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The article presents a questionnaire study of the traits that adults consider to be important in the formation of friendship with members of their own sex. The numerous friendships that the average adult forms in a society present a wide variety of characteristics. It is frequently observed that two persons who consider themselves as friends differ markedly from each other both physically and psychologically. If an analysis is made of the friends of the average adult, at least two major types are almost certain to be found. One type is those friendships, which are socially and economically expedient, if not obligatory, as the result of one's position in his business or profession, or in the organization or club to which he belongs. The second type includes those friendships, which are formed on the basis of a relatively free choice on the part of the members of the friendship pair. The intention of this paper is to determine what physical and psychological characteristics are considered desirable and undesirable from the standpoint of the formation of friendship between two adults of the same sex.

The article reports on a preliminary study of the relative standing, in both schooling and ready knowledge, of groups of liberal and conservative U. S. adults. The article states that the findings of the study provide a new perspective on the "attitudes-enlightenment" problem, and seem to afford some clews as to where certain types of education and information campaigns might make headway and where they might encounter important psychological barriers. The article provides information about the procedures or methods taken for arranging the data for the study. One of the techniques employed in the study was "Contrasted Groups" in which people in the survey who approved or agreed with a criterion attitude question were compared on information and education with people who disapproved or disagreed with the proposition. The result or the findings were summarized in form of tables. The 16 attitude areas were indicated in the first column together with the approximate date or dates when the questions were asked, and with the putatively liberal answers in capital letters. The most obvious conclusion is, apparently, that no consistent superiority obtains for either liberals or conservatives.

The article focuses on announcements about books and their authors. Some of the books are "Deviant Children Grown Up," by Robins, Lee N. The book is a longitudinal study that traces the social and psychiatric outcomes in adulthood of 524 child guidance clinic patients and compares them to those of a control group of 100 normal children. The childhood factors that appear to predict which disturbed children grow into adults with antisocial behavior diagnosed as the sociopathic personality are examined in detail. The next book is entitled "Auf der Suche nach Wirkllichkeit. Gesammelted ätze," by Helmut Schelsky. The book is a collection of Schelsky's most important papers and works with focus on the future and the development of society. The next book is entitled "The Forest of Symbols," by Victor Turner. The book is based on field work among the Ndembu of Zambia. It combines a very detailed description of the Ndembu with a theoretical analysis of the semantics of ritual symbolism. The Ndembu are a matrilineal, virilacal people with a high spatial mobility. Villages as well as individuals and families have a high rate of mobility.

The study indicated that (a) education and educational test information did not discriminate between recidivists and nonrecidivists; (b) intelligence test scores did not differentiate between the two groups, the prisoners averaged very nearly the same as the general population, and the nonrecidivists scored significantly higher on the Digits Span subtest of the Wechsler-Bellevue; (c) mechanical and clerical aptitude tests did not yield any significant differences, but the prisoners were at least average in these abilities; (d) on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory the Depressive and the Psychopathic Deviate factors discriminated significantly, with T-scores for these factors being higher in the case of the recidivists; (e) height, weight, minimum sentence, number of work assignments, and number of times in the infirmary did not differentiate significantly; (f) the median nonrecidivist had four siblings and/or half-siblings and the median recidivist three, this difference being significant at the .01 level and identical to results found by the writer at the Kansas State Industrial Reformatory, Hutchinson; (g) the median number of punishments for rule violations was significantly greater for those with previous penal incarceration, a result agreeing with many previous studies; (Ii) combining the five significant factors according to standard scores resulted in a scale further differentiating between nonrecidivists and recidivists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A random sample of adults in the Detroit Metropolitan Area stated what they considered to be the "ideal size" for the average American family. There was a strong consensus (90%) on an ideal of 2, 3 or 4 children. The "mean ideal" of 3.15 is above replacement needs but does not presage a return to a "large family" pattern. The differences between social strata in "mean ideal size" are very small but consistent in direction with historic fertility differentials. For women with completed families "ideal size" was greater than actual size for all social strata. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a cross-cultural study of childhood experience and adult personality using the concept of ego strength. Ego strength is a general aspect of adult personality whose relationship with childhood experience can be studied. Simply, ego strength refers to one's ability to cope with one's environment and to deal adequately, directly, and realistically with problems that arise. This study requires a definition of childhood gratification and of ego strength, not as a characteristic that each individual possesses in varying degrees, but as a characteristic of a society. For childhood gratification, this has already been done in other cross-cultural studies. For ego strength, this was done by first examining all of the attempts to measure the ego strength of individuals, and from these, as well as from psychoanalytic theory, to construct an ego-strength scale and then translate the components from instances of individual behavior to those of cultural behavior. First, each new cultural category was defined similarly to the individual category. Then ethnographic reports of cultures were examined to see if these new categories could be constructed in terms of the data available.

Fifty-eight adults, members of three Protestant congregations, were surveyed regarding their religious attitude, their religious participation, and their concern about death. Those who reported greater religious participation indicated less fear of death on several measures ranging from a Likert-type attitude scale to a sentence-completion technique. The variables of death contact and religious attitude were not significantly related to attitudes toward death. Contrary to expectation) there is a slight tendency for older members of the congregations to report less fear of death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, ten Rorschach responses were determined as populars for the normal Chinese adults, based upon a sample of 347 respondents, and a set of six sample statistics of number and percentage was calculated for the nonweighted and weighted populars. In addition, some intra- and cross-cultural comparisons were made between our list and those of other authors, and at least one popular. Card VI W Turtle, can be considered as unique to the normal Chinese adults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]