Electrodermal reactivity and rated behavior in emotionally disturbed children.

A group of 34 emotionally disturbed children was subdivided according to 2 measures of electrodermal reactivity and the resulting subgroups were compared on 18 rating scales. The High reactors showed less appropriate affectivity, and tended to be less active motorically. It was concluded that Jone's concept of internalization should be redefined to exclude the implication that high autonomic reactivity accompanied by socially adjustive behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of personal and social preferences in emotionally disturbed and normal children.

Preferences for friends, colors, and food were studied in institutionalized disturbed children and normal elementary school children, subgrouped at 3 age levels. Stability of preferences for friends and for food indicated at the beginning and end of a 20-min. interval revealed an orderly developmental progression within the normal group. Such consistent developmental trends were not found within the disturbed group and comparison with the normal children showed significantly higher proportions of stable friendship choices and stable food preferences in the normal group. No significant differences in stability of color preferences were found either within or between the groups. Attitudinal stability, within the limits of this exploratory investigation, tended to be specific to each of the 3 areas rather than a general personality characteristic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An abbreviated form of the WISC for use with emotionally disturbed children.

Many clinicians faced with the demands of research and limited clinic time have employed a short form of the standard intelligence tests. These abbreviated versions typically recommend administering 3-5 subtests in full and completely omitting the rest. The present study explored the possibilities of developing an abbreviated form of the WISC for use with emotionally disturbed children which would permit the usual scatter analysis performed with the full scale and also afford a genuine saving in time. The WISC records of 40 females and 107 males ranging in age from 6.0-15.11 and in Full Scale IQ from 70-148 were rescored according to an abbreviated schedule. Correlations between this abbreviated form and the full administration ranged from .76 on Picture Completion to .94 for Block Design. The correlations for the Verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQs were .96, .93, and .97, respectively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social schemata of emotionally disturbed boys.

2 experiments, using Kuethe's techniques were designed to demonstrate that children defined as emotionally disturbed differ predictably from normal children in the ways they organize social stimuli. When emotionally disturbed and normal boys placed pairs of felt figures on flannel boards, normals placed child figures closer to mother than to father or peer figures; emotionally disturbed children did the reverse. When disturbed and normal boys replaced pairs of human and geometric figures previously set 15 in. apart, the disturbed boys replaced the human figures farther apart than the nonhuman figures significantly more often than did the normals. Results were interpreted as reflecting a tendency for emotionally disturbed children to construe people, and especially females, more negatively than do normal children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Utility of the Rorschach in predicting movement in psychiatric casework.

50 women were administered psychological tests at the time their children were institutionalized for emotional disturbances. Utilizing objective Rorschach signs, psychologists predicted which women would show movement in psychiatric casework. Highly significant agreement was found between the predictions and the actual outcomes of casework based on Hunt-Kogan ratings of movement following at least 1 yr. of casework. It was concluded that this method of using Rorschach data possesses considerable research utility, and that further investigation with these procedures may eventually contribute to increased efficiency in use of clinical facilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time orientation and interpersonal relations of emotionally disturbed and normal children.

5 hypotheses about time-orientation and interpersonal relations were tested using 11-year-old boys in a residential psychiatric treatment center, summer camp, and public school. To investigate time-orientation a story-completion method was used, and to measure interpersonal relations assessments of fluctuations in friendship patterns were made. The emotionally disturbed children showed more unstable friendship patterns, although their story completions were not more present-oriented. In the disturbed group, the more present-oriented a child was on the fantasy measure, the more stable were his friendships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-concept, mother concept, and food aversions in emotionally disturbed and normal children.

Self-concept was measured via an adjective check list and a self-rating task (child asked to compare himself to others on traits); mother-child relationship was inferred from responses to specific cards of the Blacky test and a story completion test; food aversion was measured from a food preference list. In general, the self-concept and mother-concept were related and there was an inverse relation between these and food aversion. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4FF09D. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The postwar occupational adjustment of emotionally disturbed soldiers.

2 assumptions regarding personnel policy in this area were tested on data of premature separations during World War II and a matched control group. Greater unemployment existed for men with history of psychosis. A downward shift in occupational level was present for neurotic histories but was not found for employed "psychotics." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responses of emotionally disturbed and nondisturbed retardates to PPVT items of human versus nonhuman content.

On the basis of scores obtained by the Shipe behavior rating scale, 40 institutionalized, mildly retarded children and adolescents were classified as emotionally disturbed and 20 as nondisturbed. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) was administered to all Ss and relative successes on items with human and nonhuman content determined. All Ss found the items with human content more difficult than those with nonhuman content; however, the disturbed Ss had significantly more difficulty than the nondisturbed on PPVT items with human content relative to items with nonhuman content. It is speculated that a past history of disturbed interpersonal relationships interfered with the efficiency of the disturbed individuals on human items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of reinforcement and response-cost on cognitive style in emotionally disturbed boys.

The "fear of failure" hypothesis of J. Kagan and N. Kogan (1970) was investigated in 40 emotionally disturbed boys (mean age 11.28 yrs). The Matching Familiar Figures Test was used. Fear of failure was maximized through a response–cost procedure and minimized with a contingent reinforcement condition. Both techniques significantly increased latencies on reflection–impulsivity and decreased errors; however, impulsives made significantly fewer errors in the response–cost condition, whereas reflectives made somewhat fewer errors in the reinforcement condition. Although the reflection–impulsivity dimension was a relatively stable trait, results indicate that one's cognitive style is particularly a function of existing environmental contingencies. Findings are discussed in terms of future research and potential treatment strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Follow-up study of children identified early as emotionally disturbed.

2 consecutive groups of 1st-grade children classified for their potential for being emotionally disturbed were reexamined upon reaching 7th grade. Children manifesting high potential for being disturbed (labeled Red Tag) were compared, on school record and special test measures, with peers evidencing low potential for disturbance (labeled Non-Red Tag). These measures reflected achievement, classroom behavior, peer perceptions, attendance, and school nurse referral. Both groups of Red Tag children scored significantly more negatively than Non-Red Tag children on 10 of 47 measures in one case and on 13 of 42 in the other. These findings support the hypothesis that early disturbance in children is not ephemeral and is a portent for later difficulty. Implications of such results for programs in early identification and prevention were discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Helping disturbed children: Psychological and ecological strategies.

Presents the address of the President to the Seventy-Fourth Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, held in New York, September 3, 1966. The talk focuses on the reeducation of emotionally disturbed children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Token reinforcements in the shaping of children's mealtime behaviour.

Shaping and subsequent extinction of acceptable mealtime behavior through selective token reinforcement was attempted with institutionalized, emotionally disturbed children. Results suggested the feasibility of utilizing individual judgements by staff personnel in behavior shaping and dispensing of reinforcements. In addition, control of mealtime behavior in some children was seen to vary as a function of the presentation or withholding of tokens. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Early language behavior in Negro children and the testing of intelligence.

"Forty Negro children examined by a white examiner were found to have lowered language scores on third examination at two years of age. This was apparently due to lack of verbal responsiveness, rather than poor comprehension of language. This apparent early awareness of racial differences and loss of rapport has serious implications in the field of ethnic group psychology, particularly in the use of verbal items on intelligence testing." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Current concepts in milieu treatment of seriously disturbed children and adolescents.

In a variety of treatment settings, a therapeutic milieu provides intensive psychotherapeutic and psychoeducational experiences for disturbed children and young adolescents. It is generally agreed that effective psychosocial treatment requires a developmentally based treatment approach, collaborative parental involvement, and provision for ongoing staff support and training. In such settings, the treatment plan for each child reflects developmental, psychosocial, biological, cognitive, and neurointegrative aspects of the child's problems and identifies specific roles for psychotherapists, caseworkers, educators, occupational and recreational therapists, and parents (Alt, 1961; Pfeffer, 1979; Redl, 1959; Trieschman, 1969). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of the stimulus in Rorschach responses.

"It is apparent, from the studies reviewed, that the definition of Rorschach stimulus effects is more a task for the future than an accomplishment of the past. In fact, empirical concern with this question appears to have been something of an afterthought with users of the technique. Variation in the stimulus, in order to define an independent variable, has been such a standard procedure in psychological research that it is surprising to find it being applied only during very recent years to an analysis of the Rorschach. Other methods, as indicated, have contributed to the clarification of this problem, but they have not, as yet, gone very deeply." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A factor analytic study of Negro and white responses to advertising stimuli.

In order to develop a method for determining group reaction to advertising and mass media concepts, 93 white (W) and 88 Negro (N) Ss judged 10 advertising-type stimuli on a 22-scale semantic differential. Factor analyses yielded a scale structure and a concept structure. Ns and Ws had a similar scale structure. The concept structure revealed that Ws distinguished between "typical" advertising stimuli and those with racial overtones; while Ns, on the other hand, treated all concepts similarly on the first factor. The present approach determining the semantic and "conceptual" structure in separate factor analyses may be applicable to other problems involving the semantic differential. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety-related bias in the classification of emotionally ambiguous facial expressions.

High- and low-trait socially anxious individuals classified the emotional expressions of photographic quality continua of interpolated ("morphed") facial images that were derived from combining 6 basic prototype emotional expressions to various degrees, with the 2 adjacent emotions arranged in an emotion hexagon. When fear was 1 of the 2 component emotions, the high-trait group displayed enhanced sensitivity for fear. In a 2nd experiment where a mood manipulation was incorporated, again, the high-trait group exhibited enhanced sensitivity for fear. The low-trait group was sensitive for happiness in the control condition. The moodmanipulated group had increased sensitivity for anger expressions, and trait anxiety did not moderate these effects. Interpretations of the results related to the classification of fearful expressions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Locus of control and academic achievement in emotionally disturbed children.

Administered a standard achievement test and the Nowicki-Strickland Locus of Control Scale for Children to 48 emotionally disturbed children (mean age, 11.4 yrs). Results indicate that those emotionally disturbed children who perceive a relationship between their own behavior and resulting consequences obtain higher achievement scores than those who do not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stereotyping and favorableness in the perception of Negro faces.

Ss were presented 2 sets of photographs, 1 of Negroes, 1 of whites. The photographs of the Negroes were a priori classified as to degree of Negroid characteristic and contained some Negroes who were so lacking in so-called Negroid characteristics as to appear Caucasian. Ss were asked to rate the photographs as to their Negroidness and on 20 traits. 4 experimental conditions were employed with regard to the amount of information about the pictures given to Ss. Stereotypy of attitudes towards Negroes was seen to be elicited as soon as the photograph was perceived as being that of a Negro. The results are discussed re degree of prejudice of perceiver and a theory of interpersonal perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)