Two groups of adolescents and a group of Coast Guard officials were interviewed about hypothetical political problems. Solutions presented were arrayed along a continuum of expertise, according to the complexity of subjects' political schemata and skills used in problem representation. (BC)

Four case studies of British adolescents describe their application of social theories to political, social, and personal issues. The studies imply that political reasoning does not develop separately from other domains. Discussion of the concept of lay social theory precedes the case studies. (BC)

Adolescents completed questionnaires that measured political tolerance and were interviewed about their attitudes about a sociopolitical group that they disliked. Interview results suggested that adolescents rated as tolerant and intolerant differ in their conceptualizations about dissent and dissenters. (BC)

Several studies indicate that adolescents in the United States think about political issues that have relevance to their lives in ways that differ from their thinking about issues that do not have such relevance. Proposes (1) a model of moral or social reasoning; and (2) two categories of reasoning: instrumental and symbolic. (BC)

Interviews with 7- to 11-year-old Scottish and French children indicated that formal education provided the context for the development of children's beliefs about, and representations of, institutional authority. The emergence of these representations was influenced by the children's social class and culture. (BC)

Interviews conducted over a 10-year period assessed the political attitudes of Chicano adolescents and young adults living in 3 U.S. cities. Subjects' attitudes were affected by the social and economic conditions in their city; and by family, school, peer, and media factors. (BC)

Young adults were asked about their political attitudes in three interviews over a seven-year period. Case studies of three of these young adults describe the interplay between the personal and social contexts of their lives and their interpretations of national and international issues. (BC)

Infants' orienting of attention undergoes marked development in the first six months of life. Changes in attentional control appear to be related to infants' susceptibility to distress. (Author)

Examined the possibility that relations in the family system are affected when infants begin to crawl. Parents' expressions of prohibition and anger, and their use of physical punishment, increased after infants began to crawl. (BG)

Examined infant crying and resistant behavior in response to requests to clean up toys. Infants' irritability and outbursts peaked at 18-24 months. Although crying was a relatively rare phenomenon in the third year, resistance behavior was common. Decreases in crying may be linked to acquisition of language. (BG)

Discusses research concerning individual differences in children that appear to be associated with vicarious emotional responses and a tendency to engage in prosocial behavior. Focuses on research concerning parents' influence on children's methods for coping with their own and others' emotions and children's social behavior. (BB)

Examined developmental changes and individual variations in the ways children use expressive information from others. Concluded that processing deficits are more probable for younger children or for children with low perceived control than for other children. (BB)

A study found that differences in children's ability to regulate their emotional responses, and in their social and cognitive development, are implicated in developmental differences in children's strategies for influencing others' mood states. (BB)

Introduces this special issue and presents a variety of clinical, research, interview, classroom, observation, assessment, and survey techniques. These techniques are intended to improve children's lives. Notes that some of the articles provide theoretical support for the techniques suggested and used, some describe programmatic models, and some…

An ethological or behavioral approach views childhood emotional outbursts as conflict between avoidance and attachment behavior on the part of the child. The classification of the level of motivation may produce a more useful diagnosis than standard psychiatric categories of behavior. This approach can also be applied to children diagnosed as…