, 2000). Confirmatory factor analysis showed inadequate fit of the original subscales. Exploratory factor analysis…

Increasing numbers of grandparents are becoming full-time surrogate parents to their grandchildren. Grandparents who raise their grandchildren reportedly endure high levels of stress, and grandchildren purportedly experience childhood trauma that can lead to poor psychological adjustment. While anecdotal reports have suggested that grandchildren…

This paper discusses factors related to negative psychological and physiological reactions (i.e., violent deaths, psychiatric commitments, self-mutilations, attempted suicides, disciplinary infractions, etc.) to life in institutional environments such as prisons, schools, off-shore oil rigs, and homes for the aged. Factors discussed are: (1)…

Depression therapy literature cites the importance of self-concept in formulating therapeutic strategies. Traditional depression measures catalog a client's symptoms, but fail to tap the structure of dysfunctional thoughts and judgments that form the client's self-concept. Vector-product multidimensional scaling was used to develop a measure of…

Examined the effects of child maltreatment and interadult violence on children's developing strategies of emotion regulation and socioemotional development, and the role of emotion dysregulation in mediating the link between children's pathogenic relational experiences and behavioral outcomes for 3- to 6-year-olds. Found that maltreatment history…

This study of 258 girls (ages 6-12) found that sexually abused girls and clinical controls had more developmental and psychiatric problems prior to the abuse and more past stressors than normal controls. In the sexually abused girls, prior developmental and psychiatric problems were associated with increased behavioral and emotional problems,…

In a study of French-speaking adolescents (n=547), five measures designed to examine psychological well being found that body image, self-esteem, and negative stressful life events mediate the relationship between gender and depressive symptoms during adolescence. Further analysis of a subsample who recently transitioned to high school also found…

Objective: To examine the use and impact of a dedicated health information Web site for adolescents. Method: Five hundred fifty-eight (27.2%) of all students in grades 7 through 12 from 4 schools logged onto the Web site; 1775 (86.4%) of all students in these grades completed a year-end health survey, with 455 (81.5%) of the students who used the…