No abstract

The effects of the nuclear peril upon youngsters in middle childhood are considered, with particular emphasis on the extent to which ego strengths and weaknesses are influenced by adult behavior. It is suggested that the adult response to a pervasive danger such as the nuclear arms build-up shapes children's views of the trustworthiness of adult society and defines the limits of their growth and development.

THE PROBLEM The Concept of the Level of AspirationThe term "level of aspiration" has been used extensively during the last seven years in experimental studies concerning the problems related to success and failure. The concept was. first developed in a study by Tamara Dembo,'' Der Arger als Dynamisches Problem" ["Anger as a Dynamic Problem"] (2). In this study anger was created by confronting the subjects with a problem for which no correct solution existed. Dr. Dembo found that after the subjects had failed to find the correct solution of the problem they frequently showed a tendency to shift their goal from "finding the correct solution" to "finding some sort of a solution," however unsatisfactory. Although all subjects tended towards such a substitute solution, only a few actually carried it out and, in addition, those subjects who overstepped the rules of the task as given by the instructions did not appear to be-satisfied with their performance, but on the contrary showed embarrassment and anger directed against themselves. Dembo relates this finding to the presence of a level of aspiration (Anspruchsniveau), which seemed to determine which performances would be counted as a success by the subject, and which as a failure.The first systematic study of success and failure, based on the level of aspiration concept, was carried out by Hoppe (9) in 1930. Hoppe investigated the conditions under which a person will experience success or failure in a variety of task situations. He found that the subjective experience of success does not depend upon the actual performance as much as upon what the person expected of himself. Thus, if in a task of target shooting, after some preliminary experience, a subject feels fairly sure that he can hit, for instance, the fifth ring from the center and then hits only the seventh, he is likely to be disappointed and to experience failure. If then during subsequent trials he always hits somewhere between * We have not here discussed the numerous experiments comparing certain abilities and performances such as tapping, eidetic imagery, etc., in manic-e For a complete discussion of the methods of topologieal psychology aee Kurt Lewin (16,17).

From the population of a neonatal intensive care unit, 114 infants and their families were followed from birth to age 3½ years. Infants showing massive brain damage at birth and/or severe mental retardation at 7 months of age were excluded from this analysis. The remainder were predominantly poor and nonwhite. The group showed normal cognitive development through age 15 months. By 28 months of age and thereafter, a severe decline in cognitive status proved to be associated with social class. In addition, serious behavioral maladjustment led to improverished cognitive development. The incidence of maladjustment was unrelated to social class. The impact of maladjustment on test scores was significant in all classes, but greater for the higher rather than the lower socioeconomic social groups. Neither neurologic pathology (excepting severe brain damage) nor gestational age (small for gestational age [SGA] vs appropriate for gestational age [AGA]) had a significant effect on IQ scores at 3½ years of age. It is suggested that environmental deficits and stresses impair early cognitive and psychosocial development for both full-term and premature infants, but that the latter group is more vulnerable to environmental insufficiencies than are full-term babies.