Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / 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’ 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. / South Africa

This study investigated the subjectively constructed narratives of individual change for lead persons in a Therapeutic Enactment (Westwood, Keats & Wilensky, in press). Narrative investigation of Therapeutic Enactment to date has not been conducted and, as such, the study is important to the field of counselling psychology and the further development of Therapeutic Enactment. In terms of both theory and practice the study expands our understanding of the complexities of the change process in Therapeutic Enactment. It also provides the unique personal contexts related to change and it provides concrete examples of what actually changes in the lives of lead persons in Therapeutic Enactment. In this study, the co-researchers consisted of 4 female lead persons and 2 male lead persons, who had taken part in their own Therapeutic Enactment at a residential retreat on the outskirts of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The co-researchers were interviewed in-depth using person-centred narrative interviewing techniques, combined with semi-structured interview questions. Five narratives were written in the first person focusing on the subjective experience of individual change in Therapeutic Enactment. Each narrative was returned to the respective co-researcher for editing and validation at which point co-researchers removed portions of the narratives they did not want included in the study and then added or amended content that they did want to be included in the study. The principal researcher made the requested changes and then returned final copies of the narratives to each of the co-researchers. The final narratives are presented herein. The co-constructed narratives indicate that lead persons in Therapeutic Enactment experienced change on six general levels including body sensations, emotions, behaviours, thoughts, relationships and spiritual connection. This study provides an in-depth examination of the subjective narratives of individual change in Therapeutic Enactment. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

A model of the person as a "community of selves" was used to investigate how adopting the perspective of different selves influenced anticipated compliance with therapy homework designed to decrease academic procrastination. A model of resistance to change derived from personal construct theory was used to predict which selves subjects would tend to see as more likely to take on the role of carrying out the homework. Focusing on different selves was found to influence anticipated compliance, and the model of resistance to change was partially successful in predicting which selves would be seen as more likely to carry out the homework. Implications for therapy and research are discussed within the framework of a model of first and second order change.

Life events inventories have been extensively used to investigate the relationship between stressful life events and the etiology of disease. In order to elucidate conceptual and methodological issues surrounding the use of these instruments, a Life Events Questionnaire was constructed and administered to 100 university students. Subjects indicated which of 40 events they had experienced and rated all events on a 20 point scale based on the amount of readjustment judged to be required by each event, both for themselves and for a hypothetical average person. Results of a three-way ANOVA indicated that in the majority of cases, neither the gender nor the experience of the rater, nor the point of reference used in making the judgment had a significant effect on the magnitude of the ratings obtained. For ratings of events which did show significant group differences, the primary finding was that normative values appear to be more consistently applied to estimates of others' reactions than to those of the raters themselves.

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Employees in the workplace face many challenges that cause stress. Despite these stresses many cope and remain positive. This study investigated positive psychological functioning among civil servants and explored how they functioned despite stressors in the work environment. The constructs of locus of control, sense of coherence, engagement and their relationship to the burnout construct (viewed as the opposite end of the wellness continuum) were used to examine this behaviour. Results showed that high sense of coherence, locus of control and engagement scores resulted in low burnout scores. Internal control and meaningfulness were found to be significant predictors of engagement. Employees will therefore be engaged in their work only if and when they display and/or are allowed to exhibit emotional meaningfulness in their work and their relationships, and when they behave and make decisions from an internal motivation. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / MA (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

The present study used regression procedures to investigate the relationships between selected communication variables and innate innovativeness. The three general types of variables examined in this study were communication anxiety, communicator style, and selfdisclosiveness. Ten hypotheses were tested together with a descriptive model which was based on the communication variables and their ability to predict innate innovativeness. Results of the tests of the model were confirmed as were the ten hypothesized relationships. The results of the regression analyses performed on the data indicated that receiver apprehension and honesty of self-disclosiveness were negatively and positively associated with innate innovativeness respectively, and were the variables which most significantly impacted the variance of innate innovativeness scores.

Thesis (D.Min.)--Asbury Theological Seminary, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 205-210).

Employees in the workplace face many challenges that cause stress. Despite these stresses many cope and remain positive. This study investigated positive psychological functioning among civil servants and explored how they functioned despite stressors in the work environment. The constructs of locus of control, sense of coherence, engagement and their relationship to the burnout construct (viewed as the opposite end of the wellness continuum) were used to examine this behaviour. Results showed that high sense of coherence, locus of control and engagement scores resulted in low burnout scores. Internal control and meaningfulness were found to be significant predictors of engagement. Employees will therefore be engaged in their work only if and when they display and/or are allowed to exhibit emotional meaningfulness in their work and their relationships, and when they behave and make decisions from an internal motivation. / Industrial and Organisational Psychology / MA (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)

Behavioral momentum theory (BMT) has become a prominent method of studying the effects of reinforcement on operant behavior. BMT represents a departure from the Skinnerian tradition in that it identifies the strength of responding with its resistance to change. Like in many other operant research paradigms, however, responses are considered to be momentary phenomena and so little attention has been paid to non-rate dimensions of responding. The current study takes up the question of whether or not the degree of effort defining a discriminated operant class has any meaningful effect on its resistance to change. Using a force transducer, rats responded on a two-component multiple VI 60-s VI 60-s schedule where each component was correlated with a different force requirement. Resistance to change was tested through prefeeding and extinction. Proportional declines in response rate were equal across components during all disruption tests. Differentiated response classes remained intact throughout. The negative result suggests several future research directions.