This research was prompted by the recent boom of academic interest in identity and the construction of space. The thesis begins with a review of literature concerning sexuality and sexualised space, the visibility and spatial presence of dissident sexualities, and the safety and communal aspects of sexualised spaces. By adopting a social constructionist framework and drawing on reality as a constructed concept (Berger and Luckmann, 1966) in combination with identity as a performative concept (Butler, 1990), this thesis looks at how sexualised groups work and manage multiple emotions and manage multiple identities as part of constructing sexualised urban spaces, and how this may or may not differ for racialised groups. A feminist approach was taken to collect and analyse empirical data for this research, and a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods were employed. These methods included participant observation, questionnaires, in-depth interviews and photography. The thesis adapts literature on emotional labour to provide an account of how identities such as sexuality and 'race' are not only experienced in everyday places at an emotional level but are also constructed at an emotional level. The thesis also relates the micro processes of managing multiple sexual and ethnic identities and performing emotion work with the construction of sexualised urban space. In other words the performance of emotion work in relation to space reveals identity to be constructed, and the performance of identities, with the tools of emotion work and identity management, constructs space. By bringing the micro dynamics of identity construction to the foreground the thesis demonstrates that marginal groups may be central to the perpetuation and maintenance of their own marginalisation by their very performance of emotion work and identity management. It therefore offers an initial understanding of how identity, difference and inequality take place at an emotional level in different places and different spaces and most significantly how these are felt.

The impact of context on the 'accuracy' of zero-acquaintance personality judgments is examined to understand when and how context affects such judgments. The thesis begins by conceptualising 'context' and discussing its potential impact on the judgment process. It then describes the methodology used in this thesis. Study 1 examines the impact of context richness on accuracy and shows that more information does not always result in better judgements. Study 2 shows that differences in interaction task do not impact on information quality and subsequent accuracy. Study 3 analyses the impact of context on 'behaviour' and shows that a judge's perspective impacts on the cues employed in judgments. Study 4 found that judge characteristics relate to specific aspects of context, not context per se. Study 5 found that trait-similarity between target and judge negatively impacts on accuracy. The thesis concludes with a field study in which the findings were largely replicated.

The psychological contract refers to the employee's perception of the employment relationship, considered as the outcome of the exchange between the employee and employer. However, this thesis argued that since identity is integral to the individual, the psychological contract is, at least in part, influenced by employee needs which are sought to be fulfilled. Hence the psychological contract is viewed as a positive self-expression, affected by the individual's developing characteristics. A longitudinal design was adopted, using semi-structured interviews, diary studies and surveys. Data was collected at three, six and twelve months from initiation of employment. This thesis presents the findings from this research programme in three empirical chapters: Chapter 6 focuses on the qualitative techniques (interviews with 26 participants and a 5-day diary study with 11 participants) at time point 1, Chapter 7 covers the qualitative techniques at time point 2 and 3 (in-depth interviews with 20 participants and a 5-day diary study with 10 participants) and Chapter 8 presents the quantitative surveys across the three time points (with 33 participants). The results from Chapter 6 showed that the development of an organizational identity is fundamental to psychological contract formation while the results from Chapter 7 showed the centrality of maintaining a personal identity. The results from Chapter 8 showed that the psychological contract is sustained as long as personal identity needs remain being fulfilled, even if organizational identification decreases. Overall, this thesis highlights how the fulfilment of individual identity needs plays a major role in the engagement and maintenance of the psychological contract. Employees seek to achieve, maintain and enhance their self-esteem, self-efficacy, continuity and distinctiveness through their association with their employing organization. A multi-systemic approach is recommended when examining the psychological contract since its preservation depends on the fit between the multiple systems in which the individual operates and not just on the individual's relationship with the organization. On a practical level, it is proposed that an organization is more likely to maintain the necessary stability of the employee's psychological contract if these individual factors are identified and addressed.

BACKGROUND Research suggests self-discrepancy is associated with shame, depression and anxiety in adults, as well as reduced self-worth. By contrast, the literature on adolescent experiences is sparse. This is surprising, given adolescence is a time of increased self-evaluation in developing the self and relations with others. Of prime interest is how young people's appraisals of themselves and others impact on self-esteem and emotional wellbeing. Thus, it is proposed self-discrepancy is associated with shame, depression and anxiety, due to its relationship with self-esteem. Associated low self-esteem and negative affect could be lessened by fostering self-compassion, which engenders tolerance of non-ideal self- attributes. Thus, it is also hypothesised that self-compassion moderates the relationship between self-discrepancy and self-esteem. METHOD A cross-sectional questionnaire-based design was employed: measures of self-discrepancy, self-esteem, self-compassion, shame, depression and anxiety were completed by a community sample of 141 16 to 18 year-olds. Data were subjected to correlation, regression, mediation and moderation analyses. RESULTS Self-discrepancy predicted a small but significant amount of the variance in shame, depression and anxiety. However, when self-esteem was entered simultaneously into the regression model, self-esteem emerged as the only significant predictor of negative affect. Subsequently, it was found that self- esteem partially mediates the relationship between self-discrepancy and negative affect. Self-compassion, however, did not significantly moderate the relationship between self-discrepancy and self-esteem. CONCLUSIONS Self-esteem has more predictive utility than self-discrepancy on adolescent experiences of shame, depression and anxiety, and it partially mediates the relationship between self-discrepancy and negative affect. Self- compassion is a potential protective factor against negative emotion, and possible explanations are discussed for why it was not revealed to Significantly moderate the relationship between self-discrepancy and self- esteem. Methodological limitations of the study are discussed, as are ideas for future research and clinical implications, including promoting self- compassion to protect self-discrepant adolescents from self-esteem damage and negative affect.

This thesis tried to answer the question: how and why educated persons in Libya are reluctant in their behaviour to contribute to the development of the country in the areas of work and citizenship in general and in terms of culture. The research sought to answer the question in terms of self-concept motivation. Although the term "Self-concept" in general has been covered by extensive studies in most of the European world and America especially, the term still requires further detailed investigation to discover how the self-concept helps to explain human behaviour.

'The Besieged Ego' critically appraises the representation, or mediation, of identity in contemporary film and television shows through a thorough analysis of split and fragmentary characters. As I show, the prevalence of nonautonomous characters in horror, fantasy and psychological based film and television products calls into question the very concept of a unified, 'knowable' identity that can be traced progressively through time with continuity. I use psychoanalysis as an interpretive tool and model in order to effectively understand representations of identity that are not 'whole'; psychoanalysis arguably allows for, and engages with, a splintered or fractured identity as its very premise lies in unknowable psychical forces such as the unconscious. The concept of 'ego' is particularly useful as a concept through which to analyse onscreen representations of identity; the differing definitions of Freud's ego (realist and narcissistic) alongside Lacan's delusional ego allow for an understanding of identity that shifts and is deeply enigmatic, unknowable and in essence confusing. However, representations of split identities can only be fully examined in light of social and cultural contexts; I therefore employ an eclectic range of approaches and methodologies throughout the thesis in order to ascertain what is at stake in the representation and meaning of the double. The form of the double, and cinematic modes and rhetorics used to denote fragmentary identity, is addressed in the thesis through a detailed analysis of texts drawn from a range of industrial and cultural contexts. The double carries significant cultural meanings about what it means to be 'human' and the experience of identity as a gendered individual; I argue that the double, or split identity, has become a 'new myth' that expresses in fictional form our problematic experience of the world as a social, and supposedly whole and autonomous, subject.

No description available.

With growing information sources on-line, the issue is no longer the availability of information, but how people manage the task of allocating their time effectively to the best information sources for their needs. This thesis investigates the strategies people use to allocate time across multiple written texts when under time pressure. Experiment 1 examined the effect that study time and number of resources had on the time allocation behaviour of participants presented with the task of learning for an unseen test. The browsing behaviour was recorded and indicated that people were using the satisficing strategy (where judgement and learning are integrated, as opposed to a sampling strategy, where judgement and learning are separated). Experiments 2 and 3 investigated how adaptive participants were at allocating their time to appropriate information sources by asking them to learn for a specific test and providing them with four texts which varied in relevance to the test questions. Data showed that participants used the satisficing strategy to allocate more time to relevant texts. Assuming that people therefore use the satisficing style of browsing behaviour when allocating time across texts under these conditions, Experiments 4 and 5 used eye-tracking methods to determine how the satisficing strategy is played out, and what level of text is generally used to make judgement decisions (i.e., how do people integrate judgement and learning and when do they make their judgement decisions). The data suggested that readers were using small units of text (e.g., paragraphs, or quarter sections of a page) to make their judgements, and that each time they rejected a unit of text, they would jump to the next unit. The skimming nature of their behaviour led to the development from the simple satisficing model to the satisficing then skimming model. The data regarding time spent on sections of pages also necessitated the development of the model into one which involved two rather than one level of text unit. Experiment 6 investigated whether this satisficing strategy was restricted to the experimental conditions used in Experiments 1 to 5, or because it is a widely used strategy. Participants were either aware (informed condition) or unaware (un-informed condition) of the different qualities of the available texts. Those who were aware sampled more, but half still satisficed, thus suggesting that satisficing was not simply a product of the experimental conditions used in previous experiments. This thesis adds to research in the area of time allocation, and proposes that people use a strategy based on satisficing in order to adaptively allocate their time across information sources. This conclusion has implications for the design of on-line texts, as knowing how people allocate time across a text can inform about how a text can be designed in order to support this kind of time allocation strategy.

No description available.

There are many historical and social discourses related to people from mixed heritage backgrounds and their experiences. These have mainly focused on ‘race’, excluding other aspects of mixed heritage such as ethnicity, culture, nationality, language and faith. Dominant discourses and prevailing psychological theories have constructed this group as marginal and with identity difficulties. Despite being the fastest upcoming minority ethnic group, mixed heritage identities remains underdeveloped in Britain, in terms of clinical work and psychological research. In particular, broader aspects of the mixed heritage experience outside of skin colour have not yet been thoroughly examined. Nationality was seen as an important representation of these wider aspects, however there has been little focus on the impact of having parents from different countries on mixed heritage individuals. This study is a qualitative exploration of the construction of identities of people from mixed heritage backgrounds in Britain. Ten participants (age 18-32) with parents from different birth countries were interviewed about, their mixed identities and experiences growing up in Britain, and how they define themselves. The results were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Four main themes were identified: “Best of Both Worlds”, ‘Facing Exclusion’, ‘Belonging’ ‘The Importance of Heritage Language’. The key factors that were important to them were: cultural knowledge; heritage languages; grandparents; non-visual aspects of identity; needing all aspects of identity to feel complete; and the ability to self-define. Lastly, an evaluation of the study and possible implications of the findings are presented.