This study investigated whether (I) socio-demographic factors such as age, gender, race, number of years in marriage. number of children, frequency of marriage. and educational level (2) psychological well-being. and (3) communication will significantly predict marital satisfaction among married people in Gauteng Province and (4) whether married people with alcxithymia do have satisfactory marriages?.Data was collected on married participants who were randomly selected in Gauteng Province. The sample comprised both males 313 (63.1 %) and females 183 (36.9%). participants were above the consenting age of 18 years, with age ranging between 20 to 72 years.The results indicate that communication, alexithymia, and psychological well-being do predict marital satisfaction significant!}. A positive correlation was found between dyadic adjustment and psychological well-being, also between communication and alexithymia.Three hypotheses were accepted, except for the one of demographic factors which was partially accepted since not all of them were found to predict marital satisfaction. except age and sex. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc. (Research Psychology) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2013

Historically, any stigma surrounding sexuality places a burden on individuals who do not self-identify as heterosexuals collectively referred to as "sexual minority". Sexual minority university students possess multiple identities due to experiences of discrimination and victimization on university campuses (Mays & Cochran, 2000). These minority groups appear to have higher rates of anxiety, depression, substance use disorders and suicidal behaviour when compared to heterosexual students. This stigrnatisation and victimisation has led to the current study focusing on the psychological wellbeing, identity crisis and resilience of sexual minority students in a South African University. The researcher followed a narrative oriented design within the qualitative research approach. Data was collected through a narrative oriented design that allowed the researcher to dig deeper into the life experiences of the students from both individual and collective perspectives. Data was analysed thematically and feelings, values and meanings were connected through ideas and personal view points. Snowball sampling was used. The sample consisted of 11 African students, 4 gays and 7 lesbians with an age range between 19 and 24 years were recruited from different faculties and levels of study. Three major themes were extracted during analysis and the principal outcome of the study was that homosexuals have a major challenge in their future in the work industry. The results also indicated a poor psychological wellbeing with the students, some identity crisis and moderate resilience. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.(Clinical Psychology) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2014

Robertson and Seymour proved that graphs are well-quasi-ordered by the minor relation. In other words, given infinitely many graphs, one graph contains another as a minor. An application of this theorem is that every property that is closed under deleting vertices, edges, and contracting edges can be characterized by finitely many graphs, and hence can be decided in polynomial time. In this thesis we are concerned with the topological minor relation. We say that a graph G contains another graph H as a topological minor if H can be obtained from a subgraph of G by repeatedly deleting a vertex of degree two and adding an edge incident with the neighbors of the deleted vertex. Unlike the relation of minor, the topological minor relation does not well-quasi-order graphs in general. However, Robertson conjectured in the late 1980's that for every positive integer k, the topological minor relation well-quasi-orders graphs that do not contain a topological minor isomorphic to the path of length k with each edge duplicated. This thesis consists of two main results. The first one is a structure theorem for excluding a fixed graph as a topological minor, which is analogous to a cornerstone result of Robertson and Seymour, who gave such a structure for graphs that exclude a fixed minor. Results for topological minors were previously obtained by Grohe and Marx and by Dvorak, but we push one of the bounds in their theorems to the optimal value. This improvement is needed for the next theorem. The second main result is a proof of Robertson's conjecture. As a corollary, properties on certain graphs closed under deleting vertices, edges, and "suppressing" vertices of degree two can be characterized by finitely many graphs, and hence can be decided in polynomial time.

Cerebral palsy is the most common motor disability in childhood. The disorders of movement and posture are characterised by abnormal patterns of movement related to defective movement coordination and regulation of muscle tone. Secondary problems that may develop include perceptions of fatigue and pain. Difficulties with body function and structure affect the levels of activity and participation of the person, such as functional independence, walking ability and participation in leisure activities. These multiple facets of functioning contribute to the known physical inactivity problem apparent in youth with cerebral palsy. In addition, these low physical activity levels contribute to further deterioration of functioning. Hence, a vicious cycle of deconditioning exists. A community-based swimming programme was proposed to combat this vicious cycle. A systematic review on the effect of an aquatic intervention on the multiple facets of functioning of youth with cerebral palsy revealed no studies that measured the effect on pain, coordination and quality of life. Moreover, none of the authors reported the perceived enjoyment of the participants during the intervention. Furthermore, there was a lack of controlled studies reporting the effect of a swimming intervention on walking ability, fatigue, functional independence, self-perception, participation in leisure activities and aquatic skills in ambulatory youth with cerebral palsy. Consequently, the aim of this thesis was to investigate the effect of swimming on these multiple facets of functioning that are associated with the low physical activity levels, in youth with cerebral palsy. A randomised controlled cross-over design was implemented to investigate the effect of a 10-week swimming intervention on pain intensity, fatigue, walking ability, bilateral and upper limb coordination, functional independence, perceived competence, global self-worth, quality of life and swimming skills. A pre-test – post-test design was used to assess the effect of taking part in a swimming programme on participation in leisure activities. Fourteen 7 to 17 year-old youth with cerebral palsy with the ability to walk with or without walking aids completed the tests on all measurement occasions. All youth had a high adherence towards the programme, participated in the intervention with high levels of enjoyment, and most youth continued to participate in swimming after completing the programme. Moreover, no adverse events due to the programme were reported and no participants withdrew from the intervention. Swimming skills improved significantly over the 10-week swimming programme, and improved significantly more than over the control period. The changes were retained throughout a 20-week follow-up period. Positive trends of improvement were evident for walking distance at maximum walking speed, upper limb coordination, functional independence in social functioning and mobility, and perceived motor competence. The intervention was not associated with increases of pain and fatigue. Participation in the swimming programme did not affect bilateral coordination, functional independence in self-care, self-perception and quality of life. The evidence of the pre-test – post-test study suggests that learning the skill of swimming encouraged participation in activities of the formal domain, active-physical and skill-based activities, and facilitated youth to engage in aquatic activities. No control data were obtained in the pre-test – post-test study; however, the results are promising in view of the known deterioration in participation with increasing age. Additionally, the present study showed that the perceptions of youth with cerebral palsy that learning a new skill is too time consuming, and that physical activity is not fun and carries a risk of injury, pain and fatigue, were eliminated in the swimming program. The consolidation of swimming skills and high levels of enjoyment during the programme, are expected to improve participation, engagement and adherence to physical activity, which was confirmed in the present study as youth participated more in aquatic activities after one year than before the start of the study. It was concluded that swimming is an enjoyable and safe community-based physical activity that may have a positive effect on the physical, social and emotional well-being in 7 to 17 year-old youth with cerebral palsy with the ability to walk. The elimination of some of the barriers confronted by youth with cerebral palsy to engaging in physical activity is important with regard to the sustainment of a physically active lifestyle. The findings suggest that participation in swimming may aid in breaking the cycle of deconditioning.

This thesis investigates different aspects of family structure and children’s well-being in Sweden. Applying a child perspective, it analyzes children’s likelihood of stepfamily entry, their emotional well-being in different family forms and educational outcomes in families with complex sibling structures. Analyses are performed using data from nationally representative surveys of both parents and children as well as from administrative registers. The results do not show any socioeconomic differences in the process of family reconstitution, although children of parents with low educational attainment are more likely to be in the risk pool for stepfamily formation. There are however differences by gender, with girls having higher likelihood of stepfamily entry than boys, especially in the younger ages. Children are also more likely to experience a stepfamily formation on the paternal side, thus gaining a stepmother. Gender differences can also be found in the association between family type and emotional as well as educational well-being, with girls showing slightly more adverse outcomes than boys. Children of both sexes do however show lower well-being and school outcomes in post-separation family types than in original two-parent families. Like previous international stepfamily literature the results show that Swedish children in stepfamilies and blended families experience adverse emotional and educational outcomes but that the differences are generally small. The main contrast to previous, mostly American, studies are the lack of socioeconomic differences in stepfamily formation and that adverse emotional outcomes in single parent families as well as stepfamilies seem to be mainly explained by differences in parenting and the parent-child relationship rather than economic deprivation. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper3: Manuscript.</p> / Familjestruktur, ekonomiska resurser och barns levnadsvillkor

My dissertation defends a modern version of Role Ethics modeled on the functioning of human moral psychology, and proposes a novel method for identifying the institutional roles of a well-ordered collective. In particular, I defend the view that our duties are determined by the social roles we incur in the communities we inhabit. The companion project extends Role Ethics into the political domain. I argue that we can identify the well-ordered collective in roughly the same way we identify the good individual, by discerning the dispositions in the relevant agent that are conducive to its well-being. By scaling up, we shift attention from the moral dispositions of individuals to the moral dispositions of collectives -- the institutions that determine the moral character of a population. While philosophers have tended to focus on the formal institutions of the state, this research is largely concerned with the 'informal institutions' of a collective, the implicit social roles/practices constructed and enforced endogenously, such as those involved in structuring human friendships. What I call 'Collective Eudaimonism' is a kind of virtue ethics writ large, a normative theory tasked with identifying correlations between a set of informal institutions and the indicators of flourishing human collectives. / text

This report involves a proposed study that intends to examine the effects of mindfulness training for graduate students in the helping profession. The study aims to examine a possible complement to psychology graduate education that may enhance well-being and prevent deleterious consequences of stress, as well as provide students with knowledge and skills to better prepare them for their future roles as practitioners. The study will empirically investigate the efficacy of a mindfulness-based intervention to enhance well-being, benefit the therapist-client relationship through the cultivation of empathy, and promote clinical training progress via enhancing skills rated by clinical supervisors. Additional goals include examination of whether mindfulness training increases mindfulness levels and clarification of the relationship between amount of mindfulness practice and mental health outcomes. This report provides an integrated analysis of relevant current literature related to these research goals, including an overview of mindfulness, outlining its origins and defining the construct. After providing this basis for understanding, this report describes mindfulness practice, with particular focus given to Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), which is the intervention to be utilized in the proposed study. Following a brief review of empirical findings that summarize the effects of MBSR found in the literature, mental health providers are discussed as a particularly at-risk population for experiencing stress and its deleterious effects on personal and professional life. The relationship, overlap, and similarities between mindfulness and psychotherapy that have been suggested in the literature are then described, with consideration given to the particular elements they share. Literature which describes a gap in psychology graduate school curricula that neglects self care and clinical skills training, and research that indicates that beginning helping professionals may particularly benefit from self care training is discussed. This report then suggests that mindfulness training may uniquely and efficaciously complement psychology graduate school training, with respect to the enhancement of well-being of therapists in training, their ability to cope with graduate school, and their development of clinical skills. The proposed study is then presented, describing methods and expected results, finishing with a brief discussion. / text

Cancer, the most common cause of death in Hong King, poses marked psychological impacts through treatment into cancer survivorship. Literature indicated that internal health locus of control was associated with better psychosocial adjustment (Wang et al., 2013). Meanwhile, fatalistic view was related to avoidant coping and poor psychological adjustment (Chan, 2000). However, fatalism might have a different meaning for the Chinese (Ho et al., 2003). The present study examined the relationship of health locus of control, fate Control and subjective well-being among Chinese cancer patients. Ninety-nine cancer patients were assessed with Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale, Fate Control Scale from Social Axiom Survey and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Scale-General during active treatment (Time 1) and with WHO-5 Well-Being Index at a six-month follow-up (Time 2). At Time 1, results indicated positive correlation between powerful others health locus of control and functional well-being. At Time 2, internal health locus of control was positively correlated with WHO-5 while social well-being at Time 1 was positively correlated with WHO-5. Implication of findings and limitations of study were discussed. / published_or_final_version / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

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The work in this thesis explores the relationship between singing and well-being. In particular, I focus on investigating the potential for group singing to promote feelings of hedonic, eudaimonic and social well-being. The theoretical evidence suggests that such is possible because music activities are structured to engage mind and body in overcoming a challenge, generating feelings of achievement and pleasure in the process. However, the empirical evidence on such effects is less conclusive, reflecting the novelty of the field. I start by developing a model capable of generating hypotheses and framing the empirical work on the relationship between group singing and well-being. In this model, I integrate a conceptualization of well-being as a multidimensional concept with a conceptualization of group singing as a challenging multifaceted activity. The model suggests that well-being is promoted by group singing through the effects this activity has on its psychological, bodily and social correlates. However, the model also accounts for possible moderating effects of situational factors and individual differences. My empirical work focus first on clarifying that group singing involves the types of experiences that can generate feelings of hedonic, eudaimonic and social well-being. I then show that singing in a group relates to long-term measures of well-being, particularly social and eudaimonic. In the short-term, group singing is also consistently related to correlates of well-being. It is shown to increase positive affect, decrease negative affect, increase feelings of achievement and connection to others. Situational factors such as the social context in which the singing occurs are shown to have a moderating effect on endocrine effects of group singing. However, gender differences do not emerge. I also show that group singing can have effects over and above those of a similar, though non-musical, group activity. Overall, the evidence suggests a meaningful relationship between group singing and well-being.