Means-End Problem-Solving Research Articles

Problem solving as a function of race and incarceration.

Summary The study employed a 2 (race = black, white) × 2 (environment = incarcerated, nonincarcerated) quasi-experimental design to test Ss' interpersonal problem-solving abilities and field-dependence/independence. One hundred males completed the Means-End Problem Solving Procedure, Problem Solving Inventory, and Embedded Figures Test. Analysis of covariance with age, intelligence, and socioeconomic status as covariants showed that environment made little difference in Ss' problem-solving ability or in perceptions of problem-solving strategies. Blacks generated fewer total alternative means to interpersonal problems, primarily because of the greater quantity of irrelevant means generated by White Ss. There were no significant racial differences on relevant means, indicating no difference in the quantity of high quality means generated. Blacks perceived themselves as using a more systematic approach to solving problems, while Whites perceived themselves as less impulsive. Blacks were found to be more fiel...

Validity of Social-Cognitive Constructs: Research with Elementary Students

Within the last decade, researchers have focused on the narure, development, and correlates of social understanding among children. There is now a substantial body of research concerned with a number of social-cognitive abilities, as well ss evidence that these abilities may play an important role as mediators of interpersonal behavior and adjustment (4). There remain many unresolved issues, including the establishment of acceptable validity of social-cognitive constructs, for there has been relatively little research on this topic, particularly with students of elementary school age. As a result much of the theoretical work is speculative. The present experiment was undertaken to provide additional data on validity. Subjects were students in first (n = 20), third (n = 22), and fifth (n = 23) grades, who were tested individually by undergraduate psychology majors. Five measures were administered: (a) Interpersonal Problem Solving,= (b) Means-Ends Problem Solving (3), (c) Positive Justice (I), (d) Impersonal Problem Solving, and (e) the Vocabulary Test of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised. Higher correlations were expected among measures within the domain of social cognition (the first three measures) and between the two measures within the cognitive domain than berween measures across domains. An over-all correlational analysis was performed, and significant moderate interrelationships were found for all variables (.43 to .52). However, when grade was partialled out, relatively few significant relationships remained. Within-grades correlations among variables varied from grade to grade. Results did not confirm icitial expectations, since there were as many significant correlations across as within domains. This absence of evidence for convergent and discriminant validity is consistent with results of research undertaken with other populations (2) and provides further evidence of the importance of establishing acceptable validity of measures of social cognition to provide a more solid foundation for research.

Self-control in children: Further analyses of the Self-Control Rating Scale

Three studies examined children's self-control, as measured by the Self-Control Rating Scale (SCRS). In Study 1, 98 randomly selected elementary school children performed persistence, delay of gratification, social perspective taking, means-ends problem solving, and verbal IQ tasks. Teachers completed the SCRS and a measure of the internalization-externalization dimension of maladjustment. Results supported the relationship between the SCRS and maladjustment, especially for externalized behavior problems, and the SCRS and cognitive social perspective taking. However, means-ends problem solving, persistence, and delay of gratification measures were not intercorrelated and were not related to SCRS scores. In Study 2, in-class observations of six behavior codes on 100 randomly selected elementary school children and teachers' SCRS ratings evidenced several significant relationships. Study 3 compared the rates of observed in-class behaviors and SCRS ratings of children referred for self-control training and matched nonreferred children. Referred children were rated significantly less self-controlled and observed to engage in significantly greater rates of several behaviors than nonreferred children. Taken together, these data question the existence of a single unitary construct of self-control, yet provide some support for the utility of the SCRS as a rating scale method of assessing children's self-control.

Effect of Perspective-taking Training on Interpersonal Problem Solving

MARSH, DIANE T.; SERAFICA, FELICISIMA C.; and BARENBOIM, CARL. Effect of Perspectivetaking Training on Interpersonal Problem Solving. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1980, 51, 140-145. A study was undertaken to assess the effect of perspective-taking training on the ability to solve interpersonal problems. Subjects consisted of 2 classes of average-ability eighth-grade students. They were given the following measures before and after training: means-ends interpersonal problem solving, interpersonal problem analysis, social perspective taking, and affective perspective taking. Subjects in the experimental group received training in role playing designed to increase the ability to articulate and coordinate the relevant social perspectives in a social situation, as well as the internal states of individuals in that situation. The training did have a significant effect on interpersonal problem solving, but only on one measure of that ability (interpersonal problem analysis). There was no overall effect, however, on either measure of perspective taking, although there was some evidence that training stabilized preexisting levels of social perspective taking.

Mmpi Characteristics of Good and Poor Social Problem-Solvers Among Psychiatric Patients

In an attempt to delineate more precisely the relationship between problem-solving cognition in the social sphere and psychopathology, male (N = 83) and female (N = 107) psychiatric patients were divided into groups of good and poor problem-solvers on the Means-Ends Problem-Solving (MEPS) Procedure and contrasted on MMPI scales and indices of psychopathology. Poor problem-solvers among males, but not among females, were found to be (a) more clearly schizophrenic and socially inadequate, with significantly higher scores on the Pd, Sc, and Si scales; (b) more clearly psychotic on the Goldberg Index; and (c) more likely to have elevated F scale raw scores. The present findings explicate those of earlier studies in suggesting that male patients higher in social problem-solving ability are not only likely to be more socially competent, but also are more likely to be less severely impaired in terms of psychopathology. A possible explanation for the sex difference is that problem-solving cognition and psychopathology are not so directly related in females as in males.

Unidimensionality of the Means-Ends Problem-Solving (MEPS) procedure.

Unidimensionality of the Means-Ends Problem-Solving (MEPS) procedure.