Many historically disadvantaged South Africans are entering into universities, where they are expected to perform academically not only to secure themselves a continued place at university, but also to secure themselves a place in the competitive job-market post university. Not only have these individuals been disadvantaged by an inferior schooling system, which is the legacy of apartheid, but they also struggle against the grasp of poverty, attempting to sustain themselves financially in order to afford the necessities for their survival, while still attempting to cope academically. Resilience has been presented as a process that helps individuals deal effectively with stressful events and adverse conditions. An attempt is therefore made to investigate whether resilience plays this role in the experience of disadvantaged students at university, where academic performance and adjustment represent the expected measures of coping. The aim of the study was therefore to explore the role of resilience constructs in the relationship between socio-economic and demographic variables and academic coping. The study is based within the broad framework of Psychofortology, which is the science of psychological strengths. The resilience constructs used included fortitude (measured by the Fortitude Questionnaire), hardiness (measured by the Personal Views Survey) and sense of coherence (measured by the Sense of Coherence Scale). Demographic variables included age, sex, language, town (urban/rural), with household income as an indicator of socio-economic status. Academic coping (outcome) was measured using students&rsquo / academic performance (average grade) and their adjustment to university (measured by the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire). Participants included 164 third year Psychology students from the University of the Western Cape. Results indicate statistically significant relationships between various demographic and resilience variables / between various demographic and outcome variables / and between various resilience and outcome variables. Resilience variables were also found to play a role in the relationship between demographic and outcome variables, as various resilience variables emerged as significant predictors of outcome variables, or as having either direct, moderating, mediating or indirect effects on the relationship between demographic and outcome variables. Research suggesting the health-sustaining and stress-reducing (buffering) roles of resilience constructs, as well resilience constructs as influencing the perceptions of adverse conditions or stressors is therefore supported by these findings. Limitations of the study were also discussed, as well as recommendations for future research put forward.

The behavioral characteristics of leaders have been subjects of study for centuries. The scope of these studies has grown to encompass task analysis, follower needs and situational requirements. Current leadership theories consistently recognize the need for a successful leader to adjust behavior to meet the needs of the task, followers and situation. The problem of this research is to define this ability to modify one's behavior, measure it and test its relationship to demographic and job characteristics. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the correlation of individuals" ability to modify their behavior to job function, hierarchy, climate, feedback, satisfaction and their demographic characteristics. The hypotheses held that high ability to modify behavior would correlate positively with job characteristics, climate, feedback and satisfaction and show no correlation to individual demographics. Data were collected through the administration of three research instruments to 138 managers of three business firms. The instruments were the Participant Data Form providing job and demographic characteristics, Descriptive Adjective Questionnaire measuring an individual ability to modify behavior, and Climate and Satisfaction Evaluation Index measuring climate, feedback and satisfaction. Perason's correlation coefficients were calculated to identify possible relationship between the manager's ability to modify behavior, called versatility, and all other independent variables, and linear and multiple regressions were utilized to verify the relationship. No significant statistical correlation was found. Conclusions are that the ability of a manager to vary behavior does not influence job climate, feedback or satisfaction, that the versatile behavior is not derived from job or demographic characteristics, and that job satisfaction is directly and positively related to performance feedback and climate.

Recent research on the contribution of cognitive and social factors to psychopathology has been narrowly focused on isolated cognitive-social aspects of adjustment. This study takes a broader perspective by examining a) cognitive structure in addition to cognitive content and b) general aspects of interpersonal style rather than isolated social behaviors. Maladjustment was. examined with respect to premorbid history as well as current adjustment. The hypotheses were that cognitive integration interacts with cognitive complexity to influence psychological disturbance; that a positive relationship exists between interpersonal flexibility and psychopathology; and that a positive relationship exists between the proportion of ambiguous constructs which they employ and a person's level of psychopathology.

Religion and spirituality are vital aspects of many people’s lives both in the United States and across the globe. Although many constructs and measures exist to describe and assess the experience of pursuing the sacred, the complexity of religious and spiritual experience leads to mixed results in relation to well-being and psychopathological traits. However, in broad terms, the relationship appears positive. Over the past 30 years the need for more refined and useful approaches to the study of religious and spiritual behavior has been repeatedly acknowledged. Although authors wisely caution development of further measures without due cause, extant constructs and measures do not provide clear and consistent results for understanding the influence of one’s relationships to religion and spirituality upon behaviors of clinical interest. The present project drew from the functional contextual concept of psychological flexibility, which provides clarity to understanding the encouragement and maintenance of psychological well-being. A new construct of religious and psychological flexibility is explicated as a functional approach to understanding religious and spiritual behavior in a manner that is useful in research and clinical settings alike. The development and evaluation of the Measure of Religious and Spiritual Flexibility (MRSF) is described. The MRSF evidenced adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis results were positive, but indicate further refinement. Analyses suggested good construct validity of the MRSF in relation to psychological well-being and psychopathology; construct validity in relation to extant constructs in the psychology of religion was varied. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Flexibility in self-regulatory behaviors has proved to be essential for adjusting to stressful life events, and requires individuals to have a diverse repertoire of emotion regulation abilities. However, the most commonly used emotion regulation questionnaires assess frequency of behavior rather than ability, with little evidence linking these measures to observable capacity to enact a behavior. A laboratory paradigm has been developed to assess individual difference in expressive enhancement and suppression ability, but such lab-based measures are impractical or impossible to employ in the field research setting. The aim of the current investigation is to develop and validate a Flexible Expression Regulation Ability Scale (FERAS) that measures a person's ability to enhance and suppress displayed emotion across an array of hypothetical contexts. In Study 1, I investigate the factor structure of the FERAS in addition to convergent and discriminant validity. In Study 2, I compare the FERAS with a composite of traditional frequency-based indices of expressive regulation to predict performance in a previously validated experimental paradigm.

This study compared the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales, Second Edition (FACES II) scores of traumatized youth diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the scores of trauma-exposed youth without PTSD and a non-traumatized comparison group. Child diagnostic interviews determined that all participants were free of additional major comorbid disorders. The FACES II scores of children and adolescents with PTSD were not significantly different from the FACES II scores of trauma-exposed youth without PTSD and the non-traumatized comparison group. FACES II scores were also not significantly different between the trauma-exposed youth without PTSD and the non-traumatized comparison group. Accordingly, PTSD and trauma-exposure without PTSD were not associated with variations in the perception of family functioning as measured by the FACES II. Implications for research and practice are considered.

This study compared the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scales, Second Edition (FACES II) scores of traumatized youth diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to the scores of trauma-exposed youth without PTSD and a non-traumatized comparison group. Child diagnostic interviews determined that all participants were free of additional major comorbid disorders. The FACES II scores of children and adolescents with PTSD were not significantly different from the FACES II scores of trauma-exposed youth without PTSD and the non-traumatized comparison group. FACES II scores were also not significantly different between the trauma-exposed youth without PTSD and the non-traumatized comparison group. Accordingly, PTSD and trauma-exposure without PTSD were not associated with variations in the perception of family functioning as measured by the FACES II. Implications for research and practice are considered.

This qualitative study is an attempt to explore the adaptive experiences of elderly Chinese caregivers who have to take care of their spousal partners who are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease (AD). As the illness is known to be chronic and degenerative in nature, caregivers are thus faced with many stressful situations and adjustments are necessary. The purpose of this study is to examine how these caregivers in AD situations are interpreting the factors that might have influenced their adjustments. The sample consists of 26 participants aged 60 and above that have been a primary caregiver for not less than a year. Three in-depth interviews were conducted with each participant during the study period, which lasted for about two years. Findings show that most of them had to adjust to stressful situations in various aspects of life. They also developed many strategies for life adaption, which can be summarized in the following six adjustment themes. First, after hearing the AD diagnosis, they initially experienced a series of shocks and false hopes, and subsequent adjustments include eliminating uncertainty, establishing reasonable expectations toward both the disease and treatment, learning to take on the caregiver role, and finally, separating the disease from their partner’s personality. Second, these elderly caregivers gradually learned to attain inner peace through converting to various religions, searching for meanings within their stressful situations, and reconstructing rational explanations for their negative emotions. Third, in the area of spousal interaction, adaptive strategies included staying connected with their sick partners, reinforcing their caregiving motivations, completing the “familiar-strange-familiar” cycle, and re-establishing daily routines. Fourth, in situations involving other family members, such as adult children, the adjustment strategies included sharing economic burdens, re-allocating housework chores, delegating care responsibilities, and emotionally supporting one another. Fifth, in terms of social network, the main support that caregivers received usually came from informal sources; formal support is extremely limited. Findings further show a connection between the input and output of social support and personal capacity. Sixth, elderly spousal caregivers often possessed the ability to re-position and re-construct their self-confidence while adjusting to their new life rhythm. They were also able to achieve a balance between their private lives and their care responsibilities, which helps to maintain their well-being and neutralize their distresses. In summary, participants of the study often utilized more than one strategy in adjusting to their situations. The six aspects of adjustments are thus put together in this study as an integrated model of life adaptation and survival tactics adopted by elderly Chinese AD spousal caregivers. Also, whether these caregivers are successful in adapting depends on their abilities to accept changes in themselves and their environment, and achieve a compromise between the two. Based on the above findings, a culturally sensitive perspective is thus put forward to enhance the understanding of studied phenomenon within the contemporary Chinese context. Recommendations are also made regarding the needed policy changes and the revisions of social work practices in support of the elderly suffering from AD and their caregiving spouses. / published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Traumatic events such as natural disasters and violence are still happening around the world. While most of the studies on traumatic events focus more on the pathological end of the continuum, research related to their impact on more generic aspects, such as the psychological well-being of individuals, is comparatively less. Furthermore, flexibility has been posited to play a crucial role in the development of psychological well-being in adolescents but its significance has seldom been examined in the context of traumatic events. In addition, the construct and characteristics of flexibility have never been discussed before and no self-report measurement of emotional flexibility exists. Therefore, this thesis attempts to fill these gaps and extend our understanding of both the knowledge of flexibility and its role in the psychological well-being of Chinese adolescents. The nature of study 1 represents the ground work of this research, with the purpose of developing and validating a qualified self-report measurement of emotional flexibility in order to lay the foundation for answering the main research question of this study. A panel meeting was used at the very beginning to generate an item pool consisting of an inventory of emotional flexibility subscales: Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis were employed to test the subscale structures as well as for the total scale of emotional flexibility. A three-factor model for match, the subscale of emotional flexibility and the total model comprising one higher-order factor of emotional flexibility derived from the 5 first-order factors, with 10 and 30 items respectively, have all been confirmed. The purpose of study 2 is to clarify the construct of flexibility by investigating the relationships connected to flexibility in cognitive, behavioral and emotional aspects, as well as the relation between flexibility in these three aspects and coping flexibility. The participants in study 2 were 941 adolescents recruited from three middle schools with different levels of earthquake exposure in Sichuan. The results show that cognitive flexibility mediates the relationship between emotional flexibility and behavioral flexibility. Moreover, coping flexibility was found to be related to flexibility in three aspects in different manners. Study 3 has been designed to answer the main research question of this study: what role does flexibility play in the psychological well-being of adolescents with earthquake experiences. A cross-sectional survey was performed to test the effect of flexibility in cognitive, behavioral and emotional aspects on the relationship between earthquake exposure and psychological well-being. The data in this study was the same as for those in study two. The results show that emotional flexibility and cognitive flexibility had moderating effects between earthquake exposure and psychological well-being. The thesis has developed a measurement tool, clarified the construct and summarized the characteristics of flexibility as well as explored the role of flexibility in the psychological well-being of adolescents. The implications and limitations as well as future directions are proposed as well. / published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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