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This study examined associations among parental divorce, family conflict, sex, and young men's and women's achievement of intimacy. Analyses indicated that family conflict and sex, but not divorce, were significantly related to intimacy. Examination of those within the divorced group suggest that time of divorce, along with family conflict, were related to intimacy.

This study investigated factors influencing the adjustment of families of 49 autistic children (38 boys, 11 girls) to the stress of raising an autistic child. Analysis indicated that the severity of the child's disorder (stress), mother's social support (resources), and mother's perceived locus of control (perception) were significant factors in family adjustment. In addition, evidence suggested that agency affiliation also was an unexpected, yet important factor.

The Stress-Arousal Checklist was developed as a self-report measure both of arousal and of the favorable or unfavorable appraisal of that arousal. Previous studies with the checklist showed differential sensitivity of the two subscales to experimental manipulations. In the present study, the convergent and discriminant validity were further explored by comparing scores with those on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-State. The results supported the validity of the two-factor structure.

The developmental features of the fears of 112 nonretarded and 42 retarded children were examined. With development, the fears of nonretarded children became more closely aligned with real sources of threat that involve human agency and less fearful of imaginary things. The retarded children displayed patterns of fears similar to their mental-age peers rather than chronological peers and were more likely to deny being fearful than their nonretarded peers.