No description available.

No description available.

The construct of resilience has gained considerable attention over the last four decades since researchers observed that children and youth could cope and adapt in spite of adversity. Resilience involves a dynamic process involving an interaction between both risk and protective processes, internal and external to the individual, that can modify the effects of an adverse life event. Adolescence is considered to be a period of vulnerability for most individuals as they often partake in high risk behaviors. Further, those individuals who are in their early college years are faced with the developmental challenges of this life phase which can be complicated by a variety of stresses. Investigating resilience in college students is of great importance as these adolescents may incur additional stress as they make the transition to adulthood. Empirical evidence indicates that resilience is dynamic, developmental in nature, and interactive with one's environment. A variety of variables have been studied to clarify the concept of resilience in adolescents, yet there continues to be inconsistent findings. Although there is an abundance of literature regarding adolescent resilience, little is known about this process in the healthy well-adjusted adolescent college student. Additionally there are inconsistencies in reported findings about whether resilience is a healthy state. There is also evidence in the literature that contradictions exist regarding the effect of social support on this process. After review of the psychometric properties of existing instruments, the Resilience Scale was determined to have the best reliability and validity use for the study of resilience in the adolescent population. An exploratory model testing design was used to explore the relationships among a set of variables, including personal characteristics, levels of stress, high risk behaviors, and levels of resilience in adolescents ages 18 to 20 years. Institutional Review Board approval was obtained prior to data collection. The study participants attended a community college and met the sample selection criteria. A convenience sampling plan was used. Recruitment of participants followed the college protocol for contacting professors teaching general education classes during the planned data collection time. The study measures included a demographic questionnaire, two perceived stress visual analog scales, the Health Behaviors Questionnaire, and the Resilience Scale. Descriptive statistics were computed for all variables for the total sample (n=166) and recoding performed as needed by the instruments. Model testing was performed using correlations, hierarchical multiple regression, and path analysis to identify the strongest predictive variables. The strongest predictive model was personal characteristics and Health Behaviors Questionnaire Emotional Risk to the visual analog scale Stress in General (R2 = .519, F = 3.13, p = .000). This model was used for path analysis and the significant variables were ethnicity (standardized beta coefficients of .165, p = .036) and Health Behaviors Questionnaire Emotional Risk (standardized beta coefficients of .567, p = .000). These findings are important for health care providers to use as a basis for driving interventions to optimize resilience and reduce stress in adolescents. Further research should focus on ways to enhance coping and adaptation in an effort to reduce emotional risks which potentially increase stress in similar populations. Research regarding resilience and stress can further be expanded to the study of additional populations at risk, including adults and others such as nursing students, war veterans, and disaster victims.

Individual factors that might influence the way sexual abuse is defined and perceived within a culture include gender, the extent to which one adheres to and internalizes traditional roles, and levels of acculturation. The underlying assumption in many studies regarding child sexual abuse is that there is a correlation between perception of abuse and abusive behaviour – a positive mind-set towards abuse may lead to abusive behaviour. The aim of this study was to explore what the perception of adolescent males were regarding sexual abuse in order for social workers to have a better understanding of the adolescent male regarding sexual abuse. Interviews were conducted with 20 adolescent males to gain a keener insight into their perception of sexual abuse. From the data received it was found that adolescent males do not have adequate knowledge regarding the broader definition of sexual abuse, and that misconceptions still persist. The respondents‟ main source of information regarding sex and sexual abuse was the school. The sex education focuses mainly on anatomical and physiological information and lacks information on sexual abuse and sexual values. From data received, it was also found that the majority of parents never spoke to the adolescent males about sex; the respondents received no education from their parents concerning sexual abuse. A holistic approach is necessary when educating the adolescent male, which entails a comprehensive sexual education that focuses on sexual abuse, sexual values and preventative behaviour. A holistic approach requires sexual education provided in the home, the school as well as the community. It should consist of an integration of informal and formal education. Other organisations in the community such as NGO‟s, counselling centres and medical support centres should also form part of this holistic approach as they can offer valuable assistance. / MSW (Forensic Practice), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Individual factors that might influence the way sexual abuse is defined and perceived within a culture include gender, the extent to which one adheres to and internalizes traditional roles, and levels of acculturation. The underlying assumption in many studies regarding child sexual abuse is that there is a correlation between perception of abuse and abusive behaviour – a positive mind-set towards abuse may lead to abusive behaviour. The aim of this study was to explore what the perception of adolescent males were regarding sexual abuse in order for social workers to have a better understanding of the adolescent male regarding sexual abuse. Interviews were conducted with 20 adolescent males to gain a keener insight into their perception of sexual abuse. From the data received it was found that adolescent males do not have adequate knowledge regarding the broader definition of sexual abuse, and that misconceptions still persist. The respondents‟ main source of information regarding sex and sexual abuse was the school. The sex education focuses mainly on anatomical and physiological information and lacks information on sexual abuse and sexual values. From data received, it was also found that the majority of parents never spoke to the adolescent males about sex; the respondents received no education from their parents concerning sexual abuse. A holistic approach is necessary when educating the adolescent male, which entails a comprehensive sexual education that focuses on sexual abuse, sexual values and preventative behaviour. A holistic approach requires sexual education provided in the home, the school as well as the community. It should consist of an integration of informal and formal education. Other organisations in the community such as NGO‟s, counselling centres and medical support centres should also form part of this holistic approach as they can offer valuable assistance. / MSW (Forensic Practice), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

published_or_final_version / abstract / Clinical Psychology / Master / Master of Social Sciences

This study was designed to investigate parental attitude and family social environment characteristics of functional family systems. Further, through a discriminant analysis of the data, instrumentation for assessing the relative level of functioning of a family system was sought. Observed differences between functional and dysfunctional family systems are examined for their consistency with the theoretical assumptions of Adler's Individual Psychology. Finally, implications of the obtained results for treatment goals and outcome research in family therapy and parent education programs are discussed. School counselors from junior high schools in one southwestern United States city were utilized to identify families meeting the established criteria for inclusion in each of the criterion groups, functional and dysfunctional families. Forty-nine, two-parent households with at least one child between twelve and fifteen years of age agreed to participate in the study. This included thirty-five functional and fourteen dysfunctional families. Similarity between the groups was established on the basis of ethnicity, religion, education and age of parents and, length of marriage. Three dependent measures were employed: the Parental Attitude Research Instrument-Q4 (Schludermann & Schludermann, 1979), the Family Environment Scale (Moos, 1974) and, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Disirability Scale: short form (Reynolds, 1982). Separate but identical analyses of the data were conducted by sample groupings of: total family, parents, fathers, mothers and, early adolescents. No significant differences between the criterion groups were obtained on Social Desirability nor the PARI-Q4 factors of democratic attitudes, paternal attachment or, family disharmony. Some questions arose from the data as to the validity of the PARI-Q4 factors. On the Family Environment Scale, statistically significant differences were obtained on several of the subscales. A discriminant analysis of the data resulted in identifying several Family Environment Scale subscales which in combination were able to successfully discriminate 78.91% of the sample (n = 147). The discriminant function was better able to identify functional than dysfunctional family members. The observed results are largely consistent with the theoretical principles of Adler's Individual Psychology regarding functional family systems.

Ego-identity is influenced by many factors. Formal operations and field-dependence have often been cited as important factors in the level of ego-identity achieved. One hundred fifty-three introductory Psychology students were given the Personal Orientation Inventory as a measure of ego-identity and actualization, a test of Formal Operations developed by Karen Hardy-Brown and the Embedded Figures test as a measure of Field-dependence. No correlation was found between any of the measures indicating that a persons ego-identity was not related to the use of Formal Operations or field-dependence. A factor analysis was also performed with each instrument loading on a separate factor.

No description available.

No description available.