Tarantino, Santo J.

A study comparing children identified through the
juvenile justice system as maltreated to nonmaltreated
children was conducted to assess differences in hostility
levels between the two groups. Hostility, conceptualized
as resistance to social influence, was hypothesized to
originate in early childhood as a psychological
distancing mechanism which generalizes to social
situations of all types. It was further hypothesized that
this distancing would promote resistance to social
influence and a preference for increased social diatance,
diminishing the impact of social learning modalities and
increasing the risk for the development of maladaptive
social behaviors. T-tests and analysis of variance
indicated no significant differences between the two
groups regarding hostility scale scores, although
maltreated children evidenced significantly less
susceptibility to social influence, and were found to
score significantly lower on socialization and social
adjustment measures.

This study was an attempt to examine the validity of the view that the constructs of individualism and collectivism (I-C) are coherent "cultural syndromes." It was hypothesized that different "probes" of these syndromes within the psychological domain of attribution patterns could show divergent I-C characters in a culture under conditions of social change. Ninety-eight university students from the United States and Puerto Rico were administered the Singelis, Triandis, Bhawuk, and Gelfand I-C Scale, Rotter's I-E Scale, and Miller and Luthar's (1989) justice-related moral accountability vignettes. Contrary to expectation, the Puerto Rican sample was found to be less external in locus of control than the United States sample, and there were no cultural differences in moral accountability. In addition, no strong relationships were found among the variables at the individual level of analysis. Possible causes for these results discussed are sample unrepresentativeness, the non-equivalence of the levels of analysis, and social change.

The thesis provides an in-depth analysis of Blumer's theoretical concepts, or root images, which constitute the theoretical framework of his symbolic interactionism. It is argued that the root images are consistent theoretical concepts in that they do not present a subjectivist, a voluntaristic, an astructural, and a microsociological bias. A study of the application of Blumer's root images to his substantive research is developed along a classification of social groups into what Blumer calls "collectivities", i.e. elementary collective groups (the crowd, the mass, the public) and social movements, and "organizations", i.e. labor unions and management organizations. The analysis shows the validity of symbolic interactionism as a macrosociological theory. It nevertheless suggests some theoretical refinements as to the symbolic interactionist treatment of macro social groups.

Statistical analysis of test scores obtained from forty-one children
separated from the father during early life and their matched controls
provides support for the conclusion that the quality or type of
subject-object interaction in the caretaking environment effectively
contributes to one's concept of the self as involved in a world of other
selves and objects, as one other member of a social system. The
concepts of self and other are derived from the form of experience
which one has had in responding to others present. Conceptual thinking
emerges as a reflection upon objects known. Objects are known to the
self as a result of actions taken in response to a thing's good or
useful properties. Seen in this way, knowledge represents an
instrumental relation of knower to thing known.

Recent research has looked at sociocultural standards and social comparison to explain body image disturbances (Thompson, 1996). This study uses Latane's Dynamic Social Impact Theory to explore the emergence of group level consequences of discussing these societal standards of physical appearance. It was hypothesized that there would be more clustering, consolidation, correlation and continued diversity amongst the participants opinions by the end of the five week discussion. These hypotheses were not supported by measures of clustering, consolidation, correlation and continued diversity. These results indicate that Dynamic Social Impact Theory alone may not be useful for studying the consequence of group discussion on changing beliefs about physical appearance. More research is needed to determine whether adding an educational component to the program would bolster the effectiveness of Dynamic Social Impact Theory in regard to understanding the process by which people's attitudes about their bodies are changed.