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This study charted the development of gendered personality qualities, activity interests, and attitudes across adolescence (approximately ages 9-18) among 319 African-American youth from 166 families. The relations between daily time spent with father, mother, and male and female peers-the gendered contexts of youth's daily activities-and (changes in) these gender role orientations were also assessed. Boys and girls differed in their gender role orientations in stereotypical ways: interest in masculine and feminine activities, and attitude traditionality generally declined, but instrumentality increased across adolescence and expressivity first increased and later decreased. Some gender differences and variations in change were conditioned by time spent with same- and other-sex gender parents and peers. The most consistent pattern was time with male peers predicting boys' stereotypical characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People typically regard mixed-motive negotiations as competitive situations requiring assertive strategies, which often preclude achieving integrative gains. However, much of Argyris' (1976, 1982, 1993 ) work suggests that questions, rather than just statements, are necessary to create clear understanding of other people's interests and goals, which has been shown ( Allred, Mallozzi, Matsui, & Raia, 1997 ) to be linked to integrative gains. Experimental evidence indicated that the more positive regard negotiators felt for each other, the more they would inquire into the other's needs and interests. The evidence also suggested that more inquiry produced more accurate understanding of the other side's interests, which led to greater integrative gains. These findings are congruent with theory of successful dialogue derived in less contentious settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empathizing and systemizing have recently been put forward as two important individual-difference dimensions, whose different mean levels in men and women are argued to account for many psychological sex differences. This paper presents a series of studies designed to investigate the reliability and validity of the empathizing and systemizing quotients (EQ & SQ), to relate them to existing personality constructs, and to replicate reported sex and sexual orientation-related differences. Correlations with interests and social behaviour suggest the two measures are valid. However, empathizing appears essentially equivalent to agreeableness in the five-factor model of personality. Systemizing cannot be reduced to established personality dimensions, though it is moderately correlated with conscientiousness and openness. Men have higher levels of systemizing than women, and non-heterosexual women higher than heterosexuals. However, no differences were found between heterosexual and non-heterosexual men. Although systemizing and empathizing account for a number of observed sex differences, there are others they do not explain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tested the hypothesis from the self-expansion model that the usual effect of greater attraction to a similar (vs. dissimilar) stranger will be reduced or reversed when a person is given information that a relationship would be likely to develop (i.e., that they would be very likely to get along) with the other person. The study employed the “bogus stranger” paradigm and focused on similarity/dissimilarity of interests in the context of attraction to a same-gender other. The effect for similarity under conditions in which no information is given about relationship likelihood replicated the usual pattern of greater attraction to similars. However, as predicted, a significant similarity by information interaction demonstrated that this effect was significantly reduced (and slightly reversed) when participants had been given information that the partner will like self. In analyses for each gender separately, both of these effects were significant only for men, suggesting that the focus on interest similarity may have been less relevant for women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author assessed personality scores for 47 undergraduates enrolled in a forensic identification program. Results revealed no difference between men and women enrolled in the Forensic Identification Program on subscales of the Sensation Seeking Scale (SSS-V), with the exception of Experience Seeking. Participants had lower Disinhibition scores when compared with normative data. Women scored higher on the Experience Seeking subscale of the SSS-V and lower on the Aggression-Hostility subscale (ZKPQ), and men had elevated scores on the Activity subscale of the ZKPQ when compared with normative findings. These findings provide a primer for greater understanding of undergraduates interested in forensic identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in knowledge about personality will be fostered by improved research methods, but corresponding improvements in our theories will be needed also, better methods will not be enough. Theory itself can have methodological functions, and some methods provide strong impetus toward greater theoretical clarity and rigor. Distinctions between methodological developments in research design, measurement, and analysis need to be maintained, and we badly need more research directed specifically toward improving methodologies. Some papers in this volume point quite clearly to the need for all aspects of our research to be better rationalized and deliberate, casual and opportunistic decisions about how to carry out research simply will not do. These papers indicate, for example, that the trait vs situation controversy would likely never have occurred had the issues been addressed with greater methodological, and logical, rigor. This volume is not complete in its coverage of the potentially useful methods for personality research, and attention should ultimately be devoted to such methods as life histories and case studies and cross-cultural comparisons. In general, however, the papers in this volume offer an opportunity to raise the level of research in personality to a new plane of sophistication and revealingness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the study of intelligence test. In recent years there has been heightened interest in studying the effects of various factors that produce variation in human intelligence. Studies in this field have attempted a thorough examination of various environmental, personality, and ethno-cultural characteristics of Ss that might act as possible correlates of test performance. In recent years researchers who favor the use of automated test administration procedures have indicated that mechanical testing methods can provide valid and reliable data because of the standardized presentation of test items and the accuracy in recording and scoring that such methods permit

The article reports on unpleasant and pleasant events, and mood. It investigates the relationships between the daily occurrence of aversive events, depressed mood, and the enjoyment of pleasant events in a sample of 21 depressed patients. Significant associations were found between depressed mood and unpleasant events, and between unpleasant events and the pleasantness of pleasant events. There was also a significant decrease in experienced evasiveness concomitant with clinical improvement. The relationship between the occurrence of aversive life events and depression has been of longstanding interest.

The article reports on the levels of adjustment, depression and attitudes toward death among good and poor sleepers. The present study is an attempt to extend the general methodology into the areas of depressive affect and attitudes toward death, both of which long have been viewed as bearing a special relationship to quality of sleep. An additional interest was the exploration of possible sex differences. This study offered striking confirmation of the personality differences between good and poor sleepers. Poor sleepers consistently respond in the direction of greater psychopathology.

This article presents a study related to the development of a state measure of obsessive compulsive behavior. While there is considerable interest in the modification of obsessive-compulsive behavior, there are few methods to measure such behavior. Hence, in order to evaluate the potential merits of such treatment techniques as systematic de-sensitization, covert sensitization, and so forth, it is important to develop a method to index this behavior. Researchers administered their 40-item questionnaire to 100 neurotic outpatients and factor-analyzed the resulting data. Two orthogonal factors were extracted that represented the obsessional or anal-reactive character and the obsessional personality.

This article presents information on the relationship between social interest, locus of control, and self-esteem. In an attempt to bring the three variables together in one investigation, it was hypothesized that high social avoidance and distress would be associated with a perceived external locus of control and low self-esteem. Researchers have found positive correlations between high levels of social interest, high self-actualization scores and high internal control scores for women. Individuals who experience social anxiety, as opposed to those who are comfortable in social situations, are likely to feel that they have less control over the rewards in life and experience less positive self-regard.

The article indicates that the Developmental Attention Test offers much promise as a developmental test of attentivity and as a diagnostic test of the process of attention. The present data, although of a preliminary nature, indicate that the ability to attend to a task increases with age. However, the grade to grade and year to year increase seems to be greater in the first half rather than the second half of elementary school. The relation of IQ to the ability to attend also seems to be of greater magnitude during the first half of this period.

The article presents information on Rorschach content as a function of perceptual experience and sex of the examiner. The stability of the Rorschach profile or pattern and of the factors constituting it has been of great concern to workers with the technique as well as to critics of it. To what extent the record reflects stable personality factors, and to what extent it is subject to passing and temporary effects and experiences, is of interest to both the investigators and practitioners. Perceptual experiences immediately preceding the Rorschach examination tend to affect the incidence of individuals giving sex responses.

The article presents information on the stuttering theory and research. The lack of progress in the study of stuttering cries for explanation. Studies of concommitant relationships such as the response of the stutterer to tranquilizers, the use of projective tests to isolate consistent personality differences, and the application of electroencephalography's to detect a neurological basis, have all resulted in inconclusive, inconsistent and even contradictory findings. And authorities have been perhaps overeager to fill the knowledge gap with opinion and dogma in place of testable hypotheses and extrapolations in place of legitimate inference. The consistency and intensity of interest in stuttering is traceable back to antiquity.