DESCRIPTION: This Core conducts intensive study of critical constructs with broad applicability across a range of stressful situations. During the next five years the focus will be on conceptualization and assessment of processes involved in adaptation to stress situations. These are two areas identified as constituting gaps in the theoretical literature. Specific aims include: advancing the research agenda on children's adaptation to stress, developing creative assessment approaches, developing contextual assessment of children's stress and adaptation, pilot testing of new assessment tools, studying children's reconstructed memories for stressful events, and an emphasis on the influence of fathers in children's coping across cultures.