Thirty-three tournament-level young Belgian chess players aged 8 to 13 were tested with the French WISC (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children). The mean full scale IQ = 121, verbal IQ = 109 and performance IQ = 129. The results suggest that a high level of general intelligence and of spatial ability are necessary to achieve a high standard of play in chess. The high spatial ability of these young chess players suggested by the high performance IQs may go some way towards explaining why males tend to be more numerous than females among high-standard chess players.

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The aim of the present research was to evaluate the effects on medium and long term effects of transcultural adoption. After recalling briefly the characteristics of this adoption, the authors present a study made in 1983 on a sample of 28 children from South-east Asia and adopted four to twelve years earlier by Belgian francofone families living in the province of Hainaut. The research workers used the intellectual development and the scholar success as dependent variables and analysed the subjects' affective life. The results are generally very positive as these children's scores in the intelligency tests were higher, on average, than those of Belgian children of the same age. Intellectual development is better when they are adopted young. Moreover, most subjects scholar development is very satisfying in spite, sometimes, of certain verbal weaknesses. The tests also showed for these children an affective life as valuable as for children brought up by their legitimate parents in a favoured socio- cultural environment.

Après avoir confirmé la dégradation de la tendance altruiste, à partir de neuf ans, déjà mise en évidence par E. Staub, les auteurs ont montré qu'un traitement basé sur unt intervention ponctuelle n'entraîne pas V acquisition, chez Venfant, des capacités exigéee par le comportement d'aide. Dans un second temps, M. Frydman et G. Ritucci ons étudié les possibilités offertes par un programme d'éducation sociale étalé dans le temps et centré sur la préparation de l'individu à la vie sociale. L'expérimentation a impliqué la participation de cent quarante-huit élèves âgés de treize ans dont quatre-vingt-dix (quatre classes) furent soumis à un traitement spécifique visant au développement de l'attitude altruiste. La recherche a permis d'enregistrer un accroissement significatif du comportement d'aide dans le groupe expérimental. Les auteurs en arrivent à plaider en faveur d'une modification des programmes et ils considèrent que, dans une perspective d'auto- nomisation, la formation civique et sociale doit faire partie intégrante du curriculum scolaire.

The spread of television, first in the U.S. and then in other countries, has given rise to a series of polemics as to its possible repercussions for the spectators and, more specifically, for young people. Questions have been raised on whether this affects family life, whether it interferes with school work, and to what extent it has transformed leisure activities. In the course of the last 25 years, many authors have been interested particularly in the possible relationship between the increase in violence in the film, on the one hand, and, on the other, the growth in aggressiveness observed today in children, adolescents, and adults.In the beginning, American television showed relatively little violence, but the frequency of broadcasts with a violent content has increased steadily. The violent sequences presented on the small screen increased by 15% between 195115% between and 195315% between . In 1964, an increase of 90% relative to 1952 was recorded, and it seems that violent scenes are becoming increasingly numerous in current programs. A detailed analysis of the content of broadcasts from 1960 in the U.S. showed that violence is the means used most often by all characters for attaining their objectives, and that it is more efficacious than are socially approved methods. Programs for children also have a high rate of violence. Already in 1968, the National Association for Better Radio and Television estimated that, between the ages of 5 and 15 years, young Americans witnessed on television the violent deaths of more than 13,400 persons.According to Goranson, the 1970 data on TV violence in the U.S. revealed that eight broadcasts out of ten presented violence and about six or seven principal characters out of ten committed acts of violence; for children's programming, the rate was between eight and nine out of ten. One should not forget that the recourse to violence allows producers to maintain the rating.Thus, they manage to increase the revenues generated by publicity.