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Biomedical subjects

K I Howard

Publications and source records attributed to K I Howard.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
PubMed1989

Adolescence. What is normal?

We present in some detail what constitutes normal behavior, or mental health, among teenagers. Our data are based on the results of a specially devised psychological questionnaire by one of us (D.O.). This questionnaire has been shown to reliably distinguish mentally healthy from psychiatrically disturbed populations. Results are presented across three decades (1960s, 1970s, and 1980s), across genders, and across the high school years. A conceptual framework is presented to help the clinician working with adolescents to understand the fluctuation in psychopathology among youth. Adolescent density in the total population is shown to be a significant factor in determining the rate of disturbance among teenagers. Our research findings demonstrate that the rate of behavioral disturbance among adolescents is the same as in other parts of the life cycle. The clinician working with adolescents tends to underestimate the severity of adolescent problems because of the near-universal belief that all adolescents undergo "adolescent turmoil." We have found that adolescents who are experiencing turmoil need professional help.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1986

Psychological consequences of majority-minority status: a questionnaire study of two high schools.

A questionnaire survey of high school students investigated the psychological phenomena associated with teenagers' membership in majority and minority groups. In the majority group, the socioeconomic status of parents was consonant with that of the high school; in the minority group, the status was dissonant with that of the school. The psychological impact of attending high schools that were consonant or dissonant with the student's family background was examined. The results are discussed in terms of the students' personal adjustments: views of their parents; and political, social, and personal attitudes and values. Minority teenagers were found to be more oriented to the home (especially to the mother) and to scholastic and future achievement, whereas majority teenagers were more oriented to their school peer group. Gender differences were also examined.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1986

Cross-cultural studies of sex differences in normal adolescents' self-image.

One context for understanding an adolescent's (or any other individual's) abnormal functioning is an appreciation of normal or modal functioning in the culture to which that adolescent belongs. After decades of research and clinical observation there is no consensus about what constitutes modal adolescent functioning in the United States. Much less is known about adolescent functioning in other cultures. Results were suggestive of large, cross-cultural differences in self-image among normal adolescents. In most areas American teenagers reported the best functioning while Bengali teenagers reported the worst. There were consistent gender differences in self-image across cultures, with adolescent girls showing poorer self-image than adolescent boys in many areas. Results are discussed from the point of view of difficulties in doing cross-cultural psychiatric research and the need for further research in this field.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

On psychological resemblance: a questionnaire study of high school students.

A consciously acknowledged or claimed resemblance to one or the other parent is a familiar phenomenon. Despite its familiarity and frequency of occurrence, this phenomenon of being akin to one's kin has received almost no investigative attention. As a consequence, there has been little or no theorizing about how statements such as "I am like my father" should be regarded. Should a statement of this kind be placed somewhere under the rubrics of identification and identity and, if so, specifically where? Does a daughter's claim that she resembles her father in personality more than she does her mother mean that something has gone awry in the identification with her mother? Should the statement "I am not like either parent in personality" be regarded as a sign of an impending identity crisis? With the hope that we might provide some answers to such questions, this questionnaire study was observed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Design and analysis issues in the cross-cultural evaluation of psychotherapies.

Psychotherapies and cultures cannot be made experimentally independent because important input, process, and outcome variables essentially involve participants' meanings, emics, which are not naturally invariant across cultures. Factor analysis can be helpful in describing the analogues of a specific psychotherapy in several cultures once relevant emic variables have been developed for each culture. The special problems of cross-cultural research complicate the usual problems of psychotherapy research, those of defining outcome and specific therapies and of measuring the response function of outcome to the various amounts of the therapy. However, the special problems of cross-cultural research, of meaning variation, also exist in intracultural psychotherapy research, though they have received little notice.

Cross-Cultural Comparison↗
PubMed1981

The mental health professional's concept of the normal adolescent.

This article presents empirical evidence, based on the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire, comparing the self-image of normal adolescents, psychiatrically disturbed adolescents, and juvenile delinquents, with adolescent self-image as seen by 62 mental health professionals. The latter group was asked to complete the test the way they believed a normal, mentally healthy adolescent would complete it. Similar data were gathered from graduate students in psychology. In seven of ten scales, the mental health professionals viewed the normal adolescent as significantly more disturbed than the normal adolescent views himself or herself. The professionals saw the normal adolescents as having more problems than were reported either by the psychiatrically disturbed or the delinquent adolescents. These findings are important in terms of psychodynamic theory of adolescence and diagnostic problems encountered in work with adolescents.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1976

Program evaluation in the public interest: a new research methodology.

For every social welfare or social control service program there are several parties, each with different interests: patients, clients, staff, management, and sponsors. Evaluation of such a program in the public interest must take the interests of these parties into account. To do so requires an untraditional methodology, that of a second-person, or communal, science, which is not above the conflict of parties and their interests in specifying the variables, staffing the research, balancing considerations of intrusion against those of bias, considering the action implications of the data, sequentially staging the research, or even publishing findings. This all makes evaluation in the public interest a highly political process often unlikely to be logically decisive about intervariable relationships, to yield generalizable results, or even to be completed.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗