Syftet med denna studie var att förstå hur arbetstagare upplever sin återgång i arbete efter en utmattningsdiagnos och hur upplevelser, erfarenheter, tankar och känslor upplevs främja återgång i arbete. Studien var kvalitativ och datainsamlingen bestod av fenomenologiska intervjuer med en person i taget med totalt åtta deltagare. I studien konstaterades huvudsakligen en kongruens mellan det som tidigare forskning visat och det som framkommit i införskaffad empiri. En del upplevelser som visat sig vara effektiva för återgång i arbete i tidigare forskning har också av deltagarna i denna studie visat sig upplevas som särskilt effektiva och värdefulla. De interna resurserna i form av bekräftelse, insikt och coping var av stor betydelse för tillfrisknande och återgång i arbete i kombination med ett upplevt praktiskt och emotionellt stöd av framförallt vården, chef och familj. En skillnad från tidigare studier var att det upplevda stödet från familjen uttrycktes och påtalades i högre utsträckning i denna studie än i tidigare studier. Den viktigaste slutsatsen som kan dras av studien är att ett upplevt praktiskt som emotionellt stöd, såväl under sjukskrivning som vid återgången i arbete är av oerhörd vikt för både tillfrisknande och återgång i arbete. / The purpose of this study was to understand how workers experience their return to work after a job burn out and how experiences, thoughts and feelings are perceived to promote return to work. The study was qualitative and the data collection consisted of phenomenological interviews with one person at a time with a total of eight participants. The study found mainly a congruence between what has been shown in previous research and what emerged from acquired empirical evidence. Some experiences that have proven to be effective for returning to work in previous research have also been shown by participants in this study to be particularly effective and valuable. The internal resources in terms of confirmation, insight and coping were of great importance for recovery and return in work combined with experienced practical and emotional support, especially by the care, manager and family. A difference from previous studies was that the perceived support from the family was expressed and addressed to a greater extent in this study than in previous studies. The main conclusion that can be drawn from the study is that experienced support, both practical and emotional, both during sick leave and at return to work, is of crucial importance both for recovery and return to work.

In this thesis, the relationship between cognition and speech-in-noise recognition, in normally-hearing Swedish students, is examined. The Trail Making Test, hypothesized to measure a wide range of cognitive functions, including executive function and working memory, has been criticized for being a culturally biased measure, hence the need for a culturally unbiased version. A between-group experiment was conducted in which a non-semantically dependent version of the Trail Making Test was compared to the original Trail Making Test in order to test for psychometric equivalence. A total of 21 young normally-hearing Swedish students were given three tests: TMT or TMT (non-semantically dependent version), a Swedish Reading Span Task and a Swedish speech-in-noise recognition task. The B parts of the two Trail Making Test versions differed significantly and both were moderately to highly correlated to speech-in-noise and reading span performance. The results indicates that the original Trail Making Test is a more plausible index for executive function and strengthens the relationship between executive function, working memory and speech-in-noise recognition.

Curiosity can be defined as a drive to engage in exploratory behaviors and has been associated with an increased state of arousal (Berlyne, 1954). Exploratory behaviors, such as feedback requests, are associated with an information gain and the reduction of uncertainty. Although previous research has demonstrated the effects of emotions on the value of information gain (Marvin & Shohamy, 2016), and that the manipulation of arousal affected confidence (Allen et al., 2016) suggesting uncertainty can be affected independent of task difficulty, no previous study independently manipulated arousal to test its effect on curiosity. Given the effects of curiosity on motivation and learning, understanding how arousal influence curiosity would be beneficial for applications in fields such as education. In the present study, we hypothesized that emotionally-induced arousal has an impact on curiosity by influencing uncertainty and the value of information gain. A sample of 17 students were presented with arousing supraliminal emotional cues prior to rating confidence about their answers to trivia questions and deciding on feedback choices. Feedback requests were associated with a time delay, in a way that participants were required to trade off time for information. Results showed that uncertainty levels did not reliably predict feedback choices. Further analyses failed to demonstrate an effect of arousal on feedback choices. Finally, the pupillary response to events suggested that arousal levels did not differ significantly across conditions. Results can be due to the small sample or the test sensitivity. Possible improvements to the experimental paradigm are discussed, and directions for future research are considered.

Curiosity is thought to be an intrinsically motivated driving force for seeking information. Thus, the opportunity for an information gain (IG) should instil curiosity in humans and result in information gathering actions. To investigate if, and how, information acts as an intrinsic reward, a search task was set in a context of blurred background images which could be revealed by iterative clicking. The search task was designed such that it prevented efficient IG about the underlying images. Participants therefore had to trade between clicking regions with high search target probability or high expected image content information. Image content IG was established from “information-maps” based on participants exploration with the intention of understanding (1) the main theme of the image and (2) how interesting the image might appear to others. Note that IG is in this thesis not identical with the information theoretic concept of information gain, the quantities are however probably related. It was hypothesised that participants would be distracted by visually informative regions and that images independently rated as more interesting would yield higher image based IG. It was also hypothesised that image based IG would increase as a function of time. Results show that participants sometimes explored images driven by curiosity, and that there was considerable individual variation in which images participants were curious about. Independent interest ratings did not account for image based IG. The level of IG increased over trials, interestingly without affecting participants’ performance on the visual search task designed to prevent IG. Results support that IG is rewarding as participants learned to optimize IG over trials without compromising performance on the extrinsically motivated search; managing to both keep the cake and eat it.

Two influential theories of consciousness disagree about if consciousness initially arises along the occipitotemporal cortex to later engage frontoparietal regions and attentional mechanisms, or if it necessarily requires the latter. Consequently, different predictions are made about the temporal emergence of consciousness. The event-related potential (ERP) technique can be used to resolve the issue. It can temporally track neural activity of consciously perceived stimuli relative to stimuli bypassing consciousness. This essay describes the two theories and reviews ERP studies on visual consciousness and its relationship to attention. Three ERP correlates of consciousness have been proposed. The question is if they should be interpreted as supporting the one or the other theory. Most plausibly, visual consciousness arises along occipitotemporal regions and later incorporates frontal areas engaging higher cognitive functions. Importantly it seems that consciousness cannot arise without spatial attention/parietal regions.

Recent studies have indicated a further need to investigate the role of motivation in workingmemory (WM) training and that time perception affects motivation. We addressed whethersubjectively perceived time on task in reference to objective time on task could serve as animplicit measure of motivation, while controlling for individual differences in timeperception. Here, the relationship between different measures of time perception, WM, andmotivation was explored in healthy children. Fifty children in three natural groups (ages: 6-7,8-9, 10-11) at a Swedish school participated. WM scores changed with age as expected.However, the absence of correlations between WM performance and intrinsic motivationwere inconsistent with previous findings, presumably due to the low statistical sensitivity.Nevertheless, time perception accuracy (r=0.318, p=0.043) and state motivation (r=0.434,p=0.005) correlated with performance on task interference, but not WM. With somereservations due to low sensitivity, time perception accuracy appears to be linked tocoordinative capacity required for shifting attention, but to a lesser degree sequential working memory capacity.

Utmattningsdepression till följd av brister i den psykosociala arbetsmiljön är ett ökande samhällsproblem i Sverige. En komplex interaktion mellan individuella och organisatoriska faktorer föranleder denna problematik. Forskning visar att en individs personlighet och brist på feedback i arbetslivet är betydande faktorer vid utvecklandet av en utmatt- ningsdepression. Föreliggande studie ämnade därför att undersöka olika personlighets- typers behov av feedback i arbetslivet, i syfte att bidra till en del av ett förebyggande ar- bete att motverka utvecklandet av utmattningsdepressioner. En kvantitativ studie utför- des hos tre olika organisationer där data samlades in från 143 anställda via en webb- enkät. I ett försök att kartlägga behovet av feedback genomfördes en standard multipel regressionsanalys. De universala personlighetsdomänerna ur “The big five personality- theory” utgjorde de oberoende variablerna vilka studerades i förhållande till den bero- ende variabeln “feedback orientation”. Resultatet av den multipla regressionsanalysen visade att modellen förklarade 8,5 % av individers “feedback orientation” där signifi- kanta enskilda prediktorer utgjordes av neuroticism (p = 0,020) och “agreeableness” (p = 0,010) gällande det totala antalet deltagare. En könsbunden skillnad framkom även i resultatet, där en icke-sigifikant modell uppstod gällande män. Vad gäller kvinnor var “agreeableness” en signifikant prediktor (p=0,001) till “feedback orientation”. Avslutningsvis diskuteras studiens resultat, applicerbarhet och brister, där även förslag till framtida forskning läggs fram. / Occupational fatigue syndrome, also known as burnout, is an increasing societal issue in Sweden.Acomplex interaction between individual and organisational factors may cause this problem. Research has shown that personality and absence of feedback, impact the development of the syndrome. This study aim to examine the need of feedback in different personality types, with the purpose to shed light on some factors which could help to prevent the development of burnout. A quantitative study was initiated at three different organisations and 143 employees were assessed through an online sur- vey. With an attempt to chart the need of feedback, a standard multiple regression ana- lysis was performed. The universal domains of personality from “The big five personality-theory” represented the independent variables that was examined in relation to the dependent variable “feedback orientation”. The results of the multiple regression analysis shows that the model explained 8,5 % of individuals feedback orientation, sig- nificant predictors where neuroticism (p=0,020) and agreeableness (p=0,010), regarding the total number of participants. Furthermore, the results also showed a difference between genders where a non-significant modell appeared for men. Although, when it comes to women ”agreeableness” was a significant predictor (p=0,001) for ”feedback orientation”. In conclusion, the study's results, practical implications and inadequacies are discussed as well as suggestions for future research.

Juslin and Västfjäll introduced a theoretical framework aiming to explain how music can induce emotions. The framework contains seven psychological mechanisms, which explain how emotions are induced. The aim of the present study was to investigate how four of these psychological mechanisms would induce emotion both with self-reported feelings and psychophysiological measurement using a systematical design. The results showed that different psychological mechanisms induced different kind of emotions both as bodily responses and subjective feelings. These results supported that the theoretical framework is a valid explanation of how music induces emotions.

Syftet med studien var att studera huruvida upplevelsen av psykosocial arbetsmiljö skiljer sig mellan medarbetare i en svensk fordonsindustri beroende på individuella faktorer. De individuella faktorerna som studerades var kön, ålder, anställningsform och född i Sverige /inte född i Sverige. Totalt bestod studiens deltagare av 1412 medarbetare (1065 män och 347 kvinnor). Deltagarnas ålder sträckte sig från 18–65 år (M = 40.2 år, SD = 12.47). Studien var av kvantitativ art och var en tvärsnittsstudie. Ett webbaserat frågeformulär användes som forskningsinstrument, vilket konstruerades genom mjukvaruprogrammet esMaker. Enkäten baserades på den korta versionen av Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire II (Pejtersen, Kristensen, Borg & Bjorner, 2010). I studien inkluderades dimensionerna krav, kontroll, socialt stöd, konflikt mellan arbete och privatliv, värderingar samt hälsa och välbefinnande. Kvantitativa data analyserades med hjälp av t-test med oberoende mätningar och one-way ANOVA med Tukey post hoc test. Resultatet visade att upplevelsen av psykosocial arbetsmiljö skiljde sig bland annat i det avseendet att kvinnor upplevde sämre hälsa och välbefinnande än män, medarbetare i åldern 18–29 år upplevde lägre krav och högre socialt stöd än äldre samt att tjänstemän upplevde högre konflikt mellan arbete och privatliv än kollektivanställda. Däremot påvisades inga signifikanta skillnader mellan medarbetare födda i Sverige och medarbetare födda utomlands. Således konstaterades att upplevelsen av psykosocial arbetsmiljö skiljer sig beroende på de individuella faktorerna kön, ålder och anställningsform.

Inledning: Psykodynamisk parterapi handlar om interaktion mellan tre personer. Möten som syftar till förändring i samspel och att finna ny förståelse för varandras livsberättelse. Syftet med detta arbete var att undersöka psykodynamiska parterapeuters upplevelser och erfarenheter av förändring i parterapi. Frågeställningar: Vilka terapeutiska egenskaper är av betydelse för mötet i parterapin? Vilka terapeutiska egenskaper påverkar att parrelationens samspel förändras? Vilka möjligheter och svårigheter ställs en parterapeut inför? Metod: Fem terapeuter intervjuades utifrån en kvalitativ metod och en tematisk metod användes i analysen. Resultat: Det intersubjektiva mötet mellan terapeut och par var av betydelse för förändringsarbetet i psykodynamisk parterapi. Personlig hållning och receptiv förmåga att uppfatta kommunikativ allians skapade ett terapeutiskt rum där accepterande av olikheter och förmåga att stå ut med motsatser utvecklades. Diskussion: Den terapeutiska ramen, och informanternas simultanförmåga att upprätta och bevaka allians, var faktorer av särskild betydelse för parterapins tre parallellt pågående relationer. Informanternas samtidiga förmåga att uppfatta och undersöka kommunikativ allians var en faktor som påverkade den terapeutiska relationen positivt. Informanterna skapade sådana samspel att parets engagemang ökade. Genom att vara personliga och använda sig av primärt mjuka känslor engagerades paret till att vara personliga och nå djupare känslomässiga upplevelser. Dessa intersubjektiva möten ledde till en förändrad relation med tryggare emotionella band och en ökad psykisk närhet. / Introduction: Psychodynamic couple therapy is about the interaction in between three people. Meetings which aim to change the interaction and find new understanding of each other’s life experiences. The purpose of this study was to analyse psychotherapists’ understanding and experience of changes in couple therapy. Topics of discussion: Which therapeutic factors are relevant for couple therapy? Which therapeutic factors affect the interaction of the couple? What benefits or difficulties is a therapist posed to? Method: Five therapists were interviewed with respect to both qualitative and thematic methods. Conclusion: The intersubjective interaction between therapist and couples has relevance for implementing changes in psychodynamic couple therapy. Personal attitude and receptive ability to perceive communicative alliance created through a therapeutic environment in which acceptance of inequalities and difference of opinions was developed. Discussion: The therapeutic framework, and the informants’ simultaneous ability to establish and monitor the alliance, were factors of particular significance for the three parallel ongoing relationships of the couple therapy. The informants’ simultaneous ability to perceive and investigate communicative alliance was a factor that positively affected the therapeutic relationship. The therapists’ application of such interactions increased the couple's engagement in the therapy. By being personal and making use of primarily soft emotions, the couple became more open and were able to reach deeper emotional experiences. These intersubjective meetings led to a changed relationship with more secure emotional ties and an increased psychological presence.