In this article the authors review methodological issues that arise when interviews and self-report questionnaires are used with people with mental retardation and offer suggestions for overcoming some of the difficulties described. Examples are drawn from studies that use qualitative methodology, quantitative studies assessing different question types, and studies reporting on the development of instruments measuring psychiatric symptoms, self-concept, and quality of life. Specific problems that arise with respect to item content (e.g., quantitative judgments, generalizations), question phrasing (e.g., modifiers), response format (e.g., acquiescence, multiple-choice questions), and psychometric properties (factor structure and validity) are discussed. It is argued that because many self-report questionnaires include questions that have been found to be problematic in this population, more attention needs to be paid to establishing the validity of such measures and to clearly defining the population for which the instrument is designed. The importance of obtaining information from people with mental retardation 1 is increasingly stressed by researchers, clinicians, and those involved in service development. This is a result of the limitations of informant reports for many psychological phenomena (such as subjective states), as well as a change in the philosophy of services toward user consultation and a greater emphasis on people with mental retardation making decisions about their own lives. Structured or semistructured interviews are used in the formulation stage of many psychological therapies, in the assessment of abilities, IQ, and neuropsychology, as well as in forensic, research, and individual planning contexts. Verbal selfreport questionnaires are used in clinical assessment (e.g., to assess psychopathology, self-esteem, personality), research, and service evaluation. However, difficulties in conducting interviews and using self-report questionnaires with this population are widely reported. Such difficulties have been described in psychiatric and psychological assessments (e.g.

In an effort to contribute to greater understanding of norms and identity in the theory of planned behaviour, an extended model was used to predict residential kerbside recycling, with self-identity, personal norms, neighbourhood identification and injunctive and descriptive social norms as additional predictors. Data from a field study (N=527) using questionnaire measures of predictor variables and an observational measure of recycling behaviour supported the theory. Intentions predicted behaviour, while attitudes, perceived control, and the personal norm predicted intention to recycle. The interaction between neighbourhood identification and injunctive social norms in turn predicted personal norms. Self-identity and the descriptive social norm significantly added to the original theory in predicting intentions as well as behaviour directly. A replication survey on the self-reported recycling behaviours of a random residential sample (N=264) supported the model obtained previously. These findings offer a useful extension of the theory of planned behaviour and some practicable suggestions for pro-recycling interventions. It may be productive to appeal to self-identity by making people feel like recyclers, and to stimulate both injunctive and descriptive norms in the neighbourhood. AcknowledgementsThe authors would like to thank Guildford Borough Council, who sponsored the research reported here; Kristopher Preacher for helpfully providing the required SPSS command macros; and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments.Keywords: theory of planned behaviour; norms; environmental behaviour; identity Attitudes, norms, identity and environmental behaviour: Using an expanded theory of planned behaviour to predict participation in a kerbside recycling programmeThe theory of planned behaviour (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) and its predecessor, the theory of reasoned action (TRA; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) have had a prominent but somewhat problematic history as a predictive model of behaviour. One shortcoming of the theory -at least from a social-psychological perspective -is its rather individualistic view of human behaviour, which does not explicitly take into account the role of identity and remains underdefined with regard to the functioning of norms. Building on findings from Terry, Hogg and White (1999), the study described here attempts to expand the TPB by elaborating on the social aspects of behaviour, including social and self-identities as well as social and personal norms. Like the study reported by Terry and colleagues, the present work focused on household waste recycling by kerbside collection, where communal interest and visibility give an especially prominent role to the social antecedents of behaviour.The TPB (Ajzen, 1988(Ajzen, , 1991 addresses the oft-observed discrepancy between attitudes and behaviour (for a review, see Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977) by suggesting that attitude is just one of several determinants of behaviour, and not even its most direct antecedent.Instead, the theory suggests th...

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Recent developments in social psychology have explained children's preference for members of the in-group in terms of processes of self-categorization and identification with the in-group. In contrast, this study, addressing nationality self-conceptions, examines the possibility that even before subjective identification with the group has occurred, as de facto group members, children will have been exposed to a great deal of positive information about their own national group, which is likely to encourage group-serving judgments. Children who had failed to identify themselves as members of their national group were required in this study to make evaluative judgments about 5 national groups, including their own. Significant preference for the in-group emerged on 2 of 3 measures. It is concluded that subjective identification with the in-group is not a necessary precondition for in-group favoritism.

Self-categorization theory stresses the importance of the context in which the meta-contrast principle is proposed to operate. This study is concerned with how 'the pool of psychologically relevant stimuli' (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher & Wetherell, 1987, p. 47) comprising the context is determined. Data from interviews with 33 people with learning difficulties were used to show how a positive sense of self might be constructed by members of a stigmatized social category through the social worlds that they describe, and therefore the social comparisons and categorizations that are made possible. Participants made downward comparisons which focused on people with learning difficulties who were less able or who displayed challenging behaviour, and with people who did not have learning difficulties but who, according to the participants, behaved badly, such as beggars, drunks and thieves. By selection of dimensions and comparison others, a positive sense of self and a particular set of social categorizations were presented. It is suggested that when using self-categorization theory to study real-world social categories, more attention needs to be paid to the involvement of the perceiver in determining which stimuli are psychologically relevant since this is a crucial determinant of category salience.