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This study was concerned with the classroom adjustment of the nursery school child and the role of the teacher as a facilitator of change in adjustment. The first objective was to increase the value of the teacher's social responses of attention and approval in children who seemed to value these responses least, and the second objective was to assess whether an increase in the value of the teacher's social responses would produce increases in classroom adjustment. One member of each of 12 pairs of low attraction children was rendomly assigned to the experimental condition, and the other was assigned to the control condition. The assistant teacher in each class served as the treatment agent who implemented a 19-session program of interaction with the child. The treatment program, derived from principles of desensitization and positive attitude conditioning, was designed to reduce aversion or dislike and increase attraction to or liking of the teacher. All nursery school children were pre- and post-tested on a 26-item rating scale of classroom adjustment. Significant increases were shown in social interaction and compatibility by the children nominated as shy/avoidant or unresponsive. (Author/DB)

To assess the effects of familiar social stimuli on arousal in a novel and mildly stressful environment, skin conductance was measured in 4-year-old nursery school children who experienced this environment under two conditions: (a) alone, and (b) in the presence of a close friend. The study was intended to test Zajonc's (1965) social facilitation hypothesis that the presence of others as spectators or as coactors enhances the emission of dominant responses, and Berlyne's arousal-reinforcement theory (1967), which implies that the affective consequences of a stimulus will be dependent upon prior level of arousal, Teacher ratings identitied mutual friendships between like-sex children, and these children were paired in the experimental room. Electrodes attached to the fingers continuously measured skin conductance while the children listened to tape recorded sound effects (gong, crashing dishes, barking dogs, etc.) spaced at unpredictable intervals against a background of white noise. Results provided support for the present application of neither Berlyne's nor Zajonc's hypothesis, since significant main effects of the Alone vs. Friend conditions were not found. (NH)

The relationship of background factors to separation reaction and social emotional adjustment at the start of nursery school was examined in 106 middle-class 4-year-olds. Mothers completed the Cain-Levine Social Competency Scale and questionnaires on the social experience of their children. Ratings of reactions to separation and of adjustment were obtained on the first day of nursery school and one and five weeks later. Experience with playmates at home, experience in group settings away from home, and contact with different baby sitters in the home were each independently related to ease of initial separation. A total social experience score correlated -.46 (p<.001) with separation distress. The social experience score was not related to fifth-week separation problems but was correlated with adjustment through the fifth week. Social competency was not related to separation reaction ratings or social experience but was correlated with adjustment through the fifth week. The results supported the view that the distress which some children exhibit at the start of nursery school is a function of the novelty of the situation for the child in question. [Filmed from best available copy.] (Author)

The study was designed to investigate the exploration and attachment behavior of young children in a strange situation in the presence of: (1) an individual to whom the child was attached (the mother); (2) an inanimate object with which the child was highly familiar (favorite toy); and (3) a novel inanimate object (an unfamiliar toy). The effect of age was also investigated. Thirty-six male children from nursery schools in the Syracuse, New York area were subjects. They ranged in age from 15-42 months. The experimental session consisted of four parts: (1) instructional (mother and child shown room and toys); (2) baseline (mother and child alone in room for four minutes); (3) intermission (child coaxed or taken out of the room) and (4) test (child returns to room and finds either his mother, the familiar toy, or the unfamiliar toy. Data was compiled during baseline and test phase in two categories of dependent variables: (1) exploratory behaviors; and (2) attachment behaviors. Hypotheses and subsequent discussion of results are extensively presented. [Not available in hard copy due to marginal legibility of original document.] (TL)

Three- and four-year-olds who had been in day care from infancy were compared with matched subjects who had no day care experience on eight personality characteristics. (DP)

Based upon eight months of observation in the same setting, 19 three- and four-year olds who had been in day care from infancy were compared on nine behavior traits with matched subjects who had no day care experience prior to the study. The early-day-care group was found to be significantly more aggressive, motorically active, and less cooperative with adults. Consideration of these results in the light of other findings with the same and other samples, suggested that early day care experience may not affect adversely adjustment with peers, but may slow acquisition of some adult cultural values. (Author/NF)

The objective of this project was to test the effect of the presence of a mother, compared with the presence of an adult female stranger, upon the apprehensiveness of children confronted with novel stimuli. Subjects were 10 children, 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 years old, who were individually placed in a room containing a toy cash register, a marble-race toy, and a hidden mechanical toy gorilla. Each child was accompanied either by a mother or by an assistant experimenter. Ratings were made of facial expression, movement about the room, and visual orientation over a 5-minute period when the gorilla was animated. It was predicted that behavior would differ between the subjects in a manner suggesting less initial fear and rapid dissipation of fear by those accompanied by a mother. Results were opposite to predictions. The difference in the effects of the presence of an attached individual and an unattached individual are not as marked for children 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 years old as they are for children 9 months to 2 1/2 years old. Since this study is inconclusive, other studies with additional experimental and control groups are planned. (DO)