Research into the so-called negative symptoms of schizophrenia is plagued by often ignored problems in item identification, scale selection, quantification, clinical assessment process, and symptom (and, probably, causal) nonspecificity. Neither a negative symptom syndrome per se nor the recent rating scales designed to measure it have been validated, although some data useful in this regard have been presented for the scales. Since no criterion against which to validate these scales exists, construct validation is needed. The construct of negative symptoms, as defined by its hypothesized empirical relationships with other variables, and the procedures used to measure it must be validated simultaneously and gradually through a programmatic series of studies. In the meantime, research results pertaining to negative symptoms should be interpreted with considerable caution.

The present study examined the relationship between changes in couples' perceptions of each other during a conflictual interaction and their mode of conflict resolution. Thirty-three volunteer married couples were videotaped while recreating a conflictual interaction that had occurred previously. During a subsequent replaying of the videotape, husbands' and wives' verbal descriptions of perceptions of self and spouse were elicited at three different stages of the conflict, using a method for eliciting perceptions derived from Laing. Phillipson, and Lee's multiperspective interpersonal perception technique. The interpersonal perceptions of couples who resolved the conflict by engaging the issue at hand were contrasted with those of couples who resolved the conflict via avoidance. Statistically significant differences were found between the groups, suggesting that engaging the issue was associated with an increase in spouses' access to one another's interpersonal perceptions, whereas avoidance was associated with decreases in consensually valid perceptions. Substantive and methodological implications of the study are discussed.

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The popular view of students reared in poverty is that they fall short across a wide range of domains relative to their more advantaged peers. In this ongoing longitudinal study, we follow a cohort of college students who come from poverty and were awarded full financial support for four years at a large public research university. The results after two full academic years are striking for the lack of difference in dropout rate and grade point average between these economically disadvantaged students and their college peers. We suggest that it is not poverty per se that leads to poorer college academic performance in such students but rather the demand on their time and energy to meet ongoing financial needs.

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