The emotional adjustment of children with Tourette's syndrome.

We investigated the predictive value of family reaction and illness severity with respect to the emotional adjustment of Tourette's syndrome patients. The subjects included 30 children with Tourette's syndrome and 30 control subjects matched on age, sex, race, and socioeconomic status. The predictor variables included the child's perception of parental behavior, family adaptability as perceived by the mother, mother's self-concept, and illness severity. The results indicated that the children's perceptions of their parents' behavior explained the most variance in children's self-concepts and anxiety for both groups. These findings highlight the importance of the parent-child interaction in predicting the child's emotional adjustment to Tourette's syndrome.

Self-efficacy and self-motivation as predictors of weight loss.

The present study was attempted to determine whether self-efficacy and self-motivation would predict outcome in an intensive weight loss program. The subjects included 52 males and 95 females who were at least fifty pounds overweight (mean age = 43 years). The data were analyzed through multiple regression on three separate dependent variables: actual weight loss, adjusted weight loss and percentage of sessions attended. Outcome was predicted based on the following variables: self-efficacy (as measured by confidence estimates and outcome expectancies) and self-motivation (as measured by the Self-Motivation Inventory). The predictors accounted for 32.2% (p less than .01) of the variance in actual weight loss, 8.5% (p less than .01) of the variance in adjusted weight loss and none of the variance in percentage of sessions attended. Self-motivation did not correlate significantly with either actual or adjusted weight loss, while self-efficacy measures did. However, the correlation of the two self-efficacy measures (r = -.07, p greater than .05) suggests that these variables do not constitute a unitary construct and should be conceptualized as independent predictors. These findings suggest that confidence estimates and outcome expectancies are useful predictors of weight loss.