Relationship maintenance represents an important understudied relational construct. Three studies were conducted to examine the correlates of relationship maintenance across five factors: positivity, openness, assurances, social networks, and sharing tasks. Study one is a meta-analytic review of the existing literature on relationship maintenance and its correlates. Studies two and three are empirical examinations of the predictors of and barriers to relationship maintenance enactment in same-sex couples using a variety of methodological and statistical approaches.Study one is a meta-analysis that focuses on synthesizing the existing literature on relationship maintenance and several relational outcomes including satisfaction, commitment, mutuality, liking, love, and relationship duration as well as gender differences in the enactment of maintenance behaviors. Results suggest that relationship maintenance and the first five correlates are positivity related and these effects are moderate to large in magnitude. Relationship duration was negatively related to three of the five relationship maintenance factors, positively related to social networks, and not related to sharing tasks. Additionally, women tend to perform slightly more maintenance behaviors than men.Study two examines the association between relationship maintenance and commitment using a cross-lagged, actor-partner interdependence model to assess the direction of this relationship among same-sex couples. A sample of 98 couples was measured over 14 days. Results show support for a causal pathway from commitment to relationship maintenance and do not support the opposite pathway. Support for this causal pathway was also demonstrated through the examination of cross-partner effects.Study three explores the potential barriers to relationship maintenance enactment. Daily conflict was examined as it predicts relationship maintenance behaviors and the moderational effects of constructive and destructive (demand-withdraw) communication styles were examined. Results illustrate a negative relationship between conflict and relationship maintenance suggesting that engaging in interpersonal conflict results in decreased relationship maintenance enactment. The detrimental influence of conflict was minimized, however, when couples utilized a constructive rather than destructive communication style. To the contrary, destructive communication styles enhanced the negative effects of conflict with the exception of the actor-demand, partner-withdraw pattern, which reduced the negative effect of conflict.

This study addressed the possible change in young adult attitudes toward family dynamics due to the shift from traditionalism to egalitarianism in recent decades. More specifically, it sought to explore young adult perceptions' of their parents' relational ideology (e.g., degree of traditionalism), and whether young adults perceived their relational ideology to be similar to their parents' ideology. It was predicted that high levels of traditionalism in young adults would be associated with low levels of relational efficacy, as defined by conflict styles and feelings of internal control over relationships. Social cognitive theory (Bandura, 2001) posits that children learn behavior modeled by parents, particularly behaviors that are rewarded. Hence, with the increase in more egalitarian attitudes modeled by parents, this study sought to determine the extent to which young adults are now acquiring and implementing primarily egalitarian rather than traditional attitudes. A path analysis revealed significant associations between parents' degree of traditionalism and offspring traditionalism, as well as significant associations between parents' degree of traditionalism and their distributive and integrative conflict styles. Further, young adult conflict strategies were associated with parents' conflict strategies, and were significantly associated with their internal locus of control. High levels of traditionalism in young adult women were negatively associated with their internal locus of control and positively associated with their psychological distress. It appears that women perceived their parents as more egalitarian, and used conflict styles more conducive to egalitarian relationships relative to men.

Jacob and Schreyer (1980) define mode of experience (e.g. the degree to which participants experience an environment as focused or unfocused) as one of four major factors underlying outdoor recreation conflict. To discover the degree to which mountain bikers and hikers focus in the environment and to identify the key environmental elements and cognitive processes relevant to creating the mode of experience and underlying conflict, Visitor Employed Photography, VEP, and follow-up interviews were combined to explore mountain bikers' and hikers' perceptual experiences. Twelve mountain bikers (7 males, 5 females) rode about four and one half miles of the Lake Bryan East Loop Trail and 12 hikers (6 males, 6 females) hiked about 1.5 miles. Each participant was given a digital camera and tape recorder and was instructed to stop and take a picture of whatever they were looking at right when they heard music play. Findings indicate that mountain bikers tended to concentrate on Trail Corridor elements while forming or creating their Path/Line to travel while hikers tended to look around, scan, or take in full views of Wildlife, Vegetation, and Noises. Combined analyses suggested that mountain bikers photographed On-Trail Tread-Specific and Path/Line perceptions while hikers photographed Off/Off Distant-Views of Vegetation and Noises. Consensus existed among both for photographing On Distant at Trail Corridor elements down the Path/Line; On Distant at Trail Corridor elements Panoramic Forward; and at the Edge of Specific Vegetation elements. Interview findings indicated that participants rely on complex cognitive processes that involve focusing on many areas of the trail at one time. The participant's cue formation processes, foreground/background formation, goals, sequencing, and dynamic movement influenced their mode of experience. Using the findings, this paper presents a graphic representation of mode of experience accounting for the changes participants experience; discusses lingering appraisals' affects on participants' future perceptions during linear trail experiences; discusses conflict mitigation using trail design techniques; provides design suggestions for diminishing hiker and mountain biker conflicts; suggests an adapted ROS, Recreation Opportunity Spectrum, to manage trails for setting based outcomes from a mode of experience perspective; and discusses integrating user participation in management decisions.

Urban development is of particular concern in the management of endangered Key deer (Odocoileous virginianus clavium) because highway mortality is the greatest single cause of deer mortality (≈ 50%), and the rural community of Big Pine Key, Florida constitutes the majority of Key deer habitat. Study objectives were to provide and synthesize management strategies useful in the recovery of Key deer. Specifically, I (1) used simulation modeling to evaluate effects of fetal sex ratios (FSR) on Key deer population structure, (2) evaluated the most efficient and socially acceptable urban deer capture methods, (3) evaluated changes in fawn survival, mortality agents, and range size between 1968-2002, and (4) conducted an ethnography of the human population on Big Pine Key to ascertain cultural dynamics within the community and provide guidelines for community based management of Key deer. Key deer were radio-collared (n = 335) as part of 2 separate field studies (1968-1972, 1998-2002), and mortality and survey estimates were collected throughout the entire period (1966-2002). During 1990-2002, I used an ethnographic approach to analyze the conflict surrounding Key deer management and explored how conflict and moral culture applied to this endangered species. These data were used to address my study objectives. I found the most commonly cited FSR (2.67:1, male:female) for Florida Key deer to be inaccurate. A male biased FSR of 1.45:1 was more probable. Modified drop and drive nets were appropriate methods for urban deer capture because they are passive, silent, fast, generally accepted by the public, and yielded low mortality and injury rates. Between 1968-2002 Key deer fawn survival increased in tandem with human development while range sizes decreased. This suggests a positive, but not sustainable, relationship between fawn survival and development. I found disputants on Big Pine Key divided into 2 moral cultures, 1 grounded in stewardship and the other in private property rights. Successful management strategies for the Key deer require understanding and addressing issues at several levels including: Key deer demographics, community perspectives, and cultural norms. Collectively this information can be used by wildlife managers to improve the management and recovery of Key deer.

The aim of this study was to explore conflict as perceived by Industrial Psychologists in the workplace. The sample of (N=6) consisted of registered Industrial Psychologists. A qualitative research approach was used to explore how Industrial Psychologists in the workplace perceive and experience issues of conflict. A purposive sample was employed. Data was analysed using thematic analysis. The emerging themes were: (1) the Industrial Psychologists’ perceptions and reactions to conflict; (2) organisational structure; (3) organisational management style; (4) the nature and condition of job assignment; (5) individual characteristics; (6) mutual understanding and interaction; and (7) the consequences of conflict. The first six themes describe the sources of the conflict as well as strategies to manage them. The findings of this study reveal that issues such as the perception of and reaction to conflict, organisational structure, and organisational management style, the nature and conditions of job assignment, individual characteristics, and mutual understanding and interaction are important factors contributing to the occurrence and management of conflict. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

The ‘good genes’ model of sexual selection predicts that sexual and natural selection should act concordantly. However sexual selection can favour alleles in males that are costly when expressed in daughters, placing the two in opposition. The relationship between natural and sexual selection depends on the nature of genetic variation for fitness. Laboratory adaptation may deplete sexually concordant fitness variation, overestimating sexually antagonistic variation and obscuring good genes. I investigated sire-offspring fitness correlations in Drosophila melanogaster populations expected to differ in their levels of sexually concordant fitness variation. In maladapted populations, successful sires produced fitter daughters than unsuccessful sires; this pattern was reversed in adapted populations. Several generations later, successful sires in both population types produced lower fitness daughters than unsuccessful sires, consistent with predictions. However, subsequent generations revealed no effect of sire status on daughter fitness, highlighting the difficulty in testing predictions on the evolutionary dynamics of fitness heritability.

This project suggests a method of conflict analysis, anchored in Bourdieu's social theory, that weds approaches within sociological, political, and international relations theory. I focus on the contemporary conflict between the French state, and the substantial population considered "foreign" within France. This tension has regularly exploded into physical confrontation, most notably in the fall of 2005, though violence has been a persistent feature of the urban periphery for more than two decades. Moreover, tensions within France have often been co-opted into a larger "East vs. West" discourse, and this complex relationship is folded into an international conflict to which it may not belong. With this in mind, the project undertakes a thorough analysis of these complexities as they exist in France, proposing finally a means of transforming the conflict from violent to non-violent through a new theory of mediation.

Work subject: conflict reasons among directors and subordinates of organizers of Kaunas city travel. Work object: conflict reasons. Scientific problem: intercommunication between director and subordinates and possible reasons of arising conflicts. Work purpose: to analyze conflict reasons among directors and subordinates of organizers of Kaunas city travel. Broached tasks to reach the purpose: 1. To analyze director’s roles and theoretic aspects of raised requirements for director. 2. To provide a conflict’s conceptions and mostly encountered sorts of it. 3. To provide reasons of arising conflicts and possible variants of a solution. 4. In accordance with an anonymous questionnaire, main conflict reasons among directors and subordinates of Organizers of Kaunas city travel were analyzed. Hypothesis: conflict reasons among directors and subordinates of organizers of Kaunas city travel are more influenced by women. In accordance with the analysis of most literary sources, we could maintain that conflicts at work between directors and subordinates influence work quality, atmosphere in an organization and subordinates’ satisfaction of their work. Mainly director’s features such as disputability, communication skills, capability to run conflicts and his personal interests at work influence the comfort of work atmosphere. Conflicts at work are sorted very differently by intensity, by reasons of arising, by conflicting forces and so on. It is hard to name all conflict reasons, but we... [to full text]

Although rape and other forms of sexual violence have historically been present during wartime, it has recently become a strategic weapon of war in many settings. The term mass rape as a weapon of war is defined as a systematic pattern of rape perpetrated by fighters usually against civilian women and children at a rate much higher than the rate of rape prevailing during peacetime. This study will examine issues surrounding mass rape as a weapon of war including: emerging theories, effectiveness of current international law, public health consequences, and relevant indicators of likelihood of occurrence. Grave physical and mental health outcomes associated with mass rape highlight the need for intervention through policy and program planning. The proposed multi-dimensional prevention pathway addresses the ecological determinants of mass rape.

One of the greatest post-conflict problems in South Sudan, which has emerged as a threat to the nation’s security, has been the deadly clashes between tribes during cattle raids. This thesis examines why cattle raiding shifted from a relatively non-violent rite of passage to the primary manifestation of tribal conflict in South Sudan, and whether it is possible to reverse this shift. This thesis proposes a unique approach to the topic by analyzing two underlying causes: insecurity in Jonglei State and a breakdown of traditional governance structures – as well as how their combination has led to the shift. This thesis focuses on a case study of Jonglei State, as it has experienced the largest number of instances of conflict attributed to cattle raiding in South Sudan. Furthermore, current attempts to reduce conflict through increased security and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration programs have failed as they only address problems of insecurity. I will be comparing two periods of cattle raiding in Jonglei: the current conflict from 2009 until the present, and a historical review of cattle raids focusing on governance of the raids. The review will not cover any specific time period as it aims to identify what aspects of the tradition contributed to a reduced scale of violence before the shift in 2009. Insecurity has caused the increase in clashes, while disconnections to traditions have caused the increase in violence. To address these problems, traditional leadership structures and the de facto rules that structured raids must be re-established in order to produce a long-term solution.