Partisan change in the Mountain West

During the 1980s partisanship in the Mountain West shifted dramatically toward the Republican Party. This change was the result of issue-based conversion rather than group mobilization. Specifically, we trace this surge to Reagan's transformation of the issues connected with the Republican Party. Previous discussions of issue-based conversion have assumed that this force influences all voters equally. One of the issues behind the Mountain West's changed partisanship follows this pattern: Individualism (or limiting government influence on the individual) was behind both the Mountain West surge (and decline) in Republicanism and the nationwide growth in that party. But the second issue did not follow this pattern: Abortion influenced the Mountain West selectively. We conclude that partisan change can be the result of uniform influence of issue change, but that it can also be the result of issue changes that influence different groups of voters differentially.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1992 annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago.     

Social psychological factors involved in adolescents' efforts to prevent their friends from driving while intoxicated

The present research examined factors that could be used to improve campaigns geared toward having adolescents prevent their friends from driving while intoxicated. Three areas were examined: (1) adolescents' ability to make accurate judgments of their friends' drunkenness using information about the number of drinks consumed and the time to consume, (2) their perceptions of the consequences that could ensue if they were to attempt to prevent their friends from driving while intoxicated, and (3) their knowledge of viable strategies if they were to attempt such interventions with their friends. The results show that adolescents have perceptual biases when using information about number of drinks and time to consume when making judgments of drunkenness, and that intervention attempts with friends are likely to result in confrontations. The implications of these findings for the timing and content of educational efforts is discussed.This research was supported in part by Grant AA0687502 from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and by the Center for Applied Research at the State University of New York at Albany.Received Ph.D. from University at Albany. Research interest is in social and cognitive psychology.Received Ph.D. from University of Illinois. Research interest is in social and cognitive psychology.Research interest in developmental psychology.Received B.S. from Siena College. Research interest is in social and cognitive psychology.     

Cognitive problem-solving training to improve the child-care judgment of child neglectful parents

Child neglect, the failure to adequately meet a youngster's care needs, is the most frequent form of child maltreatment reported to welfare authorities. However, there have been few empirical reports of treatment outcomes for adjudicated, child neglectful parents. In the current study, an initial assessment of three neglectful parents revealed substantial deficits in cognitive problem-solving skills related to child care judgment. Treatment, consisting of modeling, shaping, practice, and feedback was used to improve each parent's child care problem-solving skills in a multiple baseline design. Skill enhancement was also found for untrained (generalization) problem situations, and independent caseworker ratings of each family's functioning provided external validation of the intervention's clinical impact.     

Music Preferences,Personality Style,and Developmental Issues of Adolescents

The purpose of this study was to examine the personality characteristics and developmental issues of 3 groups of adolescent music listeners: those preferring light qualities of music, those preferring heavy qualities of music, and those who had eclectic preferences for music qualities. One hundred sixty-four adolescents completed an age-appropriate personality inventory and a systematic measure of music listening preference. The findings indicate that each of the 3 music preference groups is inclined to demonstrate a unique profile of personality dimensions and developmental issues. Those preferring heavy or light music qualities indicated at least moderate difficulty in negotiating several distinct domains of personality and/or developmental issues; those with more eclectic music preferences did not indicate similar difficulty. Thus, there was considerable support for the general hypothesis that adolescents prefer listening to music that reflects specific personalities and the developmental issues with which they are dealing.