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Objective: To assess the effects of different cognitive orientations focused on social comparison or self-comparison, followed by success or failure feedback, on mood, task persistence, and task difficulty choice in children with cancer., Method: Children with cancer (N = 79) and a group of age-matched controls (N = 72 were randomly assigned in a 2 (Achievement Orientation) x 2 (Feedback) between-subjects design., Results: Between-group differences revealed that children with cancer chose more difficult tasks for the future than those in the comparison group, while the comparison subjects chose to persist longer with the problems than did children with cancer, with no significant differences on measures of mood., Conclusions: The beneficial effects of achievement orientation as a clinical manipulation may not be as robust as expected with a medically ill population, due to the apparent stability of achievement orientations.

Compared peer relations of hearing-impaired adolescents (n = 35) with those of hearing adolescents (n = 35) based on reports from mothers, fathers, and adolescents. Dependent measures included the emotional bonding, aggression, and social maturity subscales of the Missouri Peer Relations Inventory, the socialized aggression subscale from the Revised Behavior Problem Checklist and the activities and social subscales of the Child Behavior Checklist. Analyses showed that parents of hearing-impaired youths rated their adolescents' friendships as relatively high in aggression, but hearing-impaired adolescents rated their behavior with friends as relatively low in aggression. These findings were interpreted in light of recent research regarding the cognitive biases of aggressive hearing children. Mothers of hearing-impaired youths also rated their adolescents' friendships as lower in emotional bonding than did mothers of hearing adolescents.