A series of trials were conducted to determine the effect of feeding barley silage to laying hens and broiler breeder pullets on performance, stress and behaviour. In the first study, two trials were conducted each with 20 hens and 2 roosters (n=176) randomly assigned to one of 8 community cages. The birds in 4 cages were provided with a nutritionally balanced soy/wheatbased laying hen diet ad libitum, whereas the birds in another 4 cages were given free access to barley silage in addition to the regular laying hen diet. In both trials, the control birds consumed more feed (P < 0.05) than the birds given barley silage. Birds fed barley silage had significantly decreased (P < 0.05) aggressive and feather pecking behaviours as well as time spent in their nest boxes at different ages. Time spent drinking, resting, preening and eating a large particle calcium source was similar between the two treatments. No treatment effects (P > 0.05) were found in regards to egg quality, egg production and bird weights at various ages; however yolk colour was darker by silage treatment in each trial. At the end of each trial, the feather score was improved in silage-fed birds compared to the control birds. It was concluded that feeding barley silage as a supplement to laying hens can improve their welfare without negatively affecting the egg production and egg quality. <p>A second study was conducted to determine the effect of feeding barley silage on body weight, stereotypic behaviour, stress and fear on broiler breeder pullets during the brooding and rearing periods. The 3 week old broiler breeder pullets (n=180) were randomly allocated into 12 straw litter floor pens having 15 birds per pen. The birds in 6 pens were provided with a nutritionally balanced corn/oat-soybean/canola meal-based broiler breeder diet at recommended restricted levels, whereas the birds in another 6 pens were given free access to barley silage in addition to a regular broiler breeder diet. Total DM intake was significantly higher (P < 0.05) for silage-fed birds compared to their control counterparts without affecting mean body weights. Dietary treatment had no significant effect on bird behaviour with the exception of object pecking behaviour which was reduced with silage feeding. Aggressive and gentle feather pecking behaviour was consistently numerically higher in the control birds than the silage-fed birds, although not significantly. Age affected many of the behaviours recorded in this study. Silage feeding had no significant effect on heterophil to lymphocyte ratios and tonic immobility values indicating that birds in both treatments were not very stressed or fearful. It was concluded that feeding barley silage to broiler breeder pullets has potential to aid in improving their welfare.

Aggression is a feature of many clinical disorders including autism, Alzheimer’s disease, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia. The available treatment options act to prevent impulsive aggression through modulation of GABAergic and dopaminergic pathways which come with metabolic and dyskinetic side effects. The mechanism underlying aggressive motivation, however, has not been elucidated. In addition, previous studies have been heavily biased towards males of various species. Mimicking changes in day length, or photoperiod, in the laboratory is a natural manipulation used to examine seasonal changes in aggressive behavior in many species. In response to the reduction in the duration of light exposure, animals undergo gonadal regression and become reproductively quiescent. During this non-breeding season in male photoperiod-responsive animals, aggressive behavior increases significantly. Although studies have shown offensive aggression remains elevated in female rodents, seasonal regulation of this behavior in females has not been thoroughly studied. The neuropeptide arginine-vasopressin (AVP) has been implicated in the facilitation of aggressive behavior in male rodents and fishes; therefore, it is useful to examine AVP as a modulator of seasonal aggression in females. Because the actions of AVP in female social behavior may be hormonally-dependent, we investigated the hormonal mechanisms that regulate the expression of AVP receptors and the behavioral actions of AVP on aggression. In addition to changes in gonadal steroid hormones during the non-breeding season, we identified photoperiod-dependent alterations in adrenal hormone secretion as AVP plays a role in regulation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) activity and anxiety-like behaviors in animal models.

One hundred and eighty six adult heterosexual females enrolled in colleges across the United States were sampled to determine the influence of personality and coping variables on female Intimate Partner Aggression (IPA). The research instruments administered included online versions of: the Revised-Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS-2; Straus, Hamby, Boney-McCoy, & Sugarman, 1996), which explored female Intimate Partner Psychological Aggression and Physical Assaultiveness; the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP; Goldberg, 1999), which measured the personality trait of Neuroticism; and the Coping Resources Inventory for Stress-Short Form (CRIS-SF; Matheny, Curlette, Aycock, Pugh, & Taylor, 2007), which assessed the coping resources of Tension Control and Social Support, and provided an overall Coping resource score called Coping Resource Effectiveness (CRE). The role of Neuroticism was highlighted. Neuroticism, but not CRE or specific coping resources, was predictive of Psychological Aggression in females. Neither CRE nor Neuroticism was a significant predictor of Physical Assaultiveness. Implications for reducing psychological aggression in intimate partner relationships were offered.

This thesis questions contemporary society?s understanding and ability to deal with the universal instinct known as aggression. The investigation identifies the driving forces behind adolescent aggression and the myth based rituals and cultural devices used to mediate it. The primary case in this study is a suburban community called Malvern, known for its high rate of teen violence and aggressive acts. Malvern is evaluated based on its current rites of passage rituals and institutions used for the socialisation and individuation of the young members of its community. This is followed by a proposed intervention introducing the use of building and landscape as devices to mediate adolescent aggression through the emergence of redefined myth based rituals and rites of passage within Malvern?s unique context.

Research has recently begun to focus on separable conscious and subconscious aspects of self-esteem. Meanwhile, research on aggressive behavior has found that some individuals with high self-esteem are more prone to aggressive behavior. Based on a biopsychosocial approach, research has shown that appraisals of threat/challenge are marked by distinct physiological responses – threat appraisals are marked by activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, whereas challenge appraisals are marked by activation of the sympathetic adrenal-medullary axis. The present study examines the relationship between failure feedback, implicit and explicit self-esteem, appraisals, working memory and aggression in a series of three experiments. Experiment 1 examined the impact of failure feedback on stress physiology and found that individuals who displayed a physiological response to failure feedback consistent with a challenge response, as indicated by an increase in blood pressure without a concurrent increase in salivary cortisol, were the most likely group to become aggressive. Experiment 2 examined the relationships between implicit and explicit self-esteem in predicting aggressive behavior. Implicit self-esteem predicted behavioral inhibition in response to negative feedback such that higher implicit self-esteem was associated with fewer behavioral inhibition errors. In Experiment 3, threat/challenge motivations were manipulated to determine their impact on working memory performance. Increases in feelings of threat were associated with greater working memory performance, whereas increases in feelings of challenge were associated with decreases in working memory performance. The present study is the first to examine aggression in the context of threat/challenge appraisal responses. Overall, this study suggests that appraisals and physiology can assist in predicting aggressive behavior, although the cognitive mechanism by which this occurs remains elusive.

This study examined autonomy and relatedness in mother adolescent interactions as longitudinal predictors of adolescent involvement in dating aggression. Research indicates that dating aggression, defined as perpetration and/or victimization of physical, psychological, or sexual aggression, affects one-third to two-thirds of adolescents. Most studies of adolescent dating aggression have been cross-sectional, have lacked a developmental theoretical perspective, and have not adequately investigated contextual differences in dating aggression. This study adds to the existing literature in that it applies a developmental framework to a multi-method, longitudinal study (n=88) of adolescent dating aggression. Adolescents’ and their mothers’ demonstrations of support for and inhibition of autonomy and relatedness during a coded interaction task observed when adolescents were 16 years old were examined as predictors of adolescents’ reports of perpetration and victimization of physical and psychological aggression two years later, exploring gender, race/ethnicity, and environmental risk as moderators. It was expected that promotion of autonomy and relatedness would be negatively related to adolescent reports of involvement in dating aggression, whereas inhibition of autonomy and relatedness would be positively related to adolescent reports of dating aggression. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that, as expected, maternal inhibition of relatedness predicted slight increases in reports of psychological perpetration and victimization. However, maternal support for autonomy was related to increases in perpetration of psychological aggression for all adolescents and increases in perpetration and victimization of physical aggression for girls, but not boys. Adolescent support for autonomy was related to increases in perpetration of physical aggression only for environmentally at-risk teens and to increases in psychological perpetration for racial/ethnic minority participants, but not for Caucasians. It was also found that girls reported more physical and psychological perpetration than boys, and that racial/ethnic minority participants reported more physical perpetration than Caucasians. Results indicate that autonomy is a dynamic developmental process that operates differently as a function of the various ecological contexts in which adolescents live, as marked by gender, race/ethnicity, and risk, in predicting adolescent involvement in dating aggression.

No description available.

Organizations have to understand the customer very well if they want to exist in business. Thisunderstanding of the customer will help organizations to act accordingly. More specifically hotelservices are characterized by frequent interaction with the customers. Thus, these frequentcontacts with the customers may lead to experience dissatisfaction/ frustration when things gowrong. Accordingly, it is important to find out the reasons for such negative emotions andmeasures to be taken to mold these behaviors.For this reason, the aim of our master‟s thesis is to identify reasons for customer aggression andconsiderable mechanisms to put in place for, how customer service employees mold the behaviorof aggressive customers through emotional labor while delivering services in hotels. This impliesthat major motives are mentioned based on some of the routine interactions, from the serviceitself and others outside the service delivery process. In addition, customer service employees‟(CSEs) key mechanisms used to react positively to such emotions due to customers‟dissatisfaction/ frustrations are assessed. Moreover, to fulfill the aim of the research, the hotelindustry has been chosen from which sample customers and service employees are also selected.In this regard, survey questions from a sample of customers and interviews held with selectedcustomer service employees (CSEs) were used as data collection tools from one of the hotelslocated in Umeå. The result of the findings helps to identify the most common types of reasonsfor customer aggression during interaction; lack of assistance from CSEs, noisy customeraround, lack of punctuality and billing errors are the common reasons for customer aggressionfrom the respondents‟ point of view. While interview results revealed that customer‟s ownpersonal reasons due to the prior emotional state of the customer (Antecedent State) are causes ofaggression during service provision. On the other hand, in molding such behaviors, emotionallabor is found to be fundamental tool in services, where surface acting emotional labor is themost widely used mechanism while delivering services to mold the customer aggression, angerand dissatisfaction into happier and more satisfying situations for the customers.We believe the study complements the existing research by extending and bridging on customeraggression and in response emotions to be applied to mold such behavior in hotel services. Keywords: Hotel industry, Emotional labor, Aggression, Anger, Customer serviceEmployees (CSE)

This thesis questions contemporary society?s understanding and ability to deal with the universal instinct known as aggression. The investigation identifies the driving forces behind adolescent aggression and the myth based rituals and cultural devices used to mediate it. The primary case in this study is a suburban community called Malvern, known for its high rate of teen violence and aggressive acts. Malvern is evaluated based on its current rites of passage rituals and institutions used for the socialisation and individuation of the young members of its community. This is followed by a proposed intervention introducing the use of building and landscape as devices to mediate adolescent aggression through the emergence of redefined myth based rituals and rites of passage within Malvern?s unique context.

Numerous cognitive, personality and situational factors have been found to be related to aggression. Understanding how these factors interrelate is essential to predicting violence and critical to the assessment and treatment of offenders with violent histories. Previous research has suggested a potential role for social problem solving as a mediator between impulsivity and aggression (McMurran et al., 2002). Additionally, it is well established that aggression is more likely to occur in the context of alcohol use (Collins, 1993; Reiss & Roth, 1993; Lipsey, Wilson, Cohen & Derzon 1997). Based on existing literature, a model of aggression was developed involving impulsivity, social problem solving and alcohol dependency. Utilizing path analysis with multiple regression, a mediational model of aggression was assessed on a sample of 179 provincially incarcerated offenders, 87% of whom were Aboriginal and 45% of whom had a previous conviction of domestic abuse. The data suggest that social problem solving, alcohol dependency and impulsivity are all important in understanding and predicting aggression. Social problem solving does not appear to act as a mediator in the relationship between impulsivity and aggression, although preliminary results suggest that impulsivity, may serve the function in this relationship and in the manifestation of aggression. The implications of these findings for our understanding about human factors contributing to aggression and for further advancement of treatment programs are provided.