A measure of social support, the Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ), is described, and four empirical studies employing it are presented. The SSQ yields scores for (a) perceived number of social supports and (b) satisfaction with social support that is available. Three of the studies deal with the SSQ's psychometric properties, its correlations with measures of personality and adjustment, and the relation of the SSQ to positive and negative life changes. The fourth study is an experimental investigation of the relation between social support and persistence in working on a complex, frustrating task. The research reported suggests that the SSQ is a reliable instrument and that social support is (a) more strongly related to positive than negative life changes, (b) more related in a negative direction to psychological discomfort among women than men, and (c) an asset in enabling a person to persist at a task under frustrating conditions. Research and clinical implications are discussed.

This article describes the development of a new instrument, the Life Experiences Survey, for the measurement of life changes. It was designed to eliminate certain shortcomings of previous life stress measures and allows for separate assessment of positive and negative life experiences as well as individualized ratings of the impact of events. Several studies bearing on the usefulness of the Life Experiences Survey are presented, and the implications of the findings are discussed.

Two studies leading to the development of a short form of the Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ) are reported. In Study 1 three items selected for high correlations with the total score (SSQ3) were administered to 182 university students together with several personality measures. SSQ3 had acceptable test-retest reliability and correlations with personality variables similar to those of the SSQ. Internal reliability was marginal although acceptable for an instrument with so few items. Study 2 employed three sets of data in developing a six-item instrument (SSQ6). The SSQ6 had high internal reliability and correlated highly with the SSQ and similarly to it with personality variables. The research findings accompanying the development of the short form social support measure suggest that perceived social support in adults may be a reflection of early attachment experience.

This paper presents the results of an investigation using a new instrument for the study of brain damage in human subjects. The design of the instrument, the Continuous Performance Test (CPT) was based on certain electroencephalographic evidence which suggested that brain-damaged individuals should show inferior ability as compared with non-brain-damaged individuals on tasks requiring sustained attention or alertness.The waking EEGs of brain-damaged patients generally show either random bursts of hypersynchronous (high amplitude) activity intruding upon the normal activity of the brain, or a general hypersynchrony (3, 8). Hypersynchronous activity is also evident in 1 The authors would like to extend their appreciation to the following individuals and institutions for providing advice and/or subjects and testing facilities for this research: Mr. Samuel Greenhouse of the

The nature of test anxiety and its relationships to performance and cognitive interference are analyzed from the standpoint of attentional processes. A new instrument to assess dimensions of reactions to tests is presented, and its psychometric properties are described. The scales of the Reactions to Tests questionnaire (Worry, Tension, Test-Irrelevant Thinking, Bodily Symptoms) were compared with regard to intellective performance and cognitive interference. The results were consistent with the idea that the problem of anxiety is, to a significant extent, a problem of intrusive thoughts that interfere with task-focused thinking. In the last of the three studies reported, it was shown that self-preoccupying intrusive thinking can be reduced by means of a task-focusing experimental condition. The studies suggest that the Reactions to Tests questionnaire may be useful in denning anxiety more sharply and improving understanding of how it relates to performance.