Introduction: Personality Trait theories uncritically accept the lay perspective of personality as an internal phenomenon linked to individuality and agency. This view flies in the face of empirical evidence demonstrating environmental influences on behaviour (Bargh & Ferguson, 2000). The idea that agency resides within individuals, and that a separation exists between individuals and their environment, has long been contested by theorists and clinicians arguing for acknowledgement of contextual factors (Skinner, 1971; Smail, 1999). Scores on personality measures based on the Five-Factor Approach (FFA; Costa & McCrae, 1985) have shown instability across the lifespan in relation to factors such as relationships (Neyer & Lehnart, 2007), and short-term changes in response to major adverse events (Lockenhoff, Terracciano, Patriciu, Eaton & Costa, 2009). That “personality” scores change in response to the environment highlights the weakness of the trait concept as a way of understanding behaviour. The move to university represents a major change of social environment that is sudden but predictable, and persists for a long time. It is therefore a time at which we can expect to observe changes in behaviour. Previous research into university acclimatisation and “homesickness” has assumed personality scores to be a static variable (e.g. Fisher & Hood, 1987) that impacts upon the relocation without being affected by it. This study sought to investigate the hypothesis that novel identity narratives would be evoked by a new environment and that this would impact upon acclimatisation. The study aimed to test this hypothesis by examining participant accounts. Method: First-year students (N = 7) completed two questionnaires designed to assess personality and homesickness. These measures were re-administered after six and fourteen weeks. Participants were interviewed at all three time-points, describing their experiences of adjusting to life at university. Interviews with participants were used as a basis for comparison with scores on psychometrics designed to measure personality and homesickness. These were analysed using a method that aimed at exploring narratives likely to impact on participants’ acclimatisation and presentation of themselves. The extended paper details a quantitative analysis of psychometric scores amongst a larger sample of 1st year students (N = 58). Results and Discussion: Participant accounts were analysed in terms of identity narratives to allow formulation of their experiences in relation to their psychometric scores. Participants described behaving differently at university and taking on new roles that impacted upon their acclimatisation. Despite reporting changes, participants expressed essentialist views about the self. Results from the quantitative study were not supportive of the hypothesis that homesickness would be associated with change on FFA measures.

Cette thèse porte sur le processus interprétatif associé au rêve et son ancrage culturel. Si l’interprétation des rêves est une des grandes voies d’accès à l’Inconscient, elle est également un trait propre à certaines cultures. Si les processus psychiques inconscients en eux-mêmes sont universels en tant qu’ils sont propres à tout sujet, propres à la dimension humaine, l’ancrage culturel du « rêveur » est, quant à lui, circonstanciel. L’exploration s’est faite à l’Ile Maurice à partir d’entretiens réalisés dans les différentes communautés religieuses de l’Ile. Cette recherche aborde « l’inscription culturelle du rêve » dans différentes théories et sur le terrain de recherche, « le rêve et son interprétation » dans une perspective psychanalytique et ethnologique pour délimiter la notion de « préalable interprétatif », les questions méthodologiques spécifiques à ce travail et elle procède au traitement et à l’analyse de 9 entretiens. Le processus du rêve, de son élaboration à son interprétation, se constitue à partir d’un préalable interprétatif dont le rêve est porteur lorsque pour le rêveur il existe un système d’interprétation possible du rêve, que celui-ci soit psychanalytique ou culturel. Ce préalable culturel et forcément partagé fait partie des éléments du rêve, tout aussi présents que les éléments diurnes, les souvenirs etc. dont parle Freud. Cette thèse ouvre sur la prise en compte du socle culturel dans un travail de psychologue clinicienne dans une culture autre que la sienne. / This thesis focuses on the interpretive process associated with the dream and its cultural roots. If the interpretation of dreams is one of the major access routes to the unconscious, it is also a specific characteristic to some cultures. If the unconscious psychic processes are universal because they are specific to a person, specific to the human dimension, the cultural anchoring of the “dreamer” is circumstantial. The exploration has been done in Mauritius from interviews in the different religious communities of the island. This research addresses the "cultural inscription of dreams” in different theories and the field search; "the dream and its interpretations" in psychoanalytic and ethnological perspective to establish a framework for the concept of "pre- interpretive"; the methodological issues regarding this research and the treatment and analysis of 9 interviews. The process of the dream, from its development to its interpretation, is formed from a pre-interpretive which is in the dream when for the dreamer there is a possible dream interpretation system, whether it is psychoanalytic or cultural. This cultural prior and necessarily shared is a part of the dream elements, as well as the diurnal items, souvenirs etc. mentioned by Freud. This thesis opens to the consideration of a cultural basis within the work of a clinical psychologist in another culture.