The validity of a newly developed Boredom Proneness Scale (Farmer & Sundberg, 1986) was studied by relating alienation, as measured by Gould's Manifest Alienation Measure, internal‐external control, as measured by Rotter's I‐E scale, assertiveness, as measured by the College Self‐Expression Scale, and sleep patterns to susceptibility to boredom. The significant positive relationship between boredom and alienation and the significant negative relationship between boredom and assertiveness supported the scale's validity. Only for females was there a significant relationship between amount of sleep and boredom. Some indication of greater boredom in males as compared to females also was found.

Changes in sexual attitudes and behavior patterns that might be associated with pregnancy and childbirth were investigated. The subjects were 216 women seen by a group of obstetricians and gynecologist in office practice. While there was a wide range of individual responses, in general a decline in sexual interest, activity, and satisfaction was reported as pregnancy progressed. The desire for body contact remained at a very high level throughout. Some changes in body zones regarded as most erogenous during the course of pregnancy were indicated. Following childbirth the women's sexuality seems to have returned to a normal level. The degree of liberal vs. conservative attitudes toward sex expressed by these women was not affected by the pregnancy, nor did this dimension relate significantly to other behavioral variables.

In an effort to explore the possible relationship between coping strategies and adjustment levels in stressed high school students, 174 male students were first administered the High School Social Readjustment Scale to identify the high stress subjects. High stress individuals were then given a Coping Style Questionnaire and two adjustment measures: the Eysenck Personality Inventory and the Neuroticism Scale Questionnaire in order to establish typical strategies employed in dealing with stress for different adjustment levels. Problem-focused strategies, such as "Taking Positive Action" and "Seeking Information," were the most frequently reported strategies. Comparisons between better and more poorly adjusted students produced only modest relationships with a trend for the former to rely more on active strategies and the latter to rely more on dependent strategies of coping with stress.

In a sample of 79 male college students, 3 of 4 hypotheses specifying the relationships between repression-sensitization, an expectancy of internal or external control of reinforcement, insight, and overt death anxiety were confirmed. The measures employed were the Byrne Repression-Sensitization scale, Rotter's I-E scale, the Tolor-Reznikoff Insight Test, and a Death Anxiety scale. It was found that: (a) the expectation of internal control of reinforcement is significantly and positively related to insight; (b) Ss with sensitization tendencies have significantly greater overt death anxiety than Ss with repressing defenses; and (c) Ss with external expectancies have significantly greater overt death anxiety than Ss with internal expectancies. There was no support for the prediction that sensitizers would be more insightful than repressers.

This study describes the devetopment of a 24:-item instrument dealing with attitudes toward alcoholics and alcoholism. Data are presented for 135 graduate students on six conceptually derived scales referable to attitudes toward alcoholics: Psychological Etiology, Physical-Genetic Etiology, Social Rejection, Humanism, Moral Weakness, and the Medical Illness Model. The scales were found to be relatively independent of one another and only minimally related to social desirability, sex of respondents, education, and age. In addition, a factor analysis was done. Satisfactory test-retest reliabilities were established for the scales on a new sample of 3OSs. Validation data are also reported revealing that 41 hospitalized alcoholics had more negative views of alcoholics and were more likely to regard alcoholism as an illness caused by a physical disturbance than were non-alcoholics. Moreover, for nonalcoholics there was a significant inverse relationship between the reported quantity of alcohol consumed and the tendency to characterize the alcoholic as morally weak.