published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

Charisma has remained an important dimension of humankind’s social life, especially when religion is concerned. This thesis aims to address the question of how charisma is maintained even as it becomes routinized. In the sociology of Max Weber, charisma is defined as the extraordinary quality of a leader recognized by his followers and constitutes a type of authority in contrast to legal-rational and traditional authorities. Weber then proposed the thesis of the routinization of charisma, arguing that charisma was revolutionary, yet also inherently ephemeral and would inevitably be “routinized” into legal-rational or traditional authority. Recent studies have remodeled the concept of charisma based on empirical cases and theoretical contributions provided by prolific literature after Weber. Charisma has been redefined as “the expectation of the extraordinary” and the interdependence of charisma, institution and tradition has been increasingly emphasized, instead of their mutual exclusiveness. To address the question, this study examines the case of Soka Gakkai and Soka Gakkai International (SG&I), a new religion, which originated in prewar Japan. It has established a gigantic organization with an alleged membership of twelve million throughout the world and has developed various institutions affiliated to it. Meanwhile, its current leader, Ikeda Daisaku (池田大作), is well known as a charismatic leader to whom millions of members have expressed personal devotion for over five decades. It specifically focuses on young male Japanese members living in Hong Kong, who can be regarded in the periphery of the organization. This study argues that discipleship of followers is the key to the maintenance of charisma. Discipleship shapes members’ identity, daily practice and lives. Ethnographic accounts on members’ daily activities and the life stories of three members, yielded through eight months of fieldwork, illustrate members’ paths to become disciples and the nature of their discipleship. Also, the techniques employed by the organization to cultivate the discipleship are demonstrated. These include reinterpreting a Japanese traditional concept shitei (mentor and disciple), cultivating discipleship in secular educational institutions and offering rhetorical devices such as commemorative dates. My findings not only enhance our understanding of charisma and its routinization, but also shed light on the daily activities of grassroots members of SG&I, which until recently, have been neglected by literature on SG&I. / published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

This study was conducted to investigate factors that contribute to resilience in students with learning disabilities (LD). The risk-resilience framework provided the theoretical base for selecting school and personal factors that might predict resilience. School and personal data were requested from large, culturally and linguistically diverse samples of individuals diagnosed with LD. A 12 variable model and three cluster models (combined variables) were developed. Discriminant analysis and tests of significance of hit rates were conducted to assess the accuracy of the full model (all 12 variables) to the prediction of resilience, and full versus restricted model testing was done to assess individual variable and cluster (combinations of some variables) contributions to the model. Additionally, analyses of environmental, intrapersonal, and interpersonal cluster models were investigated to determine their relative contribution to the prediction of resilience in relation to the others. Results of the full model analysis and subsequent tests of significance of hit rate indicated modest cross validated classification accuracy for the total group, resilient group, and non-resilient group. However, the model was not significantly better than chance, overall, at predicting resilience and non-resilience in students with LD. Results of the analysis of individual predictor variables’ and clusters’ contributions to the model’s classification accuracy indicated that no individual variable within the full model, nor cluster of interrelated variables contributed significant incremental improvement in classification accuracy above and beyond that which is available from all other variables contained in the full model. The independent analysis of interrelated personal and school related factors clustered as environmental, interpersonal, and intrapersonal clusters revealed that, as unique and separate models, classification accuracy of cross-validated group cases were less than optimal for each cluster. The results further demonstrate that resilience is affected by both internal and external factors. Although the results also demonstrate that factors work together, a great deal is still to be learned regarding factors affecting resilience as well as their interplay in clusters of factors that affect resilience. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Resilience is imperative during adolescence. Previous studies focused on the moderating role of parenting between temperament and adaptive outcomes in children (Karreman et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2016). However, little is known about how personality such as neuroticism affects resilience during adolescence, and how parenting influences neuroticism and resilience at this life stage. The current study investigated the longitudinal effects of neuroticism and both positive and negative parenting on selfreports of resilience in a sample of high-school adolescents in Lithuania (N = 859). The results suggested that high levels of neuroticism predicted declining rates of resilience. This association was moderated by parent support and behavioral control. Specifically, high levels of parent support and behavioral control would attenuate the effect of neuroticism on resilience during adolescence, but only when the neuroticism level of the individual was not high. The findings indicate that the neuroticism erodes the advantages that are otherwise associated with positive parenting. The findings have important implications. Good parenting is effective to foster resilience among children with low neuroticism, but for children with high neuroticism, more attention should be paid to the specific skills that might directly foster resilience rather than relying on parenting. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

No description available.

This thesis began largely as an exploration into right-wing political ideology and its relationship to The Authoritarian Personality proposed by Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson and Sanford (1950). It had initially been envisaged that contemporary examples would manifest themselves within many neo-Fascist or ‘White Pride’ style organisations and as an adage to their supposed historical underpinnings, would therefore be representative of modern day authoritarianism. As previously discovered by Eysenck and Coulter (1974) in their examination of British Fascists and Communists, the authoritarian syndrome is somewhat more complex to explain by way of reference to a number of radical semi-political organisations. Subsequently, the thesis was to take on a deeper and more philosophical direction as various parts of the literature were analysed and critiqued. And indeed to some extent the original proposal was abandoned in favour of a richer and more conceptual approach to our understanding of authoritarianism. This was discovered to be distinctly missing from the majority of the current literature in the field.

Dissertation (PhD)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Montana, 2006. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed Mar. 29, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 109-125).

This research aims to probe into the influence of personalities and internship work condition toward technical and vocational students¡¦ willingness into tourism industry through questionnaires toward students who major in tourism so as to find out the following purposes: 1. The relations between demographic variations and technical and vocational students¡¦ willingness into tourism industry. 2. The relations between personalities and technical and vocational students¡¦ willingness into tourism industry. 3. The relations between work conditions (wage, working hours and working environment) and technical and vocational students¡¦ willingness into tourism industry. 4. The relations between interference of socialization experience and leadership and technical and vocational students¡¦ willingness into tourism industry. This research primarily working on questionnaire survey with eventually 79.56% valid responding rate by using spss 10.0 to analyze with mean, Cronbach¡¦ £\, descriptive statistics, correlation and multi-regression to verify assumptions. 1. Descriptive statistical analysis: (1) Work conditions: Regarding to students¡¦ response, the highest is work environment and the lowest is compensation. (2) Personality Trait: Regarding to students¡¦ response, the highest is Agreeableness and the lowest is Neuroticism. (3) Socialization: Regarding to students¡¦ response, the highest is work command and the lowest is goal and values. (4) Leadership: Students¡¦ response toward leadership tends to moderate (5) Willingness into tourism industry: Students¡¦ response toward leadership tends to moderate. 2.Correlation analysis¡G (1) Correlation analysis between demographic variations and willingness into tourism industry. 1. There¡¦s no correlation between gender and willingness into tourism industry 2. Positive correlation between major and willingness into tourism industry 3. Positive correlation between Dining Dept., Room Dept. and willingness into tourism industry. 4. Positive correlation between part-time experience and willingness into tourism Industry. (2) Correlation analysis between personality traits and willingness into tourism industry. 1. There¡¦s no correlation between personality trait of Openness and willingness into tourism industry 2. Positive correlation between personality trait of Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness and willingness into tourism industry 3. Negative correlation between personality trait of Neuroticism and willingness into tourism industry (3) Positive correlation between work conditions and willingness into tourism Industry. (4) Positive correlation between socialization and willingness into tourism industry. (5) Positive correlation between leadership and willingness into tourism industry. 3.Multi-regression analysis¡G (1)The interference of socialization between personality trait and willingness into tourism industry. Students with personality trait of Extraversion and Agreeableness could be reinforced willingness into tourism industry by socialization. (2)The interference of leadership between personality trait and willingness into tourism industry. Students with personality trait of Openness, Extraversion and neuroticism could be reinforced willingness into tourism industry by good interaction with supervisors. (3)There¡¦s no interference of socialization between work conditions and willingness into tourism industry. (4)There¡¦s no interference of leadership between work conditions and willingness into tourism industry.

Based on the vocational personality trait, this study aims to explore the relationship between the vocational preference inventory conducted by new recruitment of T Bank and their individual performance, as well as the influences of professional training hours on different level of works. Furthermore, this study will search for the correlation between controlling variables and population variables. This study collects relevant information from database established at T Bank beginning from its establishment to the end of 2003, which are categorized as the following files: ¡§vocational preference inventory¡¨, ¡§educational training¡¨, ¡§employees¡¦ performance¡¨ and employees¡¦ basic information¡¨, then executes the statistic analysis for a total of 926 effective samples through one-way ANOVA, Pearson correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis. This study also uses the results of the vocational preference inventory, conducted by the T Bank new recruitment, as the independent variables, individual performance as dependable variables and the professional training hours, work classification as moderating variables, searching for the correlation and influence between them. Furthermore, this study searches for the moderating effects between each item of variables by using the professional training hours and work classifications as moderating variable. This study reveal that the variables such as ¡§gender¡¨, ¡§age¡¨, ¡§education¡¨ and ¡§work period¡¨ appear obvious discrepancy respectively in individual performance, while there is no obvious difference in the devotional degree of an organization. Then, there is an obvious correlation in some parts of professional personality trait, revealing a fact that the employees should be assigned for his or her work according to the results of the vocational preference inventory. In the ¡§work classification¡¨ to ¡§vocational personality trait¡¨, ¡§leadership¡¨ and ¡§challenge¡¨ show the moderating effects on ¡§indivisual performance¡¨. Finally, the study indicates that the ¡§professional training hours¡¨ has no moderating effects on the ¡§professional personality trait¡¨ and ¡§individual performance¡¨ and it also presents that the ¡§independence¡¨ in the ¡§professional personality trait¡¨ is the key factor for each employee¡¦s independent learning. The results of study also reveal that the vocational preference inventory and the professional training hours play in employees training. There are few studies for the vocational preference inventory, in particular its substantial experiment; therefore, this study aims to enhance and supplement the study for this part. On the other hand, this study also approves that the professional training shall be designed on a basis of short-term course in order to meet the actual requirements and efficiently carry out one special mission.