Phobic anxiety in 11 nations. Part I: Dimensional constancy of the five-factor model.

The Fear Survey Schedule-III (FSS-III) was administered to a total of 5491 students in Australia, East Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, and Venezuela, and submitted to the multiple group method of confirmatory analysis (MGM) in order to determine the cross-national dimensional constancy of the five-factor model of self-assessed fears originally established in Dutch, British, and Canadian samples. The model comprises fears of bodily injury-illness-death, agoraphobic fears, social fears, fears of sexual and aggressive scenes, and harmless animals fears. Close correspondence between the factors was demonstrated across national samples. In each country, the corresponding scales were internally consistent, were intercorrelated at magnitudes comparable to those yielded in the original samples, and yielded (in 93% of the total number of 55 comparisons) sex differences in line with the usual finding (higher scores for females). In each country, the relatively largest sex differences were obtained on harmless animals fears. The organization of self-assessed fears is sufficiently similar across nations to warrant the use of the same weight matrix (scoring key) for the FSS-III in the different countries and to make cross-national comparisons feasible. This opens the way to further studies that attempt to predict (on an a priori basis) cross-national variations in fear levels with dimensions of national cultures.

Name-calling and nicknames in a sample of primary school children.

BACKGROUND: Name-calling, unkind nicknames and other forms of verbal harassment represent some of the most prevalent forms of bullying in school but they have been little studied. Name-calling and nicknames in particular are ambiguous social events that can serve positive as well as negative goals, and their adverse consequences can be difficult to identify. AIMS: (i) To assess the incidence of nicknames and name calling as reported by a sample of primary school children; (ii) to examine the kinds of names reported by children, and to relate these to names reported in other social contexts; (iii) to explore the impact that name-calling and nicknames have on children. SAMPLE: Pupils (N = 60) from the top two classes in a British primary school completed a questionnaire; 20 of the children were subsequently interviewed. METHOD: Pupils completed a questionnaire that was constructed for this study. Pupils were asked to provide examples of nicknames and to report on the types and incidence of several forms of verbal harassment. The interview included questions which aimed to explore the children's reactions to harassment. RESULTS: Being called disliked nicknames, called names, teased, and other forms of verbal harassment were reported by most of the sample, with more than 20% of children experiencing nasty comments and unkind nicknames on a daily basis. Girls reported more disliked nicknames than boys. The most common nicknames referred to the child's appearance, whereas nasty comments and untrue stories contained a preponderance of sexual references. In the interview, nearly all children reported that being called names and nicknames were negative experiences that caused distress. CONCLUSIONS: Name-calling and the assignment of unkind nicknames are prevalent and hurtful++ features of school life. The kinds of names are similar to those reported in other studies of children, adolescents, and adults. It is proposed that these names are hurtful because they threaten the child's identity.

Shyness and self-esteem in middle childhood.

The relationship between shyness and self-esteem was assessed for two samples of children aged 9 to 12 years. Shyness was measured by a new self-report questionnaire based on an elicitation of children's conceptions of shyness. Shyness was significantly correlated with measures of global self-esteem, with external locus of control and with perceived competence across different domains of the self. The relationship among variables were similar to those reported for adolescents and adults. Girls were more shy than boys, and there was a suggestion that 11-year-old children were more shy in secondary than in primary school.

Blushing, embarrassability and self-consciousness.

A blushing questionnaire and the Self-Consciousness scale (SCS) were completed by 86 respondents. A measure of the tendency to blush correlated significantly with the Social Anxiety subscale of the SCS, but not with the public and private subscales. Self-rated tendency to blush was significantly correlated with rated likelihood of blushing in those situations where the individual had some responsibility for an embarrassing incident, but not in situations where others had instigated the incident.

Shyness as a dimension of personality.

Examination of a number of major studies of personality questionnaires reveals the existence of a shyness factor which is related to but separable from both introversion and neuroticism, and which loads on items referring to feeling uncomfortable and self-conscious, and keeping in the background in certain kinds of social situations. The fears that are generally expressed about social situations--of being negatively evaluated and of being socially inadequate--are reflected in subjects' descriptions of the causes of shyness, and these findings suggest a model of shyness in terms of individual differences in susceptibility to threat.

An analysis of verbal-performance intelligence quotient discrepancies in the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale results of mentally subnormal hospital patients.

Verbal-Performance IQ discrepancies on the WAIS have been of much interest to clinical psychologists. They have been related, amongst other things, to different types of brain damage and in studies of the mentally subnormal, to successful adjustment to the outside world. This paper looks more closely at such discrepancies obtained by patients in a hospital for the mentally subnormal. These discrepancies are found to be both frequent related to Full Scale IQ. The pattern that emerges remains constant if scaled scores are considered or if the subtests are re-arranged according to Cohen's A and B factors. It is argued that these findings imply caution in the use of the discrepancy measure as a diagnostic or predictive indicator in this population.