Loneliness is a critical factor that can significantly affect an individual's health and well-being, especially for older adults. Since they are more vulnerable to suffering life transitions, older people are more likely to experience loneliness than people of younger ages. The fast break out and spread of COVID-19 exacerbated the difficulty of their social connections and intensified their feelings of loneliness. Consequently, effective interventions for the aged, particularly effective ones suited to special occasions, are of vital relevance. Consequently, effective interventions for the aged, particularly effective ones suited to special occasions, are of vital relevance. As one of the widely mentioned and applied gerontology theories, the activity theory has been well-studied previously to elucidate the effectiveness of leisure activity participation in reducing lonely feelings. It is worth noting that no one solution works for everyone. This thesis examines the alleviating roles of four types of social activities on loneliness in older Americans considering individual differences, including marital, job, and physical health background. Sample data is from the 2020 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) survey. This thesis collected respondents over 50 years old and included a sample of 4,506. According to previous studies, control variables include age, gender, race and ethnicity, years of education, and health components (self-rated health and memory, COVID infection, and depressive symptoms). The thesis divides social activities into highly productive-active, moderately productive-active, moderately productive-sedentary and consumptive activity. Through three-group regression analysis, this thesis concludes that: (i) highly productive-active activity was the most practical way to reduce loneliness for vulnerable groups; (ii) moderately productive-active activity had the best utility on the elderly who already maintained good social relationships and health status; (iii) moderately productive-sedentary was the only activity type not useful for all groups. (iv) consumptive activity presents a protective tendency towards older people disadvantaged in work but not towards married and partnered people. Meanwhile, the thesis also proposes other classification methods involving activities' cultural and symbolic meanings. The thesis states that activities with spiritual power could better alleviate the loneliness of vulnerable groups, and the symbolic meaning of daily life activity (routine activity) could protect the elderly from isolated feelings caused by being forced out of society to some extent. The repetitive life patterns keep the elderly from inordinate life and psychological gaps. The contribution of the thesis consists of two aspects. First, the thesis maps leisure activities into a three-dimensional system, divided by practical activity attributes for loneliness. From the process of grouping and categorizing, it is possible to provide a more practical understanding of the social connection. Second, the thesis demonstrates the necessity to consider the diversity of older people. Activities were associated differently with loneliness in groups with distinct characteristics. The thesis found that context discrepancy profoundly affects the effectiveness of interventions.

Categorization is a complex decision-making process that requires observers to collect information about stimuli using their senses. While research on visual or auditory categorization is extensive, there has been little attention given to tactile categorization. Here we developed a paradigm for studying tactile categorization using 3D-printed objects. Furthermore, we derived a categorization model using Bayesian inference and tested its performance against human participants in our categorization task. This model accurately predicted participant performance in our task but consistently outperformed them, even after extending the learning period for our participants. Through theoretical exploration and simulations, we demonstrated that the presence of sensory measurement noise could account for this performance gap, which we determined was a present factor in participants undergoing our task through a follow-up experiment. Including measurement noise led to a better-fitting model that was able to match the performance of our participants much more closely. Overall, the work in this thesis provides evidence for the efficacy of a tactile categorization experimental paradigm, demonstrates that a Bayesian model is a good fit and predictor for human categorization performance, and underscores the importance of accounting for sensory measurement noise in categorization models. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / The process of categorization is an essential part of our daily life as we encounter various things in the world. Here we explore a model that attempts to explain this process. This model is derived using Bayesian inference and was applied to human behavioural data in a categorization task. We found that the model accounted for most of the performance of our participants but consistently outperformed them. We conducted simulations to explore and demonstrate that this difference is primarily due to the presence of sensory noise in participants. Once we accounted for this noise, we found that our model predicted human performance even more accurately. The work in this thesis demonstrates that a Bayesian Categorization Model which accounts for sensory noise is a good fit and predictor for human performance on categorization tasks.

In this dissertation, two exemplar-based models of categorization, the General Context Model (GCM) and the Exemplar Based Random Walk model (EBRW), were used to describe between-group categorization differences in artificial and natural language categories. Prior research has shown that political Conservatives in avoidance mode are more exclusive categorizers of natural language category members than Conservatives in approach mode, but this effect was absent for Liberals (Rock & Janoff-Bulman, 2010). In Experiment 1, experimenter-generated stimuli were used to show that the EBRW could account for between-group differences in categorization decisions. In Experiment 2, the data collected by Rock and Janoff-Bulman were used to develop techniques allowing the GCM to account for between-group differences in natural language categorization decisions. Experiment 3 extends these methods to allow the EBRW to account for between-group differences in natural language categorization decisions. Across these experiments, the models identify between-group differences in determining similarity, bias to give an "in-the-category" decision, and the amount of information required to make a categorization decision. Techniques for modeling natural language categorization decisions are discussed.

This thesis seeks to answer questions regarding Paul’s understanding of Christian identity by arguing that Paul views Christian identity as a superordinate or New Human identity in which many previous identities persist as subordinate identities, transformed by the superordinate Christian identity—although some previous identities must cease as they are not compatible with the superordinate Christian identity. Utilizing the combined approaches of Social Identity Theory and Self-Categorization Theory, I describe the perspectives that Paul presents in his correspondence with the Thessalonians, Galatians and Corinthians. As regards the Thessalonians, Paul observes that the Thessalonians succeeded in adopting Christian identity. In comparison, the Galatians, while recognizing their need for transforming their subordinate identities, are foolishly attempting to adopt a Judean identity. Finally, Paul rebukes the Corinthians for failing to appropriately adopt Christian identity and for choosing instead to continue to live according to their Old Human identity. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

This literary study examines Hermann Hesse's Peter Camenzind from a social psychological perspective. The focus is on examining the protagonist's personal changes as a result of influences by important relationships. Other characters and the social categorization are examined with regard to their influence on the protagonist's life path and identity formation. The analysis is divided into the sub-categories of childhood, youth, becoming adult, adulthood and exploration in order to make a chronological sequence of development clear. It could be shown that certain characters and circumstances have a strong impact on Peters Camenzind's life. Most notable are the parents, the social background, Richard and the carpenter family, but other characters also played a part in the protagonist's remarkable development. For future research, it would be interesting to examine the protagonist’s alcoholism and depressive tendencies from both a linguistic and psychological perspective.

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