Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a disabling psychiatric condition that causes pervasive and enduring impairments in social and occupational functioning. Previous literature has outlined the core components of the disorder to include disturbances in affect regulation, identity problems, disrupted interpersonal relationships, and impulsive behavior. While several theories have postulated the primacy of one component in driving the remaining components, the etiological and maintaining mechanisms of BPD are poorly understood. Therefore, the present study examined the primacy of one of these components, identity disturbance, in eliciting changes in the affective, interpersonal, and impulsive components of the disorder. The current study employed an experimental manipulation of identity coherence in 388 undergraduates who were screened for high or low levels of borderline personality features. All participants completed measures of affect prior to and immediately following the manipulation and then completed a GoStop task of impulsivity and an interpersonal trust task in a counterbalanced order. The results suggest individuals with high levels of borderline personality features generally report reduced self-concept clarity and are more susceptible to efforts to alter the coherence of their identity than those with lower levels of borderline personality features. Destabilization of identity coherence led to greater difficulties inhibiting behavior in those with high levels of borderline features, whereas it improved behavioral control in those with low levels of borderline features. These results support theoretical articulations of BPD that indicate impulse control problems are a means of regulating one’s internal self-state. Contrary to some characterizations of the disorder, there was no evidence to suggest that alterations of identity coherence led to an exaggerated emotional response or disturbed interpersonal behavior. This finding is consistent with a number of studies examining affective reactivity to emotion induction procedures, interpersonal stimuli, and now alterations in identity coherence indicating that BPD is better characterized by severe, trait negative affect valence compared to healthy controls rather than hyper-reactivity. Moreover, the failure of interpersonal behavior to vary as a function of borderline personality status or experimental task type indicates the importance of dynamic influences during interactions as potential sources for variability in behavior. Although further research is needed to clarify the mechanisms linking identity, affective dysregulation, and interpersonal behavior; psychosocial interventions aimed at maintaining and developing a stable sense of identity may be beneficial for reducing the impulsive behaviors in BPD, which are potentially most critical for establishing the patient’s safety.

Markus och Kitayama definierar oberoende jag som ett jag som är självständig och separat från andra individer. Kollektivt jag definieras som ett sammankopplat till andra individer. Syftet med studien var att undersöka vilka upplevelser kring identitet som en person med invandrarbakgrund har. Målet var även att undersöka vad som påverkade individens upplevelser kring identiteten. Åtta intervjuer genomfördes genom chat, där deltagarnas ålder varierade mellan 20-46 år. Deltagarnas bakgrund varierade även, och samtliga deltagare var födda i ett annat land än Sverige. Resultat visade att deltagarna kunde vara både flexibla och rigida i sina identiteter beroende på situationen. Deltagarna upplevde flexibilitet i den praktiska dimensionen som definierar det sociala livet. Detta innebär att deltagarna kunde anpassa sig efter situationen och upplevde att de kände sig svenska. I den andra sammanhang hade deltagarna svårigheter att anpassa sig efter den svenska kulturen då banden till den egna kulturen var starka.

This dissertation investigates representations of bureaucracy in early modern drama and culture. Focusing on a group of plays that feature bureaucratic figures among their characters, and reading those plays in the context of contemporary discussions of administration, this project attempts to understand the role played by the increasingly bureaucratic state in developing conceptions of individual subjectivity. Specifically, this dissertation seeks to show that bureaucratic administrative structures and the methods deployed to maintain them provide a conceptual space in which early modern writers could conceive of themselves as possessing a private, inscrutable interiority. Chapter Two argues that whereas the binary relationship of secretary and master is often characterized in contemporary accounts as intensely, and problematically, intimate, the multivalent bureaucratic relationship is characterized, for the most part, as impersonal. Chapter Three links bureaucratic labour with one product of that labour, the bureaucratic document, in order to analyze the way in which early modern representations and discussions of bureaucratic documents constitute a medium through which a form of bureaucratic identity is conceptualized. Chapter Four examines a problem inherent to the bureaucratic delegation of authority – the combination of a desire to see everything and an inability to trust in the observations of others to aid you in fulfilling that desire – and seeks to find a solution to that problem in the way in which Much Ado About Nothing presents a vision of a disciplinary surveillance that is diffused throughout society, rather than residing in one privileged figure. Chapter Five shifts the focus of inquiry from the bureaucracy and those in its employ to the subject of bureaucratic authority. The chapter reads Hamlet’s claims to inscrutable interiority in the context of the state’s desire to see, and document, its subjects. In it, I argue that, rather than deflecting questions, Hamlet’s assertions serve to align him with other targets of disciplinary surveillance. The dissertation ends by considering links between the representational crisis engendered by the growth of the early modern bureaucracy and the representational practices of the early modern theatre. / Thesis (Ph.D, English) -- Queen's University, 2007-09-30 12:50:35.596

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Recent research has unveiled a robust and pervasive phenomenon: individual members of a group consistently perceive higher levels of discrimination directed at their group as a whole as compared to themselves personally as members of that group. This phenomenon has been labelled the "personal/group discrimination discrepancy". Two studies were conducted using female subjects to investigate possible explanations underlying the personal/group discrimination discrepancy. Study 1 examined the effect of question wording employed in previous research. Study 2 investigated the relationship between an individual's perceptions of personal and group discrimination and her personal and social identity with respect to women as a group. Contrary to the main hypothesis, those subjects who made stronger associations between themselves personally as women and women as a group demonstrated a larger discrepancy between ratings of personal and group discrimination as compared to those subjects who less strongly associated themselves personally with the group. This result is discussed in terms of Turner's (1982) concept of depersonalization.

The thesis describes a program of research aimed at delineating an important concept in the social psychology of intergroup relations: tokenism. A series of experiments first established that disadvantaged group members faced with open access to an advantaged group (meritocracy) choose either inaction or attempts at individual upward mobility. Conversely, those faced with an advantaged group that is closed (complete discrimination) engage primarily in collective nonnormative action. However, when faced with severe, but not total, discriminatory restrictions (tokenism), disadvantaged group members consistently prefer individual nonnormative action. This preference is unaffected by increases in ingroup identification, increased prior ingroup interaction, and removal of direct self-interest. Some support was found for the role of situational ambiguity in maintaining the preference for individual action in conditions of tokenism. In two final experiments the behavioral responses of "successful tokens" were investigated. These experiments show that successful tokens shift their allegiance from the disadvantaged group to the advantaged group and choose action in support of this new high-status ingroup at the expense of the disadvantaged group.

<p>The aim of this study was to explore representations of gender, race and sexuality in a select group of South African magazines - Men's Health, FHM, Blink, True Love, Femina and Fair Lady - between 2003 and 2005. From a feminist poststructuralist perspective, it was argued that these magazines presented particular subjectives as normative / privileging and centerig one pole within dichotomies of gender, race and sexuality.</p>

A Muskego Inninuwuk methodology provided the foundation to explore experiences of individuals who possess both Indigenous (Cree) and non-Indigenous ancestry in the development of their identities. Natural conversations facilitated sitting with and listening to Cree Elders and engaging with mixed-ancestry Cree individuals about the stories of their identities. The overall goal was to create space for individuals to express impacts of systems, relationships and ways to come to understand their overall wellbeing and connection to ancestors through stories of identity. Elders shared stories of disconnection and intergenerational experiences that caused diversion from the natural progression of Cree identity development as impacts of colonization. They also shared their stories of re-connection and healing. Common experiences mixed-blood Cree participants highlighted: the impact of colonization on their understanding and expression of themselves as individuals and as members of community, the complexity of their experiences of identity, and how wellbeing is connected to healing. Stories shared processes of healing, decolonization and resurgence of Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing in reclamation of self.