In a recent model of employability, Hogan, Chamorro-Premuzic, and Kaiser (2013) defined employability as the ability to gain and maintain employment and find new employment when necessary. The authors presented employability as a formative construct containing an ability dimension (the ability to do the job), a social skills dimension (being rewarding to work with), and a motivational dimension (being willing to work hard). There is no question as to whether these three dimensions affect one’s level of employability; research is abundant on the positive relationships between intelligence, social and emotional skills, motivation and career success. However, little research has been conducted to empirically test employability models in their entirety. Thus, the purpose of this research was to test the RAW model of employability, using various indicators of the three RAW dimensions of employability using structural equation modelling. Surveys were administered electronically eliciting both a student and community sample. Marginal support was found for the hypothesized model with post hoc modifications producing an acceptable fitting model. Findings suggest that having the ability and motivation to do the job are related to being employable. However, being rewarding to work may not impact levels of employability, suggesting that employers may be asking for one thing while rewarding another.

Due to curiosity about the "individual" vs. "social" intervention argument in the profession of social work, the authors of this study attempted to answer the question, “Do personality characteristics of Social Work Graduate Students influence their choice of social work practice?" Our hypothesis was that Introverts would be more inclined to focus on the individual in social work practice as opposed to Extraverts who would see societal change as a more pressing practice issue. Although our study identified no correlation between Introversion and Extraversion and social work practice orientation, there were some suggestions for further study. There appeared to be some indication that Intuition and Feeling might be more important variables. The idea was also raised that the conflict among social workers might be more a result of the nature of their personality type than a real dichotomy in the field.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether closemindedness is related to decision-making behaviors. The decision-making variables in this study were: Pieces of Information, Decision Change, Decision Confidence, Decision Accuracy and, post hoc, Decision Appropriateness. The measures of decision-making behaviors were obtained from four decision situations developed by the experimenter. Closemindedness was assessed using Rokeach's (1960) Dogmatism (D) scale.

The relationship between perfectionism and religiosity is clarified when the adaptive and maladaptive dimensions of both constructs are compared. Literature in both areas implicates the idea of a rigid and inflexible personality style as a possible mediator in the relationship. This investigation examined the relationship of perfectionism and religiosity, using adaptive and maladaptive dimensions, as mediated by psychological inflexibility. Measures of perfectionism, religiosity, and psychological inflexibility were given to 376 undergraduate college students in an anonymous online survey. Adaptive perfectionism was found to be significantly correlated with adaptive religiosity. Maladaptive perfectionism was found to be significantly correlated with maladaptive religiosity. Psychological inflexibility was found to be significantly correlated with the maladaptive dimensions of both perfectionism and religiosity. It was also shown to mediate the relationship between maladaptive religiosity and maladaptive perfectionism using the test of mediation proposed by Baron and Kenny. Implications and future directions are discussed.

This thesis illustrates the development of a new methodological tool for arts marketing, called the visibility/involvement model, through a critical analysis of promotional material of Christchurch's art galleries. The methodological tool provides insights into the quality of the art galleries' marketing activities, categorising promotional material according to their level of visibility/public accessibility and required individual involvement. The promotional material was considered according to three different dimensions of meaning: (1.) The textual dimension of meaning (Fairclough, 1992); (2.) The visual dimension of meaning (Kress and van Leeuwen, 1996; 2006); (3.) The local dimension of meaning (Scollon and Scollon, 2003). The innovation of the newly developed model lies in the combination of these three dimensions coming from the three different theoretical and methodological areas of thought: Critical Discourse Analysis, Systemic Functional Analysis, and Mediated Discourse Analysis. The model takes the above mentioned three dimensions together in order to categorise and assess a gallery's current marketing approach, and to then recommend a gallery's enhancement of marketing strategies to either deepen or broaden their audience. The visibility/involvement model also provides understanding of a gallery's underlying ideology and can explain why a certain gallery emphasises a particular marketing approach more than another cultural organisation and what implications that might have for future developments. This thesis challenges the view that traditional marketing strategies apply to arts marketing. Following Venkatesh and Meamber's (2006), who account for the cultural production process, drawing on McCracken (1986; 1988), this thesis attempts to engage in a holistic arts marketing approach. In order to attempt a holistic analysis, the thesis is based on analysis of galleries' visual signs, mission statements, and sent-out invitations. A central argument in the thesis is that each class of promotional material implies different properties, and hence requires an altered promotion strategy based on the target audience and the main communicative intention. The concept entails that the audience becomes narrower and more homogeneous from the category of visual signs to the class of sent-out invitations. Likewise, the communication needs to become more personal and specific. The audience layer model, an application of the visibility/involvement model introduced in the final chapter of this thesis, illustrates the relationship between the audience and promotional material.

Thesis (M.A. (Psychology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Career satisfaction has become an important research topic in both psychological and business research. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships between general managers’ career satisfaction, the Big Five personality traits (agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, and openness), as well as narrow personality traits. An archival data source was used consisting of a sample of 6,042 general managers and 48,726 non-managers from various industries. I investigated the relationship between personality variables and general manager’s career satisfaction. Results indicated that several personality traits were significantly related to managers’ career satisfaction. For example, emotional resilience, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, optimism, and work drive were significantly related to general managers’ career satisfaction. Among all the personality traits, emotional resilience and optimism had the highest correlations with general manager’s career satisfaction. The difference between managers and non-managers were compared. Implications for future research and practice were discussed.

Most past research on interpersonal forgiveness has emphasized qualities of the betrayed partner (e.g. trait forgiveness, dispositional empathy, narcissism) or relationship factors (e.g., relational closeness) in predicting forgiveness. However, research has rarely considered characteristics of the offender as predictors of forgiveness, as when a victim comes to wish the offender well and feel warmth toward him/her, and unforgiveness, as when a victim avoids or retaliates against an offender. Therefore the current project sought to assess the unique contribution of offenders’ personality over and above the aforementioned established predictors of forgiveness and unforgiveness outcomes on the Transgression-Related Interpersonal Motivations (TRIM) inventory. It was expected that offender variables (such as high narcissism, low dispositional empathy, low honesty-humility, and high agreeableness) would account for additional, unique variance in predicting forgiveness beyond the known correlates of forgiveness and unforgiveness (e.g., high relational closeness to offender, low betrayal severity, high trait forgiveness, low narcissism). Results for TRIM Benevolence and Avoidance, but not TRIM Revenge, were consistent with the study’s hypothesis, such that offender variables contributed significant unique variance above established predictors. Implications for the study of offender variables are discussed, as well as future directions research might consider.

The current study was conducted to examine whether priming for a need for assimilation or the need for differentiation influences an individual’s identification with a particular team. Team Identification is defined as “the level of psychological attachment felt by a sports fan toward his or her favorite team” (Kim & Kim, 2009; Wann, Melnick, Russell, & Pease, 2001). Participants for the current study included 80 undergraduate psychology students, recruited through Study Board at Western Kentucky University. Participants completed the Sport Fandom Questionnaire (SFQ) and were randomly assigned one of two scenarios where they were asked to transcribe two memories based upon their scenario. Then participants filled out the Need for Affiliation Scale (nAff) to assess whether the scenarios elicited a need for affiliation. Following the nAff, participants filled out the Fan Scale (FS) for both teams based on which team they were going to cheer for to win a fictional football game. The participants finished by filling out two Sport Spectator Identification Scales (SSIS), one for the underdog football team and one for the favored football team, to measure how identified they were with each team. Results indicated that the hypotheses were not supported. There were no significant differences between condition for the Fan Scale or the Sport Spectator Identification Scale. However, it was found that, regardless of condition, participants were more likely to cheer for the underdog football team than they were the favored football team. There were no significant differences between the need for affiliation and the need for differentiation and their influences on team identification. The finding that participants were more likely to cheer for the underdog football team than they were the favored team has added another stepping stone for examining motives for team identification.

Collaboration between international NGOs (INGOs) and governmental organizations (GOs) have contributed significantly to the goals of poverty alleviation and agricultural development in developing countries. Much of the literatures on NGO-GO partnerships have explored theoretically or empirically what motivate and hinder cross-sector collaboration. But not many have studied cross-sector collaboration from both analytical and descriptive perspectives. This study filled in this gap by drawing from previous studies a conceptual framework through which contexts, incentives, and barriers that influence INGO-GO partnerships were described and explained. The researcher adopted a qualitative case-study method with emergent design. Personal interviews were conducted with 20 key informants, including eight Vietnamese staff from one INGO and 12 government officials from six GOs who partnered with the INGO. All participating organizations were institutions serving agricultural and rural development in the south of Vietnam. The data were collected in 2010 and analyzed using the software package ATLAS.ti. The results showed four categories that interact to form a framework of a dynamic continuum of partnership development. The four categories included conditioning factors, incentives, barriers, and feedback loop. The categories held the following themes: 1) socio-political contexts and organizational natures for conditioning factors, 2) shared missions, resource mobilization, capacity building, and networking for incentives, 3) ideological conflicts, structural constraints, and operational hurdles for barriers, and 4) reflections and recommendations for feedback loop. The study contributed a theoretical- and empirical-based perspective on INGO-GO partnerships in post-reform countries. It provided a framework that comprehensively describes and explains partnership dynamics. The study also shared knowledge of the intricacies of INGO-GO partnerships in rural Vietnam. For institutions serving agricultural and rural development, the study could assist in strategic management to minimize constraints and maximize opportunities in collaborative environments.