Gerald Marsden

Children's understanding of their emotionally disturbed peers. I. The concept of emotional disturbance.

Study of the interpersonal relations of emotionally disturbed children has focused largely on relationships within the family. Theories of childhood psychopathology focus almost exclusively on the parent-child triad as the etiological core of childhood emotional disturbance (Frank, 1965). Far less attention has been paid to the role of extra-familial attitudes and relationships in childhood psychopathology. In a general way, the increasing importance of the peer group during childhood has been recognized, but researchers have hardly begun to consider whether and how the manifold aspects of relationships between the emotionally disturbed and their normal peers might bear on the course of the disturbance or its refractoriness to treatment (e.g., Solomon and Wahler, 1973). Nor have they considered peer group influences on the development of the emotionally disturbed childs perception of the world and his place within it. Despite increasing recognition of the early importance of peer relations, virtually no systematic information exists on the ways in which normal children view their emotionally disturbed peers. Our purpose in this paper is to report the first of several analyses of data from an initial investigation of childrens understanding of their emotionally disturbed peers. Specifically, we wish to examine whether there is evidence that normal children do, in fact, perceive as emotionally disturbed the symptomatic and distressing behavior of peers that mental health professionals would recognize as indicative of psychopathology. Further, we wish to study these issues with respect to grade and sex differences.

Children’s Understanding of Their Emotionally Disturbed Peers. II. Etiological Factors

In a previous study, we (Marsden and Kalter, 1976) found that fourth- and sixth-grade children not only made distinctions between normal and emotionally disturbed behavior, but also were able to discriminate degrees of childhood psychopathology in a manner strikingly congruent with clinician-judges. Having assessed childrens perceptions of emotional disturbance, we turned our attention to how the children might account for the development of such childhood disorders. We are aware of no previous study which has examined childrens views of the etiology of emotionally disturbed behavior of their peers. Such information could shed further light on childrens understanding of childhood psychopathology and might implicitly indicate what children believe are the necessary ingredients for healthy emotional development. This knowledge would be useful to mental health professionals, teachers, and parents seeking both to understand the emotionally disturbed childs place in his peer group and to convey an understanding of emotional illness to normal children.

Response Productivity in Rorschach Research: A Caution on Method

Summary In research with the Rorschach, Ss total number of responses frequently reveal a correlation with specific scoring categories, thus confounding the relations between these categories and other variables. While several methods of controlling for this confounding effect of response productivity have been proposed, one of the most widely used is the division of the frequency of responses in a given category, for each S, by his total number of responses. This procedure is indefensible. Problems in its use are described and illustrated, and more appropriate methods are discussed.

Clinical implications of maternal employment: a review of research.

Behind the cries of womens liberation and day-care centers for lower-class working mothers is the very real issue of the effects on the children of maternal employment. The debate about working mothers has raged for at least two decades. One response has been to produce research. Professionals in many disciplines have attempted to assess the correlates and effects of maternal employment, and the fruits of their efforts have appeared in journals of education, social work, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry. The dispersion across disciplines has made it difficult for workers in any single field to acquire an integrated sense of the findings. Several comprehensive reviews of the maternal-employment literature, notably those of Stolz (1960), Maccoby (1958) and Hartley (1961a), have summarized the field up to 1960. But like the research on which they were based, these reviews tended to assume a sociological orientation and, thus failed to address themselves to questions of interest to clinicians. We here review work in this area published since 1960, with, in the interest of completeness, some reference to the earlier period.

Intelligence and the Rorschach Whole Response

Summary Previous research on the relation between intelligence and Rorschach W responses has produced inconclusive results. The problem was re-examined with methodological improvements. Ss were 58 latency and pre-adolescent boys. Rorschach W responses were coded to Friedmans developmental scoring system, and response frequencies in these categories were correlated with WISC IQ and subtest scaled scores. IQ scores were significantly related to one of two types of developmentally advanced W responses as predicted (r = .33), and no meaningful pattern of correlations was found between the developmentally more primitive types of W responses and IQ.

Parental Adaptations to Maternal Employment

Research on maternal employment has been undertaken primarily from the vantage point of its more or less immediate impact on child behavior and socialization. In many studies, social class and family stability variables were found more intimately related to facets of child development than maternal employment per se. Maternal employment, however, has been positively correlated with school achievement and intellectual attainment, with increased dependency, and with problems of sexual identity (Poznanski et al., 1970). Little has yet been done to explicate the processes and mechanisms which account for these findings. This deficiency is, in part, attributable to the kind of questions which have been asked about maternal employment and to the methods by which investigators have attempted to answer them. Most studies of maternal employment have used techniques of data gathering (e.g., questionnaires) that facilitate the inclusion of large numbers of subjects. These methods have the virtue of producing results that are measurably reliable, broadly descriptive, and normative in nature, but they are not well adapted to exploring issues of mechanism and process. While the search for correlations between maternal employment and aspects of the childs personality development is important, it is, by itself, a narrow and incomplete approach. After all, one cannot be certain that any of the relations mentioned above reflect simple causal factors unless one has also considered more complex relationships. One possible indirect relationship between maternal

Orginal ArticleCLINICAL IMPLICATIONS OF MATERNAL EMPLOYMENT: A Review of Research

Behind the cries of womens liberation and day-care centers for lower-class working mothers is the very real issue of the effects on the children of maternal employment. The debate about working mothers has raged for at least two decades. One response has been to produce research. Professionals in many disciplines have attempted to assess the correlates and effects of maternal employment, and the fruits of their efforts have appeared in journals of education, social work, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry. The dispersion across disciplines has made it difficult for workers in any single field to acquire an integrated sense of the findings. Several comprehensive reviews of the maternal-employment literature, notably those of Stolz (1960), Maccoby (1958) and Hartley (1961a), have summarized the field up to 1960. But like the research on which they were based, these reviews tended to assume a sociological orientation and, thus failed to address themselves to questions of interest to clinicians. We here review work in this area published since 1960, with, in the interest of completeness, some reference to the earlier period.