Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

All bona fide professions have affiliated professional organizations, ethical standards or a code of ethics, and an accrediting and sanctioning body that deals with preparation, credentialing, and licensure, and pride in one's profession (Gale & Austin, 2003; Remley & Herlihy, 2010). As school counseling continues to evolve, school counselors have struggled to define and maintain their role. This may be due, in part, to the social desirability an individual has to belong to dominant group in the school setting (Tajfel, 1986). School counselors may draw esteem from their professional membership. This concept, called collective self-esteem, denotes those aspects of identity that are related to membership in social groups and the respective value that one places on one's membership (Luhtanen & Crocker, 1992). The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between collective self-esteem and professional identity. The findings of this study indicated that collective self-esteem was relatively stable and remained moderately high across several demographic variables related to professional identity. Collective self-esteem remained relatively consistent across level of practice, professional background, years of total experience and years of experience at the current school, and area of practice. Further, collective self-esteem remained moderately high for those who were affiliated with a counseling organization and those who were not. Results also suggested that collective self-esteem is constant regardless of variations in credentialing, chosen code of ethics, role definition (educator first or counselor first), and professional pride. Results indicated that collective self-esteem remained moderately high across several demographic areas and variables related to professional identity. Further, a significant positive correlation was found between pride in the profession and collective self-esteem was shown. Additionally, a small, significant negative correlation was garnered between those participants who viewed themselves as a counselor first and held an LPC or equivalent. Further, a significant relationship was found between those participants who defined their role as a counselor first and chose the NBCC Code of Ethics as their primary code of ethics and those participants who held the counselor first position and chose the ASCA Ethical Code as their primary code of ethics.

Objectif : L’objectif de cette thèse était de contribuer à une meilleure compréhension de la qualité de vie chez les adolescents obèses. Nous avons pris appui sur la Théorie de l’Autodétermination (TAD, Ryan & Deci, 2000) selon laquelle le degré de satisfaction des besoins d’autodétermination, de compétence et d’affiliation sociale est déterminant pour le bien-être et en avons exploré les apports dans la compréhension de la qualité de vie chez les adolescents obèses. Méthode : Dans une première étude, les liens entre la qualité de vie et le degré de satisfaction de ces besoins ont été explorés chez 232 adolescents tout-venant. Ces liens ont été spécifiquement étudiés chez 76 adolescents obèses dans une seconde étude. Dans une troisième étude, nous avons exploré auprès de 70 adolescents obèses le rôle du soutien à la satisfaction des besoins de la part de leurs parents et de leurs enseignants dans les liens entre la stigmatisation de l’obésité et l’altération de la qualité de vie chez ces adolescents.Résultats : Une bonne satisfaction des besoins d’autodétermination, de compétence et d’affiliation sociale prédit une bonne qualité de vie et une détresse psychologique faible chez les adolescents obèses et tout-venant. Un bon soutien des parents et des enseignants à la satisfaction de ces besoins peut réduire l’altération de la qualité de vie associée à la stigmatisation de l’obésité.Conclusion : Chez les adolescents obèses, des interventions visant à favoriser une bonne satisfaction des besoins d’autodétermination, de compétence et d’affiliation sociale pourraient permettre d’améliorer leur qualité de vie et aider à briser les cercles vicieux qui entretiennent la prise de poids. / Objective: The aim of the present thesis is to improve the understanding of the processes associated with quality of life in obese adolescents. In the perspective of the Self-Determination Theory (SDT, Ryan & Deci, 2000) postulating that well-being is determined by satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness, we explored how these factors affect the quality of life in obese adolescents.Method: In the first study, we explored the links between quality of life and degree of the satisfaction of these needs in 232 non-clinical adolescents sample. In the second study, with the aim of exploring the specific links between these variables in obesity, we replicated the same procedure in 76 obese adolescents. In the third study, within a sample of 70 obese adolescents, we explored how adolescents’ perceptions of the needs support by their parents and teachers could moderate the negative effect of stigmatization on quality of life.Results: High satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness predicts high quality of life and low psychological distress in obese adolescents. High adolescents’ perceptions of the needs support by their parents and teachers can reduce the quality of life impairment associated with stigmatization of obesity.Conclusion: In obese adolescents, interventions to promote high satisfaction of the needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness could improve their quality of life and help to break the vicious circles maintaining the weight gain.

This thesis is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the issue that in a political environment wherein the development of a political career may encompass frequent transitions between offices, it is usually unclear how winning a given position may ultimately affect subsequent electoral performances and career formation. We exploit regression discontinuity designs in Brazilian elections to estimate the electoral advantage derived by incumbents of various positions both when running for reelection to the same held position, and when trying to win a different elective office. Then, we document that incumbency in legislative offices at state and federal levels is associated with a strong positive effect on the probability of winning the same position in the following election, whereas officeholders in diverse branches of local government do not appear to benefit electorally from their incumbency status and may even be harmed by it when they have relatively little political experience. Moreover, we find that state deputies also receive an incumbency advantage when running for the position of federal deputy, and that such a cross-office effect, along with all incumbency effects on winning the same position, is not due to selection into candidacy. Aside from the transition from state deputy to federal deputy, however, incumbents of any position tend to be less likely than their defeated counterparts to run for, and win, other positions. In the second part, we investigate whether incentive-compatible clientelistic transactions may be sustained through the observation of voters\' party-affiliation status by politicians. We argue that since affiliation consists of an instance of public demonstration of support for a given party, vote-buying attempts by parties may be made more effective by targeting voters that are (or in order for them to become) affiliated to them. Using electoral and demographic data on Brazilian municipalities, we find that voters affiliated to parties in the municipal coalition of the Workers\' Party are significantly more likely to start receiving benefits from the Bolsa Família program upon the incumbency of a party in that coalition. We also investigate political determinants of party affiliation and find that while partisan incumbency at the local level appears to affect affiliation only in restricted situations, the provision of payments from the Bolsa Família has a robust positive effect on affiliation. Lastly, the third part investigates the extent to which teachers with strong partisan stances are capable of influencing electoral outcomes through shaping their students\' voting behavior. We address this question by exploiting unique datasets on party-affiliated voters and on public high school teachers in the state of São Paulo, Brazil---through which we are able to identify teachers\' political affiliations. Along with such information, we also make use of very rich datasets on election results and voter characteristics to explore the relationship between the density of affiliated teachers in a given region and electoral outcomes observed for that region. To overcome endogeneity issues such as that of selection in the assignment of teachers to schools and of voters to polling places, for instance, we explore the varying intensity of the hypothesized effect according to electorate characteristics at the polling station level, a very specific site within the polling district to which voters and teachers are suggested not to be able to select themselves. Our results are suggestive of a positive and significant effect of the presence of affiliated teachers on the electoral performance of the corresponding party, especially in elections based on plurality voting systems. However, our evidence also indicates that such an effect is more relevant for (and possibly restricted to) teachers affiliated to the Workers\' Party, and that these teachers appear to be altering political / Esta tese se divide em três partes. A primeira parte lida com a questão de que, em um ambiente político em que o desenvolvimento de uma carreira política possa envolver frequentes transições entre cargos, não se tem claro como a ocupação de uma dada posição eletiva pode fundamentalmente influenciar o desempenho eleitoral subsequente e a formação de uma carreira pelos políticos. São exploradas regressões descontínuas baseadas em eleições brasileiras com o intuito de se estimar o impacto eleitoral de ser o mandatário experimentado por políticos tanto ao concorrerem à reeleição ao cargo que ocupam, quanto ao disputarem outro cargo eletivo. Documenta-se, então, que a incumbência de cargos legislativos aos níveis estadual e federal encontra-se associada a um expressivo efeito positivo sobre a probabilidade de vitória da disputa seguinte pelo mesmo cargo, ao passo que mandatários de governos locais não aparentam ser eleitoralmente beneficiados por tal status, podendo ainda ser prejudicados por tal condição no caso de exibirem pouca experiência política. Além disso, verifica-se que deputados estaduais também usufruem de uma vantagem eleitoral da incumbência ao disputarem o cargo de deputado federal, e rejeita-se que tal efeito, bem como os impactos sobre a probabilidade de ser reeleito a um mesmo cargo, seja devido à seleção em novas candidaturas. À exceção da transição do cargo de deputado estadual para o de deputado federal, no entanto, mandatários de qualquer cargo tendem a ser menos propensos do que seus homólogos derrotados a se candidatar e a vencer eleições para outros cargos. Na segunda parte, investigamos se transações clientelistas podem ser sustentadas através da observação, por parte de partidos políticos e candidatos, do status de filiação partidária dos eleitores. Argumenta-se que, sendo tal filiação um exemplo de demonstração pública de apoio a um partido, tentativas de compra de voto por partidos podem se tornar mais eficazes quando direcionadas a eleitores que sejam filiados, ou no intuito de que venham a sê-lo. Por meio do emprego de dados eleitorais e demográficos acerca de municípios brasileiros, observa-se que eleitores filiados a partidos das coligações municipais do Partido dos Trabalhadores são significativamente mais propensos (relativamente a eleitores em geral) a passar a receber benefícios do Programa Bolsa Família quando da eleição de tais partidos. Investigam-se também determinantes políticos da filiação partidária, e encontra-se que o simples fato de ser o mandatário de governos locais afeta os níveis de filiação ao partido correspondente apenas em situações específicas; por outro lado, a provisão de pagamentos do Bolsa Família apresenta um efeito positivo e robusto sobre a evolução dos índices de filiação. Por fim, a terceira parte investiga o potencial exibido por professores com elevada participação política de influenciar resultados eleitorais ao induzirem os votos de seus alunos. Explora-se tal questão através da utilização de dados sobre filiação partidária e sobre professores de ensino médio de escolas estaduais no estado de São Paulo, Brasil. Combinando-se informações sobre o status de filiação partidária de tais professores com dados sobre resultados eleitorais e características do eleitorado, investiga-se especificamente a relação entre a densidade de professores filiados e o desempenho eleitoral dos partidos em uma dada região. Problemas de endogeneidade, como os possivelmente decorrentes da alocação de professores a escolas, são evitados por meio da exploração de variação na intensidade do efeito proposto de acordo com características do eleitorado em um nível ao qual eleitores (e professores) não são capazes de se selecionar. Os resultados relacionados sugerem um efeito positivo e significante da presença de professores filiados sobre o desempenho eleitoral dos partidos, particularmente em eleições majoritárias. No entanto, a evidência apresentada indica que tal efeito é aparentemente restrito a professores filiados ao Partido dos Trabalhadores, e que tais professores são capazes de alterar as preferências políticas de alunos que compareceriam à votação independentemente de sua influência. .

This study identified factors that affect climate change risk perception in a community college class. The purpose of this research was to determine if students were more influenced by cultural cognition (political affiliation) or science comprehension. Students in an undergraduate level environmental science and biology class were evaluated, using an online survey, for science comprehension level, political affiliation and risk perception at the beginning and end of each course. Data were analyzed to determine improved scientific literacy and any variation in risk perception. The research found that science comprehension did not contribute significantly to increased risk perception and that political affiliation or political views had a more significant effect on risk perception. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This thesis is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the issue that in a political environment wherein the development of a political career may encompass frequent transitions between offices, it is usually unclear how winning a given position may ultimately affect subsequent electoral performances and career formation. We exploit regression discontinuity designs in Brazilian elections to estimate the electoral advantage derived by incumbents of various positions both when running for reelection to the same held position, and when trying to win a different elective office. Then, we document that incumbency in legislative offices at state and federal levels is associated with a strong positive effect on the probability of winning the same position in the following election, whereas officeholders in diverse branches of local government do not appear to benefit electorally from their incumbency status and may even be harmed by it when they have relatively little political experience. Moreover, we find that state deputies also receive an incumbency advantage when running for the position of federal deputy, and that such a cross-office effect, along with all incumbency effects on winning the same position, is not due to selection into candidacy. Aside from the transition from state deputy to federal deputy, however, incumbents of any position tend to be less likely than their defeated counterparts to run for, and win, other positions. In the second part, we investigate whether incentive-compatible clientelistic transactions may be sustained through the observation of voters\' party-affiliation status by politicians. We argue that since affiliation consists of an instance of public demonstration of support for a given party, vote-buying attempts by parties may be made more effective by targeting voters that are (or in order for them to become) affiliated to them. Using electoral and demographic data on Brazilian municipalities, we find that voters affiliated to parties in the municipal coalition of the Workers\' Party are significantly more likely to start receiving benefits from the Bolsa Família program upon the incumbency of a party in that coalition. We also investigate political determinants of party affiliation and find that while partisan incumbency at the local level appears to affect affiliation only in restricted situations, the provision of payments from the Bolsa Família has a robust positive effect on affiliation. Lastly, the third part investigates the extent to which teachers with strong partisan stances are capable of influencing electoral outcomes through shaping their students\' voting behavior. We address this question by exploiting unique datasets on party-affiliated voters and on public high school teachers in the state of São Paulo, Brazil---through which we are able to identify teachers\' political affiliations. Along with such information, we also make use of very rich datasets on election results and voter characteristics to explore the relationship between the density of affiliated teachers in a given region and electoral outcomes observed for that region. To overcome endogeneity issues such as that of selection in the assignment of teachers to schools and of voters to polling places, for instance, we explore the varying intensity of the hypothesized effect according to electorate characteristics at the polling station level, a very specific site within the polling district to which voters and teachers are suggested not to be able to select themselves. Our results are suggestive of a positive and significant effect of the presence of affiliated teachers on the electoral performance of the corresponding party, especially in elections based on plurality voting systems. However, our evidence also indicates that such an effect is more relevant for (and possibly restricted to) teachers affiliated to the Workers\' Party, and that these teachers appear to be altering political / Esta tese se divide em três partes. A primeira parte lida com a questão de que, em um ambiente político em que o desenvolvimento de uma carreira política possa envolver frequentes transições entre cargos, não se tem claro como a ocupação de uma dada posição eletiva pode fundamentalmente influenciar o desempenho eleitoral subsequente e a formação de uma carreira pelos políticos. São exploradas regressões descontínuas baseadas em eleições brasileiras com o intuito de se estimar o impacto eleitoral de ser o mandatário experimentado por políticos tanto ao concorrerem à reeleição ao cargo que ocupam, quanto ao disputarem outro cargo eletivo. Documenta-se, então, que a incumbência de cargos legislativos aos níveis estadual e federal encontra-se associada a um expressivo efeito positivo sobre a probabilidade de vitória da disputa seguinte pelo mesmo cargo, ao passo que mandatários de governos locais não aparentam ser eleitoralmente beneficiados por tal status, podendo ainda ser prejudicados por tal condição no caso de exibirem pouca experiência política. Além disso, verifica-se que deputados estaduais também usufruem de uma vantagem eleitoral da incumbência ao disputarem o cargo de deputado federal, e rejeita-se que tal efeito, bem como os impactos sobre a probabilidade de ser reeleito a um mesmo cargo, seja devido à seleção em novas candidaturas. À exceção da transição do cargo de deputado estadual para o de deputado federal, no entanto, mandatários de qualquer cargo tendem a ser menos propensos do que seus homólogos derrotados a se candidatar e a vencer eleições para outros cargos. Na segunda parte, investigamos se transações clientelistas podem ser sustentadas através da observação, por parte de partidos políticos e candidatos, do status de filiação partidária dos eleitores. Argumenta-se que, sendo tal filiação um exemplo de demonstração pública de apoio a um partido, tentativas de compra de voto por partidos podem se tornar mais eficazes quando direcionadas a eleitores que sejam filiados, ou no intuito de que venham a sê-lo. Por meio do emprego de dados eleitorais e demográficos acerca de municípios brasileiros, observa-se que eleitores filiados a partidos das coligações municipais do Partido dos Trabalhadores são significativamente mais propensos (relativamente a eleitores em geral) a passar a receber benefícios do Programa Bolsa Família quando da eleição de tais partidos. Investigam-se também determinantes políticos da filiação partidária, e encontra-se que o simples fato de ser o mandatário de governos locais afeta os níveis de filiação ao partido correspondente apenas em situações específicas; por outro lado, a provisão de pagamentos do Bolsa Família apresenta um efeito positivo e robusto sobre a evolução dos índices de filiação. Por fim, a terceira parte investiga o potencial exibido por professores com elevada participação política de influenciar resultados eleitorais ao induzirem os votos de seus alunos. Explora-se tal questão através da utilização de dados sobre filiação partidária e sobre professores de ensino médio de escolas estaduais no estado de São Paulo, Brasil. Combinando-se informações sobre o status de filiação partidária de tais professores com dados sobre resultados eleitorais e características do eleitorado, investiga-se especificamente a relação entre a densidade de professores filiados e o desempenho eleitoral dos partidos em uma dada região. Problemas de endogeneidade, como os possivelmente decorrentes da alocação de professores a escolas, são evitados por meio da exploração de variação na intensidade do efeito proposto de acordo com características do eleitorado em um nível ao qual eleitores (e professores) não são capazes de se selecionar. Os resultados relacionados sugerem um efeito positivo e significante da presença de professores filiados sobre o desempenho eleitoral dos partidos, particularmente em eleições majoritárias. No entanto, a evidência apresentada indica que tal efeito é aparentemente restrito a professores filiados ao Partido dos Trabalhadores, e que tais professores são capazes de alterar as preferências políticas de alunos que compareceriam à votação independentemente de sua influência. .

Religious belief and attendance predict improved well-being at the individual level. Paradoxically, geographic locations with high rates of religious belief and attendance are often those with the differentially high rates of societal instability and suffering. Many of the consequences of religiosity are context-based and vary across time, and holy days are naturally-occurring religious cues that have been shown to influence religiously-relevant attitudes and behaviors. I investigated the degree to which personal religiosity and religious geography (i.e. religious demographics with other location variables) individually and interactively predict well-being across days of the week. In the first study, American Christians demonstrated greater well-being by expressing more positive sentiment in Twitter posts, while American Muslims displayed less well-being. Sundays were generally the most positive day, but American Muslims communicated more happiness on Fridays (the Muslim holy day). In the second study, Christianity did not predict increased well-being in the posts of college students. In the third study, global survey data with measures of religiosity and well-being indicated that the well-being consequences of religious affiliation depend on the religious group and location, and that people tend to be especially positive on their group’s holy day. Study four explored the latent topical content of Twitter posts. Across studies, religious minority status appeared to have a deleterious effect on well-being.

Three scenarios regarding a target man's moral behavior were used to examine 'religious halo' 'religious boomerang', and a 'halo recovery' effect. Initially, participants rated a male target in response to his religious affiliation. Secondly, participants rated the male target following an act of infidelity. Finally, participants provided ratings of the male target with the knowledge that the target received forgiveness from significant others. Results indicated that participants did not discriminate based on knowledge of the target's religious affiliation but did reject the target following an act of infidelity. New to this research, however, was discovery of a 'halo recovery' where participants were again accepting of a target following forgiveness from his wife and church leaders. These results varied from previous findings that suggested that participants' religious affiliation primarily influenced judgments of moral behavior.

Thesis (M. A. (Psychology)) --University of Limpopo / This research investigated the psychological, social and cultural experiences of undergraduate international students at the University of Limpopo (Turfloop Campus). The study was qualitative in nature with an exploratory research design. The research made use of purposive sampling. Data was collected through focus groups as it was an appropriate tool for collecting the in-depth experiences of international students registered at the University. There were four focus groups with six participants in each so the overall sample was twenty-four. The researcher sampled twelve females and twelve males to ensure gender representivity. Afrocentricity was used as theoretical framework underpinning the study. The data were analysed using Thematic content analysis (TCA). The following themes emerged out of an interpretation of data: Motivation; Discrimination; academic challenges; language barriers; sense of belonging; homesickness; avoidance, acculturation and shared African culture. International students experienced many challenges which resulted in loneliness and isolation. They also used negative defence mechanisms in order to cope in the new environment. Results indicated that there are divisions in terms of culture (both social and academic) in the University environment caused, in part, by the colonial partition of Africa. Conversely, elements of African culture that have survived the onslaught of colonialism (and in South Africa, apartheid) help bind international and peer host country students (and outside communities) together.

This study establishes a link between research done in the field of public relations on source credibility, communicator gender, message strength, and source affiliation. Research has established that source credibility is one of the most important factors influencing the acceptance of a message. For this study, source credibility was measured using three main dimensions: expertise, trustworthiness and attractiveness. Similar to many studies focusing on source credibility, this study focuses on the various attributes of the communicator or message source. This study uses an experimental procedure to investigate the relationships between source credibility, message strength, source affiliation, and communicator gender. Based on previous findings, this study hypothesized that higher message strength will be perceived as more credible than lower message strength, sources labeled 'public relations practitioner' will be perceived as less credible than sources that are not, and male communicators will be seen as more credible than females. Findings indicate, however, that message strength has no significant influence on source credibility. Nor does it significantly influence the opinions of the participants on the communicator's gender and their affiliation with the term public relations practitioner, except in the case of their levels of expertise. The results however did indicate that there are statistically significant interactions between the trustworthiness and attractiveness of the source and the attitudes of the participants toward the public relations message, the corporation and their subsequent behavioral intentions.