studies on Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS), currently the most popular outcome evaluation technique in the human sciences, were critically reviewed. Forty-one of ninety-one initial studies, which met minimal criteria of completeness of information reported and quality of research, were subjected to in-depth review. Conclusions were rather mixed and somewhat discouraging. The proliferation m the use of GAS as an evaluative technique has been accompanied by serious procedural and methodological problems. Despite numerous studies, the reliability and validity of GAS remain questionable. More optimistically, GASprocedures can serve a useful educational and intervention function, particularly in mental health settings, and patient involvement in the goal-setting process as defined by GAS seems to enhance therapeutic effectiveness.

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Recent research and theory on midlife development and the midlife transition is reviewed and integrated into a personality and social systems perspective. This point of view focuses on the analysis of individual midlife personality in social context, the definition of midlife precipitators, developmental tasks, sequential phaselike developments during the midlife transition, and implications for psychopathology. An agenda for the 1980s is proposed that emphasizes a series of research, methodological, and theoretical questions and implications.The authors wish to express their appreciation to Springer Publishing Company for permission to present in this chapter the theoretical material and preliminary data that will be forthcoming in greater detail in a book entitled, Midrife Development: Gender Personality, and Social Systems Influences, scheduled for publication in 1980.

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In this chapter I describe Mann's Member-Leader Scoring System, illustrate its utility by reviewing previous research in different group settings, and apply the system to Group A, Session 3. HISTORY AND THEORY OF THE SYSTEMAlthough Mann's scoring system is not derived from any particular theory of group process, model of group therapy, or therapeutic change in groups, it is firmly rooted in the conceptual frameworks embedded in literary, ego-psychological, and Kleinian clinical theories as well as other similar analyses of group process. Mann's early studies and applications of the scoring system have produced provocative findings and theorizing about the complex determinants and functions of different member role performances in groups and group development, as well as a conceptualization of developmental changes over time in groups.I am indebted to Victoria Cunan, PhD, for her contribution to scoring Session 3.