During the process of community empowerment, resident participation has always played a significant role. Issues such as how to enhance residents¡¦ intention to get involved in community activities are consistently taken into discussion. Previous studies have revealed that community participation can be carried out by the integration of community awareness. However, most of these studies were generally focused on the exploration of inducement and strategy, rarely examining from the perspective of psychological decision-making factors such as behavior model, changing factors and efficacy. Therefore, the purpose of the study is: first, to understand the relationship between Sense of Community and Social Capital; second, to testify the influence of Sense of Community on Collective Efficacy and Self-efficacy; third, to explore the impact of Social Capital on the perspective of Theory of Planned Behavior; finally, to combine the related perspectives from Sense of Community, Social Capital, Social Cognition and Theory of Planned Behavior to develop residents community participation behavior model. The research variables of the study include Sense of Community, Norm Value, Neighborhood Interaction, Trust, Collective Efficacy, Self-Efficacy, Subject Norm, Attitude, Behavioral Intention and Community Participation. The research objects of 572 valid samples are community residents from 10 community development associations in Kaohsiung City. Questionnaires were collected and analyzed with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to examine and explain each variable that influence residents¡¦ intention to participate in community. The results indicated that all the 11 assumptions present positive correlations. It is found that the Sense of Community presents great impact on Collective Efficacy, Norm Value and Neighborhood Interaction. Collective Efficacy also has strong influence on Self-Efficacy and Attitude. The result of the study based on the theories of Sense of Community, Social Capital, Social Cognitive Theory, and Theory of Planned Behavioral is considered as acceptable model as the development of resident community participation model reaches ideal standard on the index of Mean Root Square Error of Approximation (MRSEA). The research not only fulfills the purpose of study, but also provides concrete strategies for further studies. It also presents positive effect for Self-Efficacy and Collective Efficacy application on Social Cognitive Theory.

Differential framing occurs when individuals with different latent motives assign qualitatively different meanings to the same attributes or events in the environment (James&Mazerolle, 2002; James&McIntyre, 1996). The implications of this phenomenon for the explanation and prediction of behavior are substantial: In perfectly logical fashions, individuals in exactly the same situation have qualitatively different experiences. In this way, differential framing mediates the relationship between motives and the behaviors that comprise traits. This dissertation tested several propositions associated with this phenomenon, and the results tentatively suggest that individuals with contrasting motives form qualitatively distinct impressions of the same organizational cultures.

A young adult is defined to be in the ages 16–25 and it is during these years that they step in to the job market. Many young adults feel pressured by society to have a job and to keep it. There are motivational factors such as money, activity level, variation, social contacts and personal development that drives the young adult to want a job. The purpose of the study was to examine which motivational factors are significant and the difference between the genders. The study was based on a questionnaire with 48 participants categorized in the ages between 16–20 and 21–25. The result of the study showed that money and social contacts are the most significant factors for young adults. There were no significant differences between genders when it comes to the factors money and social contacts. Further, the study showed that women are more affected by the unemployment than men, and that a new factor, fear, showed up in the questionnaires’ open answers.

Like others who endure serious stressors, cancer patients often report personal growth as a result of their illness, a phenomenon termed "posttraumatic growth." Although researchers often accept these reports as valid, temporal comparison theory suggests that people may overestimate such growth. According to the theory, remembering the past self as less positive than the present self may serve as an illusory self-enhancement process that allows one to see continual personal growth. Thus, reports of posttraumatic growth may represent perceived rather than actual change in the self. To test this possibility, we prospectively examined 88 individuals with early stage breast (Stage 0, I or II) or prostate (Stage I or II) cancer. Patients completed measures of positive attributes and personal meaning prior to radiation treatment (Time 1) and again following radiation treatment (Time 2). At Time 2, participants were also asked to recreate their Time 1 responses (Recalled Time 1). Difference scores between Time 1 and Time 2 were generated to represent actual change, and between Recalled Time 1 and Time 2 to represent perceived change. Over the three assessments, ratings of personal meaning showed no change. Ratings of positive attributes showed actual positive change, F (1, 85) = 12.88, p = .0006. Patients, however, did not perceive themselves as changing, F (1, 85) = 3.34, p = n.s. Recalled Time 1 ratings significantly overestimated actual Time 1 ratings, F (1, 85) = 4.91, p = .03. Posttraumatic growth was not correlated with actual change, r = .12, n.s., but was significantly correlated with perceived change, r = .27, p = .01. Findings suggest that self-reported posttraumatic growth may reflect perceived rather than actual change over time.

Decades of research have demonstrated that people sometimes provide self-evaluations that emphasize their most flattering qualities. Different theoretical accounts have been offered to explain the mechanisms underlying positively-biased self-evaluation. Some researchers theorize that positively-biased self-evaluations arise from a self-protection motivation because positivity biases increase in situations of heightened self-esteem threat. Alternative views question whether self-protection motivation is a necessary or even dominant source of positivity bias by demonstrating that positively-biased self-evaluations occur even when threat is not heightened, and that a general judgment approach leads to positivity biases in some domains but also to negativity biases in other domains. One reason for this gap in knowledge is that behavioral measures are limited in their ability to resolve whether the processes underlying positively-biased self-evaluation are the same or different depending on contextual motivators. Neuroimaging methods are well suited to examine whether different mechanisms underlie similar behaviors, specifically similar positively-biased responses in different contexts. The four studies presented here explore the neural mechanisms of positively-biased self-evaluation by first identifying a core set of neural regions associated with positivity bias (Study 1A and 1sB), examining whether a heightened self-protection motivation changes the engagement of those neural systems (Study 2), and specifying the precise mechanisms supported by those regions (Study 3). Studies 1A and 1B revealed evidence for a neural system comprised of medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and, to a lesser extent dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) that was modulated by positivity bias. Study 2 found that a heightened self-protection motivation changes the engagement of medial OFC in positively-biased self-evaluation. Finally, Study 3 found evidence that medial OFC may support a common mechanism in positively-biased judgment that is implemented differently as a function of the motivational context. Taken together, these studies represent a first step toward developing a neural model of positively-biased self-evaluation. The findings provide some preliminary evidence that positivity biases may represent distinct processes in different motivational contexts. This dissertation sets the stage for future work to examine how specific positively-biased cognitive mechanisms may be supported by specific neural systems and computations as a function of motivational contexts. / text

Despite there being some changes to the way that people with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) are viewed in society, negative attitudes prevail. One of the aspirations of the Paralympic games 2012 organisers was to influence the public’s attitudes towards disabled people. The aim of this study was to investigate whether stimuli depicting people with ID performing at a Paralympic level of sport can change attitudes towards ID. A mixed randomised comparison group design was employed comparing two groups; those who viewed Paralympic level ID sport footage and information, and those who viewed Olympic footage and information on measures of implicit attitudes towards disability and explicit attitudes towards people with ID. One hundred and fourteen students at a UK university were administered the measures pre and post the stimuli presentation. Implicit attitudes significantly changed in a positive direction from T1 to T2 for both groups. Attitudes of empowerment increased from T1-T2, nearing significance. The findings provide evidence that Paralympic (ID) and Olympic footage plus written information seems to change attitudes towards people with ID, at least in the short term. Viewing elite sports information and footage may have at least a short term effect on attitudes towards ID which provides some tentative support to one of the London 2012 legacy promises. However it does not seem to matter which footage people are exposed to. Given both types of stimuli proved effective it suggests the possible role of affect in changing attitudes through the media, which warrants further investigation.

Section A is a systematic review of the literature surrounding school-based interventions to address the stigma faced by people diagnosed with mental health problems. It asks the question of what the role of these interventions currently and potentially is and what is important for their efficacy. It begins by acknowledging the problem that stigma and discrimination presents, identifying what leads to and perpetuates this stigma. It then presents key theoretical and empirical contributions to our understanding of stigma and also to our understanding of how learning develops and attitudes form. The review goes on to look at what has been done in schools to date and highlights ‘active ingredients’ in these programmes, discussing the extent to which the current picture addresses theoretical and empirical contributions. Suggestions for further research are provided. Section B provides the findings of a grounded theory study investigating how primary school teachers communicate with children about mental health problems. Individual semi-structured interviews were carried out with fifteen teachers in three state schools. A model of communication is presented, which explains why discussions about mental health problems are absent from the primary school classroom. There appear to be a number of reasons for this. Teachers have fears about the implications of talking about mental health problems with children. These are connected to their beliefs and fears regarding those with mental health problems, their beliefs about mental health problems in relation to children and its place in the classroom, and about their professional roles. Relating to theory, teachers perceive themselves as part of a homogenous ‘in-group’ as distinct from a homogenous ‘out-group’ with mental health problems. Fears, beliefs and ingroup perceptions lead teachers to ‘play safe’ and avoid conversations about mental health problems in the classroom. This absence of discussion may reinforce for children that mental health problems are taboo. Greater links are required between schools and mental health services, and clinical psychologists need to be proactive in influencing policymakers by promoting the argument that teaching on mental health problems has an important place within the British school curriculum. Section C is a critical appraisal of this research, including discussion of the experience of being a researcher throughout this process. Consideration is given to the skills developed, areas where they may need to be expanded upon, areas where things could have been done differently, as well as research and clinical implications of the findings.

Beliefs--mental representations of particular propositions as true--are fundamental to social cognition. Among the most influential beliefs are ideologies, which concern the way things should be and help people understand the social structures within which they live. Ideologies occupy a unique position because they contain elements of other types of beliefs. For example, to a Biblical literalist, the belief that the earth is 4000 years old may seem fact-like. Because not everyone agrees about ideologies, however, such beliefs may seem somewhat preference-like even to their strongest adherents. To investigate the role of social experience in reasoning about ideologies, we examined children and adults. Because children have significantly less experience with ideologies, their reasoning may diverge from adults. On the other hand, if children and adults respond similarly, this would indicate that vast amounts of experience are not necessary for adult-like belief-based cognition to emerge. Part 1 showed that 5-10 year old children and adults distinguished ideological beliefs from factual beliefs(a domain in which, if two people disagree, at least one must be wrong) and preference-based beliefs(a domain in which it is acceptable for people to disagree), indicating that much experience is unnecessary for this ability to emerge. Given that even young children recognize that those who disagree with their ideological beliefs are not necessarily wrong, it is possible that children would not show strong social preferences in this domain. On the other hand, given children’s propensity toward group-based preferences in other areas, even young children may show religion-based preferences. In Part II, 6-8 year old Christian children showed implicit pro-Christian preferences regardless of the comparison target’s religion but only reported pro-Christian preferences when the two targets were very different from one another. In Part III, 6-11 year old children preferred peers who shared their religious, factual, and preference-based beliefs and selectively attributed pro-social behaviors to individuals who shared their religious views. Taken together, these findings suggest that children and adults differentiate ideologies from other types of mental states and that, despite its complexity, ideology influences social judgments even among young children. / Psychology

The current research, across three studies, examined two social practices that involve processing and responding to others’ emotions, theory of mind (ToM) and empathy, and how they relate to dysphoria and the social impairments associated with dysphoria over time. Mildly depressed, or dysphoric, individuals, have been found to have heightened ToM when identifying others’ emotions, despite reporting widespread social impairments (Harkness et al., 2005). The first study (Chapter 2) examined if and how ToM is a mediator in the relationship between dysphoria and social functioning. Attribution style, specifically the internalizing attribution bias, was hypothesized to play a role. The interaction between ToM and internalizing attribution bias was independently associated with social functioning. For internalizing attributors, higher ToM was related to better social functioning, but no relationship was observed between ToM and social functioning among non-internalizing attributors. The second study (Chapter 3) examined the relationship between ToM and empathy, addressing the debate surrounding cognitive and affective aspects of ToM and empathy. Affective ToM and cognitive empathy both have been described as processes involving cognitive inferences about others’ emotions. Current results supported this link, showing that a specific component of empathy, perspective-taking, was related to ToM. Although ToM was associated with some aspects of empathy, empathy remained a separate construct that includes both cognitive and emotional responding to others’ emotions. Chapter 4 shifted focus to empathy to examine how this social practice relates to dysphoria and social functioning. The last study first examined how empathy relates to dysphoria. Results showed that only personal distress, one component of empathy, was associated with greater dysphoria. The final study also examined if the empathy x emotion regulation interaction mediates the relationship between dysphoria and social functioning. Different patterns were observed for different emotion regulation types. The interaction between maladaptive, but not adaptive, emotion regulation strategies and empathy was correlated directly with social functioning. For individuals with negative cognitive emotion regulation strategies, greater empathy was associated with better social functioning, a relationship not present for individuals who do not use negative cognitive emotion regulation. Finally maladaptive, but not adaptive, emotion regulation significantly predicted social functioning after controlling for dysphoria. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2008-10-22 15:25:33.573

In what ways and under what circumstances can a movie be a resource for individuals and their thoughts about existential matters? This central research question has been investigated using a both quantitative and qualitative approach. First, a questionnaire was distributed amongst 179 Swedish students to provide a preliminary overview of film habits. The questionnaire was also used as a tool for selecting respondents to individual interviews. Second, thirteen interviews were conducted, with viewers choosing their favourite movie of all time. In the study socio-cognitive theory and a schema-based theoretical tool is adopted to analyze how different viewers make use of movies as cultural products in an interplay between culture and cognition in three contexts; a socio-historic process, a socio-cultural interaction with the world and inner psychological processes. Summarizing the interviews some existential matters dominated. Matters of immanent orientation were in the foreground. Transcendental questions received much less attention. Summarizing the schema-based theoretical question, assessing which cognitive schema structures the narratives were processed through, the study found an emphasis on a combination of two main cognitive structures, person schema and self schema. Detailed person schematic cognitive processes about fictitious characters on the screen and their role model behaviour were combined by the respondents with dynamic cross-references to detailed self schematic introspections about their own characteristics, related to existential matters at some very specific moments in their lives. The viewers in the study seem to be inspired by movies as a mediated cultural resource, promoting the development of a personal moral framework with references to values deeply fostered by a humanistic tradition. It is argued that these findings support theories discussing individualised meaning making, developing ‘self-expression values’ and ‘altruistic individualism’ in contemporary western society.