A survey on friendships with peers with severe disabilities of 1,137 middle and high school students was conducted across three states. Students indicated that they should try to make friends with peers with severe disabilities and that friendships are most likely to develop when students with disabilities are educated in general education classes, for all or part of the school day. Students perceived themselves, special education teachers, and youth organizations as primarily responsible for facilitating these friendships, and that effective strategies involve learning situations in which students work together, teachers present information on disabilities, and teachers and parents arrange social events for all students.

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Attitudes towards mental illness were measured by the Opinion About Mental Illness Scale (OMI) for 83 male graduate college students from American and Chinese cultural backgrounds. The OMI questionnaire consisted of five factors: A) Authoritarianism, B) Benevolence, C) Mental Hygiene Ideology, D) Social Restrictiveness, and E) Interpersonal Etiology. Statistically significant differences between the two groups of subjects on Factors A, B, D and E of the OMI were found. American students performed lower on "Authoritarianism", on "Social Restrictiveness", and on "Interpersonal Etiology", and higher on "Benevolence" than Chinese subjects.

This study investigates individual and group cognitive-behavioral interventions in decreasing psychological symptoms and enhancing the psychological status of Iranian prison inmates. A random sample of 180 males is placed in three equal groups: an individual cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) group, an individual and group CBT group, and a control group. General Health Questionnaire, Symptom Checklist-90- Revised, and diagnostic interviews based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., text rev.) are used before and after intervention. MANOVA indicates that both methods improve the psychological status of the inmates and reduce their symptoms, but the combined treatment is more efficient than the individual therapy. In a 1-year follow-up after inmate release, recidivism in the individual and combined therapy groups is zero. The return rate of participants in the control group is 15%. Results of the study demonstrate that both individual and group CBT are effective in reducing psychological symptoms. However, the impact of combined therapy is stronger than individual CBT.

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