To account for cognitive and affective responses to popular music, a pilot study used an information processing model to show that affect results largely from the activation of affect-laden schemas by the music stimulus. Subjects, 196 students from an introductory course in interpersonal communication at a medium-sized university, listened to a…

Although emotions have been widely studied, researchers have rarely focused on the elderly. Consequently, many questions remain unanswered concerning the emotions of older adults. This study examined age differences in emotional intensity of short- and long-term emotion. Older adults (N=61) and younger adult college students (N=93) completed the…

The role of questioning techniques in the classroom is discussed, with particular emphasis on the cyclical nature of teacher-student dialogues. Excerpts from transcripts of actual dialogues are also analyzed. According to the model, based on Piaget's theory of cognitive development, the questioning strategies are designed to enhance the student's…

Empathy and prosocial moral values are often identified as antecedents of helping behavior, but interest in their relationship and joint operation has only recently emerged. To investigate the relative contribution of empathy and values to helping responses, 87 college students were confronted with a request for help delivered either in person or…

A fundamental problem in social cognition and person perception is the issue of consistency in impressions. Some conditions encourage people to stereotype others while other conditions encourage people to abandon their stereotypes. A study was conducted to identify the different kinds of eliciting conditions for piecemeal vs. stereotype processing…

Designed to be used as a self-study guide or as a tool in courses and workshops, this manual includes study questions for foster parents to use in working out their role with the biological parents of the children in their care. The first section describes the prime reason for involvement with the biological parent: to enable the child to love…

Twenty college age males' hand shrugs, face-play manipulations, and frequency and duration of mutual eye contact were recorded in response to a female counterpart who varied her assertiveness and attractiveness in a two by two factorial design. Mutual eye contact, which increased under attractive conditions, was a useful negative correlate of…

A cognitive appraisal of threat is believed to intervene between the appearance of a stressful stimulus and a stress reaction to the stimulus. The effect of a "rational" treatment on the appraisal of threat is investigated. Five groups of 13 college students each heard one of five treatment orientations before viewing slides showing the victims of…

The use of touch in therapeutic relationships is seldom dealt with as a practice issue except in a proscriptive way. To gather descriptive information on the use of touch in therapy, professional therapists (N=50) whose practice was largely family therapy were interviewed about the successful use of touch in their helping relationships. Interview…

An attributional approach to social behavior traces problems in personal adjustment back to the assumptions individuals formulate about the causes of behaviors and events. Attributional information presented during counseling may have therapeutically beneficial consequences. The effectiveness of attribution therapy was investigated in a factorial…

The relationship between empathic role-taking abilities and empathic behaviors observed in both naturalistic and experimental settings was examined in 14 children between the ages of 53 and 65 months. Children were observed at the McGill Daycare Centre twice a week for 8 weeks, totalling approximately 30 hours. Event sampling was used to record…

The paper defines the term "culture shock" and discusses the changes that this state can make in a person's behavior. Culture shock refers to the emotional and physiological reaction of high activation that is brought about by sudden immersion in a new culture. Because one's own culture shields one from the unknown and reduces the need to make…

The inability of some children to cope with the pain from severe burns may result in depressive withdrawal or death. An understanding of the emotional impact of pain on children is essential to improve their ability to cope. A pilot project with seriously burned children employed three dependent measures to identify children who cope adaptively…

This study is an initial investigation of the effects of grade level, item content and type of probe on children's understanding of communicative ineptness. It was hypothesized that children's recognition and avoidance of inept communications would increase as a function of age and that recognition of ineptness would precede the ability to avoid…

A theoretical outline for an ideal or constructed type for the concept of "love" is presented. According to the definition presented, there are five basic elements or indicators which are sufficient conditions for the existence of love in its broadest sense: empathy, desire for the presence of the other, sharing, sacrifice and joy. Under…