The purpose of this study was to re-examine the issue of whether adult children of alcoholics experience more depression, anxiety, and lower self-esteem than do children of non-alcoholic families. This study is a replication of the study of David Dodd, entitled A Comparison of Adult Children of Alcoholic Families with Adult Children from Non-Alcoholic Families. 1990. The measures used in this study were as follows: Children of Alcoholics Screening Test, the Beck Depression Inventory, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Coopersmith Adult Self-Esteem Inventory, and a questionnaire developed by this writer designed to obtain family history regarding not only alcoholism, but other issues of family dysfunctionality as well. The subjects for this study were 231 students enrolled in the counselor education program at this university, all aged 19 or older. Of the 230 subjects, 31 were male and 199 were female. Eleven males identified themselves as children of alcoholics, as measured by the Children of Alcoholics Screening Test, and 60 females identified themselves as children of alcoholics. Thus, a total of 71 subjects in this study were identified as children of alcoholics. T-tests were conducted to see whether any differences existed between the male and female groups. No significant differences were …

This thesis examined student-participants' self-reported use of romantic relational maintenance strategies and their partners' reports of relational satisfaction. Additionally, individuals outside the romantic relationship reported on student-participants' general communicator style. The research proposed that general style reports would be predictive of relational maintenance strategy usage and of romantic partners' relational satisfaction. The study found that general style behaviors may not be indicative of relational maintenance strategy usage or romantic partners' relational satisfaction. Tests of sex differences revealed that females' expression of various relational maintenance strategies and style behaviors are associated with male partners' relational satisfaction; however, no results were obtained indicating specific behaviors expressed by males result in female partners' relational satisfaction.

The influence of theoretically prominent family processes on late adolescent college student identity development was the focus of this study. The primary purpose was to test a model of adolescent identity development. This model proposed that family health variables would predict identity development, and that attachment and separation-individuation would each make unique and additive contributions to identity development. The second purpose was to identify instruments which discretely measured the family processes. The third purpose was to better understand family influences by measuring the processes of exploration and commitment. Participants were 150 male and 150 female college students, between the ages of 18 and 23, and from intact families. Questionnaires completed measured family functioning and identity development. Family functioning measures covered three domains (family health, attachment to parents, and separation-individuation) which formed the set of independent variables. The identity measures (ego identity status and identity process) comprised the dependent variables. A hierarchical regression design was employed where family health variables were entered first, followed by attachment variables, then separation-individuation variables. The results indicated mixed support of the model. First, the proposed model was statistically supported for females as all domains predicted identity achievement and diffusion. For males, only family health predicted …

A sample of 227 undergraduate students was administered pre-intervention paper-and-pencil questionnaires to assess homophobia, fear of AIDS contagion, symbolic representations of AIDS and homosexuality, and specific personality attributes including authoritarianism, religiosity, and conservatism. Participants then read one of eight intervention vignettes about an ill person; these vignettes varied by sexual orientation of the patient, disease (AIDS versus lung cancer), and mode of transmission (in the AIDS conditions). Participants then completed post-intervention measures assessing the degree to which the ill person in the vignette was responsible and to blame for his illness, the level of stigma toward him, and concerns about social interactions with him. Results indicate the following: a) Attributions of personal responsibility are primarily a function of mode of illness transmission; b) fear of AIDS contagion is predictive of stigma and social avoidance of PWAs; and c) AIDS-related stigma and attributions of blame are largely a function of symbolic associations between homosexuality and IV drug abuse (which were previously stigmatized) and AIDS.