No abstract

This study explored children's (ages 9 through 12) level of persuasion knowledge and peer influence susceptibility concerning advertising in social gan1es and investigated ho\v these va riables affect children's desire for the brands ad vertised in these gan1es. Res ults sho,ved that (1) children have a fairly good kno,vledge of' the advertising in social games yet hold uncritical attitudes to\vard it and claim to be not very susceptible to peer influence; (2) the most in1portant predictors of children 's desire for the advertised brands are a low critical attitude and high peer influence susceptibility; and (3) recognition and understanding of' ad vertising in social games is efl'ective in reducing advertised brand desire only for children \Vho are familiar 'vith social games.

Tested the hypothesis that aggressive boys' tendency to attribute hostile intentions to peers is exacerbated in a negative emotional state. Twenty-nine highly aggressive boys in special education, 12 moderately aggressive boys in regular education, and 16 nonaggressive boys in regular education inferred peers' intentions in 8 vignettes concerning ambiguous provocation by peers. Mild negative emotions were induced by unjust loss of a manipulated computer game. Half the vignettes were completed in this negative emotional state. After completion of all vignettes, the game was played again and won to reinduce positive feelings. Self-ratings of feelings obtained throughout the study showed the manipulations consecutively induced negative and positive feelings. Negative feelings increased hostile attribution of intent in the highly aggressive group. Highly and moderately aggressive boys responded more aggressively than nonaggressive boys.

The present study focuses on the validity of questionnaire self‐report of psychopathology and parent–child relationship quality for juvenile delinquents with severe behavioural and psychiatric disorders by comparing information derived from questionnaire self‐report with information from other sources, including parent report, in‐depth interviewing, behavioural observation by clinicians, and official criminal records. The sample consisted of N=33 juvenile delinquents with psychiatric disorders. The juvenile delinquents did not report increased levels of psychopathology or poor relationships with their parents, which is inconsistent with the fact that all juvenile delinquents were in day treatment for severe behavioural maladaptation and relationship problems. Moreover, parent ratings of psychopathology were consistently in the clinical range and relationship quality was evaluated as very poor by the parents (d>.80). We conclude that screening instruments for psychopathology and assessment of relationship quality relying on questionnaire self‐report may not yield valid scores in this (extreme) population of juvenile delinquents.

Tested the hypothesis that aggressive boys' tendency to attribute hostile intentions to peers is exacerbated in a negative emotional state. Twenty-nine highly aggressive boys in special education, 12 moderately aggressive boys in regular education, and 16 nonaggressive boys in regular education inferred peers' intentions in 8 vignettes concerning ambiguous provocation by peers. Mild negative emotions were induced by unjust loss of a manipulated computer game. Half the vignettes were completed in this negative emotional state. After completion of all vignettes, the game was played again and won to reinduce positive feelings. Self-ratings of feelings obtained throughout the study showed the manipulations consecutively induced negative and positive feelings. Negative feelings increased hostile attribution of intent in the highly aggressive group. Highly and moderately aggressive boys responded more aggressively than nonaggressive boys.