Human history is marked by progressive stages of dominant human interrelation patterns. Marx examined these patterns and believed that history could be understood as a variation on a Fichtian science of material dialectics where a thesis would meet its antithesis, and a new synthesis would emerge from the violent struggle found at their intersection. This dissertation takes a slightly different perspective, concentrating on the contemporary stage of dominant human interrelation patterns, their origin, and consequences from an educational organisation perspective. <br /><br /> This is an emerging discussion of the foundational and philosophical structures of interorganisational relationships involving educational administration. Beginning with a discussion of the origins and development of contemporary relational structures writ largein terms of social, political, and economic antecedentsI show how their convergence around a dual falsehood has produced a self-perpetuating dominance in the modern era. The dual falsehood is manifest in the conflation of science and technology, and social Darwinist assumptions of human nature. Misunderstanding the nature of this dual falsehood, proponents of post-modernity are exposed as providing an anaemic or counterproductive response to the problems of modernity. <br /><br /> I explore the particular problems of modernity faced by education as a general area of study and practice, and educational administration more specifically. The root of these problems is demonstrated in a misalignment of (a) dominant relational structures falsely self-declaring their basis in science, and (b) education as a genuine scientific pursuit (as defined herein). I further explore psychopathologies of relationships when negotiated in terms of such false self-declared and contextually dominant beliefs. The implications of psychopathological relationship negotiations are discussed for educational administration and strategies are explored for educational leadership and advocacy. <br /><br /> Two stages of correction for the dominant issues described herein are posited on behalf of educational organisations. Stage one advocates the construction of a singular definition of pedagogy for public consumption. Stage two articulates areas of responsibility for various intraorganisational elements within education. The purpose of stage two is to disseminate widespread propaganda based upon Habermas (1970) communicative competence to eradicate dysfunctional communication that perpetuates the dominance of modern and post-modern relational structures. Furthermore, stage two advocates the adoption of Mouffes agonistic position for interorganisational relations between education and non-education entities. Stages are to be evaluated in terms of an adaptation upon Giddens (1979) analysis of sedimented practices of educational administration within the context of the Mouffian (2005) political.

Perception of infant crying has been linked to the brain regions that are activated with stress and conflict monitoring, such as the anterior cingulate and amygdala. Whether the stress of cry perception affects cognitive processes is heretofore unknown. This research combines an experimental paradigm of an unsoothable infant cry task (Donovan, Leavitt, & Taylor, 2005) with a series of Rejection Stroop tasks (Dandeneau & Baldwin, 2004) with the expectation that perception of infant distress would deplete neural resources underlying the regulation of attention. Two studies were conducted on non-parent young adults and two studies were conducted on mothers of infants. Results indicated that the cry task causes negative affect and cognitive interference in non-parent young adults to a greater extent than does a musical stimulus, and that mothers of infants experience negative affect and cognitive interference comparable to the non-parent young adults.

The present pair of studies tested the hypothesis that romantic investments are reciprocal, such that the investments made by one romantic partner motivate continued investment from the other partner. In Study 1, participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario involving a failing relationship, in which romantic investment was experimentally manipulated. High investments made by a romantic partner predicted continued relationship perseverance. In Study 2, participants in romantic relationships were randomly assigned to recall their own investments,their current partner‘s investments, or skip directly to the dependent measures (control). Participants who recalled their partners‘ investments reported higher intentions to continue to invest in their relationships. This effect was mediated by higher feelings of gratitude toward the partner and by increased feelings of trust in the romantic partner. The role of gratitude in particular suggests prosocial emotions and processes are an important factor in relationship decision making.

Perception of infant crying has been linked to the brain regions that are activated with stress and conflict monitoring, such as the anterior cingulate and amygdala. Whether the stress of cry perception affects cognitive processes is heretofore unknown. This research combines an experimental paradigm of an unsoothable infant cry task (Donovan, Leavitt, & Taylor, 2005) with a series of Rejection Stroop tasks (Dandeneau & Baldwin, 2004) with the expectation that perception of infant distress would deplete neural resources underlying the regulation of attention. Two studies were conducted on non-parent young adults and two studies were conducted on mothers of infants. Results indicated that the cry task causes negative affect and cognitive interference in non-parent young adults to a greater extent than does a musical stimulus, and that mothers of infants experience negative affect and cognitive interference comparable to the non-parent young adults.

The present pair of studies tested the hypothesis that romantic investments are reciprocal, such that the investments made by one romantic partner motivate continued investment from the other partner. In Study 1, participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario involving a failing relationship, in which romantic investment was experimentally manipulated. High investments made by a romantic partner predicted continued relationship perseverance. In Study 2, participants in romantic relationships were randomly assigned to recall their own investments,their current partner‘s investments, or skip directly to the dependent measures (control). Participants who recalled their partners‘ investments reported higher intentions to continue to invest in their relationships. This effect was mediated by higher feelings of gratitude toward the partner and by increased feelings of trust in the romantic partner. The role of gratitude in particular suggests prosocial emotions and processes are an important factor in relationship decision making.

The primary goal of the current study was to investigate the influence of religion, conflict, sex, and duration on the quality of romantic relationships in college. The transition period of college lends itself to new opportunities and experiences in which young adults learn to express themselves within different types of romantic relationships. One aspect of college that influences these relationships is the emerging “hookup” culture, leading to relationships being less of a norm in college settings. Another influence of college is the diversity of students within the college setting, yielding higher rates of intercultural (or in the case of this study, interfaith) relationships between students. There is little research about how interfaith relationships in college fair in contrast to intrafaith relationships. Thus, the current study was designed to address the gap in the literature on how religious similarity factors into overall relationship quality, along with sexual intimacy, conflict, and duration of relationship. Results reveal that religious similarity and overall religiosity do not influence the quality of relationships in college. However conflict and duration were found to negatively influence the quality of relationships and sexual intimacy showed a strong positive influence on the quality of relationships in college. This study uncovers the predictors of quality in romantic relationships in a college environment.

With the aging of society and increased longevity, understanding the factors that contribute to declines in quality of life and mood, such as normative health declines and cognitive declines is progressively more important. Past research has consistently demonstrated that cognitive skills decline with age; specifically, a major change associated with normative aging is a decline in executive functions (Phillips & Henry, 2008). Past research has focused on investigating how abnormal declines in cognitive and executive functioning have impacted the self and others; however a relatively unexplored issue is examining how individual differences in normative age-related changes in cognitive functioning impact the self and others. The first purpose of the current study was to investigate normative age-related differences in executive functioning skills and how these individual differences impact individuals and their marital partners. The second purpose of the current study was to investigate whether executive functioning skills in particular, rather than other domains of cognitive skills thought to be separate from executive functioning, predicted poor quality of life and mood in self and partner. Participants were 91 heterosexual couples 55 years and above who were married or cohabiting. They completed measures of quality of life and mood in addition to a variety of cognitive tasks and executive functioning tasks measuring their inhibition, working memory and task switching abilities. We found that lower executive functioning skills in one partner significantly predicted lower levels of quality of life in the other partner (partner effect). However, we found that there was no significant relationship between those with lower levels of executive functioning and one’s own ratings of quality of life (actor effect). Conversely, when investigating the impact of executive functioning on mood we found that lower levels of executive functioning resulted in lower ratings of mood for the same partner (actor effect). However, lower levels of executive functioning in one partner did not predict lower levels of mood in the other partner (partner effect). In no instance was general cognition, as assessed using tasks of language, visuospatial ability, and short-term memory, related to partner or actor effects for either outcome measure. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Past studies examining the role of psychopathology in intimate relationships have largely focused on the construct of depression, both as a cause and consequence of relationship distress. In contrast, far less attention has been given to anxiety, despite the fact that anxiety is related to several factors influencing relationship functioning, including problem solving skills, thoughts of threat and uncertainty, sexual dysfunction, excessive self-focus and alcohol abuse. Moreover, the high rates of comorbidity between anxiety and depression make it unclear whether the findings from past studies examining the interpersonal toll of depression are specific to depression or are nonspecific markers of any type of psychopathology. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the differential roles of depression and anxiety in intimate relationship satisfaction, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Further, using the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM), we examined both the effects of one’s own anxiety and depression and also of one’s partner’s anxiety and depression on one’s own relationship satisfaction. Our cross-sectional sample consisted of 70 couples, of which 48 couples also participated at follow-up. All couples completed measures of relationship satisfaction and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Cross-sectionally, results revealed that a person’s own symptoms of depression were the only predictors of relationship satisfaction. Conversely, depressive symptoms did not predict change in relationship satisfaction over time. Instead, a person’s own levels of anxiety at time 1 were a stronger predictor of this change. Among wives, change in relationship satisfaction was also predicted by their husbands’ levels of anxiety at time 1. These results highlight the importance of studying the constructs of depression and anxiety simultaneously, and point to intriguing gender differences. The potential mechanisms behind these effects are discussed.

Listening comprehension plays a vital role in Chinese students’ acquisitionof English; however, the current situation of students’ listening comprehension learning is notsatisfactory. As one category of learning strategies, metacognitive strategies are essential forsuccessful learning. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the students’ frequency ofmetacognitive strategy use, and the relationship between their use of metacognitive strategiesand their performance in a listening comprehension test from the TEM-4 test. 100sophomores of English major were chosen to participate in the test and then divided into threelevels based on their scores. Afterwards, 10 students from each level were randomly selected,which means there was a total of 30 students and they were asked to participate in thequestionnaire. Through the data collected from the listening comprehension test and thequestionnaire, the investigation finds that on the whole, the 30 students use metacognitivestrategies in the medium level. By comparison, the students in the three groups utilizemetacognitive strategies in different levels. Moreover, there is a positive relationship between30 students’ frequency of metacognitive strategy use and their performance in the listeningcomprehension test. However, there are 4 students whose frequency of metacognitive strategyuse and scores in the listening comprehension test show a negative relationship. Thus, aninterview was conducted among them to find the reasons. These include that they havedifferent difficulties in using metacognitive strategies or dealing with the listeningcomprehension tasks, and then some suggestions are put forward to help teachers improvetheir teaching quality, and students enhance their listening comprehension abilities.

Past studies examining the role of psychopathology in intimate relationships have largely focused on the construct of depression, both as a cause and consequence of relationship distress. In contrast, far less attention has been given to anxiety, despite the fact that anxiety is related to several factors influencing relationship functioning, including problem solving skills, thoughts of threat and uncertainty, sexual dysfunction, excessive self-focus and alcohol abuse. Moreover, the high rates of comorbidity between anxiety and depression make it unclear whether the findings from past studies examining the interpersonal toll of depression are specific to depression or are nonspecific markers of any type of psychopathology. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the differential roles of depression and anxiety in intimate relationship satisfaction, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Further, using the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM), we examined both the effects of one’s own anxiety and depression and also of one’s partner’s anxiety and depression on one’s own relationship satisfaction. Our cross-sectional sample consisted of 70 couples, of which 48 couples also participated at follow-up. All couples completed measures of relationship satisfaction and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Cross-sectionally, results revealed that a person’s own symptoms of depression were the only predictors of relationship satisfaction. Conversely, depressive symptoms did not predict change in relationship satisfaction over time. Instead, a person’s own levels of anxiety at time 1 were a stronger predictor of this change. Among wives, change in relationship satisfaction was also predicted by their husbands’ levels of anxiety at time 1. These results highlight the importance of studying the constructs of depression and anxiety simultaneously, and point to intriguing gender differences. The potential mechanisms behind these effects are discussed.