Abstract This study examined memory functioning from a female perspective, with the aim of determining factors that might impact performance and render the accuracy of memory measurement, particularly with advancing age, problematic. Factors investigated, among others, were the role of attention and/or engagement with the memory tasks administered, state affect (i.e., positive and negative arousal) at time of testing, subjective memory appraisal, particularly in the domain of perceived memory self-efficacy (MSE), and the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) by older post-menopausal women. Two experimental computer-based tests of episodic memory, Paired Associates (PA) and Serial Recall (SR), were administered to 181 female participants aged 18 to 86 years. The tasks were designed to emphasise components that make episodic memory especially difficult, and minimise the use of strategies that might assist recall. Thus, they varied the requirement for recall as opposed to recognition, the need to form an association between a pair of unrelated words, and the need to discriminate the most recent list from earlier list(s). Other measures used included a demographic survey administered to participants individually in an interview format, and a number of variables examined in this study derived from responses to items contained in this survey. The research battery also included psychometric measures of transient affective states, psychological well-being, alertness, in addition to measures of global cognitive status and metamemory (i.e., subjective memory appraisal). The overall aim was to examine a range of factors that might influence episodic memory performance in cognitively intact healthy women, and thus render the interpretation of age-related changes to memory functioning problematic. For analyses participants were assigned to three groups - young, middle-aged and older. There were 60 young adults aged 18 to 29 years, 60 middle-aged adults aged 49 to 60 years, and 61 older adults aged 61 to 86 years. Each participant was tested individually in a single session lasting approximately 3 ½ hours, with younger participants requiring less time to complete assessments. Order of test administration and instructions were standardised across the entire sample. Inferential statistics included correlation, t-test statistic, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey post-hoc comparisons. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine key correlates of memory performance outcomes. No significant differences between the cohorts were found in mean years of education. However, episodic memory recall differed significantly by age group. As expected, young adults recalled significantly more words in the memory tasks than their older counterparts, and middle-aged adults outperformed adults in the oldest cohort. Moreover, older adults’ performance deficits were more pronounced in the tasks requiring that they make an association between a pair of unrelated words. Across all cases, transient mood states were significantly related to memory scores; however, individuals in the oldest cohort were particularly vulnerable to mood fluctuations. This cohort experienced a significantly greater decline in positive affect and a significant greater increase in negative affect while undergoing memory testing, highlighting their greater vulnerability to stressors inherent in a memory testing situation. Although scores on the measure of attention were near ceiling, indicative of participants’ level of effort, motivation, and engagement with the memory tasks, the measure of attention discriminated between older and younger adults’ results, and was a key predictor of memory performance. Noteworthy is that attention scores significantly contributed to performance variability in younger and older adults but not in middle-aged adults. Across all cases, age, education, and attention were the key contributing factors to variability in memory scores. Although four lifestyle factors: (1) subjective sleep appraisal, (2) body mass index (BMI), (3) physical activity, and (4) caffeine intake were significantly associated with performance in the memory tasks, once the effects of these key variables were removed, lifestyle factor did not uniquely contribute to performance variability. Moreover, no association was found between hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and episodic memory performance across the broader sample. However, in a small subgroup of older women (n = 15, M age = 66 years), long-term users of this treatment, HRT had a significant effect on memory performance and was indicative of better recall on the memory tasks. The effect of subjective memory appraisal, MSE included, on objective performance outcomes was examined. The results showed that memory self-evaluations were not a significant contributing factor to episodic memory performance, confirming that memory self-appraisal is a poor predictor of actual memory performance, and thus does not pose a challenge to the measurement of age-related changes to memory abilities. Although there were commonalities, factors influencing memory performance differed by age cohort. For example, in young adults, positive mood, a perception of sleeping well, subjective health, and attention were significantly related to performance on the memory tasks. However, once the effect of attention was removed in the regression analysis, no other variable was predictive of episodic memory functioning in this cohort. In contrast, the single significant predictor of memory performance in middle-aged individuals was education, and neither attention, nor positive mood, or physical activity had a significant effect on this cohort’s performance. Similarly, having more years of formal education benefited older adults’ episodic memory functioning. However, high scores on global cognitive functioning and on the tasks measuring attention were equally important to episodic memory recall in this age group. In sum, the significant contribution of age to memory variability attested to the utility of the memory measures in detecting age-related changes to episodic memory functioning, which were independent of deficits in attention or level of education. Moreover, the effect of several factors (e.g., transient mood, lifestyle) on memory scores was explained by an effect on attention, and this has clear implication for the proper evaluation of long-term changes to memory functioning. Limitations of the study and suggestion for future research are discussed.

Traditionally, language was proposed to be mediated by various left hemisphere perisylvian structures and the associated role of the motor cortices was limited to tasks such as articulation. Recent theoretical models have proposed that effector specific words with motor related meaning are represented somatotopically on the primary motor (Brodmann’s Area 4) and premotor (Brodmann’s Area 6) cortices. For example, it has been reported that when verbs associated with the hand (e.g., pick) are processed, the primary and premotor areas involved with moving the hand are engaged. However, fundamental methodological problems exist within the reported research. This thesis aimed to address and correct the inconsistencies and methodological limitations within the existing literature to provide more conclusive evidence regarding the involvement of the primary and premotor cortices in processing verbs with motor related meaning. This thesis also aimed to investigate whether the names of effectors (nouns) also involve processing by the motor cortices, either generally or somatotopically. Three behavioural dual task experiments and one fMRI experiment were conducted. Results indicated no evidence of somatotopically organised overlapping activation in the primary or premotor cortex between the various semantic categories of words and related effector movements. However, in the fMRI experiment, motor related verbs in general yielded significant overlapping activity between reading all effector related verbs and moving all effectors in the pre-supplementary motor area of the premotor cortex. These findings indicate that an embodied language involving somatotopic representations of effector specific verbs on the primary or premotor cortex is unlikely to be the case. Rather there appears to be a more general representation of effector related verbs in a more cognitive than motor area of the premotor cortex. The findings of this thesis are consistent a wealth of evidence supporting the motor cortices being generally associated with motor related language and with the idea that semantic representations are distributed throughout the brain according to the embodied cognitive framework, rather than being localised to amodal regions that process all words.

Traditionally, language was proposed to be mediated by various left hemisphere perisylvian structures and the associated role of the motor cortices was limited to tasks such as articulation. Recent theoretical models have proposed that effector specific words with motor related meaning are represented somatotopically on the primary motor (Brodmann’s Area 4) and premotor (Brodmann’s Area 6) cortices. For example, it has been reported that when verbs associated with the hand (e.g., pick) are processed, the primary and premotor areas involved with moving the hand are engaged. However, fundamental methodological problems exist within the reported research. This thesis aimed to address and correct the inconsistencies and methodological limitations within the existing literature to provide more conclusive evidence regarding the involvement of the primary and premotor cortices in processing verbs with motor related meaning. This thesis also aimed to investigate whether the names of effectors (nouns) also involve processing by the motor cortices, either generally or somatotopically. Three behavioural dual task experiments and one fMRI experiment were conducted. Results indicated no evidence of somatotopically organised overlapping activation in the primary or premotor cortex between the various semantic categories of words and related effector movements. However, in the fMRI experiment, motor related verbs in general yielded significant overlapping activity between reading all effector related verbs and moving all effectors in the pre-supplementary motor area of the premotor cortex. These findings indicate that an embodied language involving somatotopic representations of effector specific verbs on the primary or premotor cortex is unlikely to be the case. Rather there appears to be a more general representation of effector related verbs in a more cognitive than motor area of the premotor cortex. The findings of this thesis are consistent a wealth of evidence supporting the motor cortices being generally associated with motor related language and with the idea that semantic representations are distributed throughout the brain according to the embodied cognitive framework, rather than being localised to amodal regions that process all words.

This research contributes new knowledge to those working in the areas of welfare, child and adolescent safety, and suicide prevention. The aim of this thesis was to succinctly provide clinicians, government and community agencies, researchers and policy advisors, with a snapshot profile of 2029 welfare seeking young people who were homeless and frequently discouraged by negative life events. The research aim was to identify risk and protective factors that impact life outcomes for those seeking the Independent Youth Benefit (IYB), and particularly, to scrutinize salient factors that led a vulnerable group of IYB applicants to die by suicide. It was further aimed that by documenting comments from 200 young adults from this population across a span of seven years, both gaps within the IYB process, as well as useful resources, could be identified in order to improve life outcomes for other homeless youth. For those who attempted suicide and survived, file records and interviews have indicated the triggers and life histories that potentially impacted their decision to try to end their pain of life, and factors that influenced survival and recovery. Four separate studies were included in this thesis. Study 1 profiled 2029 IYB applicants and determined the most potent risks that led to the granting of the IYB. Study 2 revealed the salient factors that related to the suicide of 6 IYB applicants. Study 3 investigated the outcomes for those who were granted or declined a benefit across the variables of education, employment, income, adverse life circumstances, wellbeing, and family relationships. Study 4 examined a psychological construct, termed cynical distrust, which appeared to be a characteristic trait in welfare seeking youth. Conclusions from this research provided indicators of youth who will usually be granted an IYB, they are, those who report bullying, abuse, parent psychopathology, single parent homes, a parent on a benefit and foster placement. Applicants who reported suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts and had contact with Police and Child Youth and Family Services also were more likely to be granted an Independent Youth Benefit (IYB). If the applicants were Maori and had previously seen a counsellor for a mental health problem, they also were more likely to receive the IYB. However, when applicants were referred to Family Reconciliation Counselling (FRC), there was a statistically significant association between benefit application and benefit declined. A unique finding from this population related to the association of 'unknown fathers' with suicide. Absent father literature is now extensive, however, little research has been conducted into the effects of 'unknown fathers', particularly for Maori youth who place much of their strength and wellbeing in their genealogy. Other salient factors leading to suicide for IYB applicants included, previous suicide attempt, co-morbid disorder, unresolved anger, no identified caring adult, foster placement and an impending legal or disciplinary event. Maori males with such factors posed the greatest risk for suicide. Counsellors, psychologists, families and policy analysts need to acknowledge that IYB applicants who attempted suicide, show cynical distrust, and were declined a benefit, had extremely poor life outcomes. The New Zealand youth welfare system could be functioning far more efficiently if documented recommendations become realities.

The shift to community care through the deinstitutionalisation movement in New Zealand has been criticised for producing fragmented and uncoordinated service provision for those with mental illness in the community. As a result, the police are coming into increased contact with the mentally ill, often in times of crisis, positioning police at the junction between mental health services and the criminal justice system. Barriers to access for integrative, comprehensive mental health care in the community have led to police understanding their position as the ‘ambulance at the bottom of the cliff’. While previous research has attended to police officer attitudes and points of interaction with those with mental illness in the community, little has been said regarding understandings of the collaborative relationships from the vantage point of those officers policing the mentally ill. The current research sought to address this gap in the literature by exploring how police make sense of their experiences with those with mental illness in the community using a Foucaultian form of discourse analysis. The discourses that co-articulated and produced understandings of the position(s) of police in community service provision for the mentally ill and the power relationships between the police, the mental health system and the mentally ill can be understood through ‘links in the chain’; ‘the (un) identifiable other’; ‘no-man’s land’; ‘underdogs’; and ‘the cure’. These systems of meaning making from the police vantage point reproduced and re-institutionalised constructions of the mentally ill as ‘criminal’ or ‘disordered’, necessitating mechanisms of power and control to address the ‘risk’ mental illness posed to the community. Through such understandings the police, as society’s institutional response to ‘threat’, necessarily occupy the position of the ‘ambulance at the bottom of the cliff’ at the institutional boundaries between disorder and criminality. And it is here that the institutional response to mental illness re-emerges as re-institutionalisation.

This aim of this study was to explore the importance of natural surroundings to human health from a health psychology perspective. The increase in built environments have replaced green spaces in the urban areas and the effects of this has been explored by several disciplines ranging from environmental psychology, leisure studies, urban planning, public health to name a few. Findings from these studies have shown that natural environments do play a significant role in human health. However, it was deemed that exploring the influence of nature on human health from a health psychology viewpoint would provide a different dimension to this established link between nature and humans to press for preserving and providing more green spaces in the cities. Urban green areas offer several benefits such as space for exercise, leisure, psychological space for rejuvenating, healing and social connections that are all crucial for our wellbeing. This study explores the many ways natural settings contribute to health and well-being from a health psychology angle. A qualitative design was employed using a phenomenological approach to understand the everyday experience of being in nature/natural environments. Cornwall Park/One Tree Hill in Auckland was chosen as the site for this study. Nine women and men between the ages of 30 and 70 were chosen from this site to take part in the study. Methods of data collection were mainly in-depth interviews and photo-discussion. The data was analysed using a phenomenological approach based on the guidelines developed by Moustakas (1994) and van Manen (1990). The findings revealed that natural surroundings influenced people positively in many ways that contributed to their physical, mental and spiritual well-being. Natural environments satisfied a wide-range of needs, such as providing a place/space to exercise, to be alone and reflect, connect with nature, recreate, heal and socialise to name a few, in green, quiet, pollution-free, aesthetically pleasing settings. The essence of the phenomenon that is estimated to have been captured in the study is, “human experience in nature from the point of view of health psychology, or human experience of wellness, being in nature”.

The aim of this thesis was to develop and test a theoretical model of fiendships in the workplace. Friendships within organisations may have a profound effect on an employee's experience of work, potentially either hindering or facilitating organisational functioning, yet friendships have seldom been studied in an organisational context. The association between friendships at work and organisational outcomes such as job satisfaction, organisational commitment and turnover intentions were investigated in three studies, assessing support for a theoretical model. In the first study, employees of a large Auckland hospital Waitemata District Health Board, Auckland (NZ) (n = 124) were surveyed using a written questionnaire. Results indicated that cohesiveness and opportunities for friendship were related to increased job satisfaction, leading to increased organisational commitment and decreased turnover intentions. The actual prevalence of friendships was primarily related to decreased turnover intentions. Overall there was good support for the proposed model. The need for further research to ascertain the generalisability of the findings was highlighted. A second study was conducted using an Internet based questionnaire, accessed both from within New Zealand and worldwide. A diverse sample of employees responded (n = 412). The analysis (structural equation modelling) indicated further support for most aspects of the model, suggesting that the findings are generalisable and the model is robust. The model of workplace relationships was cross-validated in a third study, confirming linkages between friendships at work and organisational outcomes. The model was then tested for intergroup invariance. The model was invariant across groups reporting differing needs for affiliation, autonomy and achievement, but non-invariant across groups occupying relatively less or more interdependent jobs. Results suggest that the interdependence of individuals' jobs affects the salience of work friendships more than respondents' subjective need. Overall, the research suggests that the presence of workplace friendships has a significant effect on several workplace variables, with the effect of friendships being more salient for individuals in interdependent work roles. The implications of the research findings are potentially far reaching. Not only do workplace friendships improve employees' experiences of work, but they also have the potential to affect the financial "bottom line" through factors such as enhanced organisational commitment, job satisfaction and reduced intentions to leave.

Research has highlighted the significant implications of spirituality for mental health and therapy. However, a key facet of spirituality yet to receive adequate research attention is people’s experience of their relationship with God. One useful theoretical framework recently applied to this relationship is attachment theory. Research suggests that many people experience their relationship with God as an attachment bond, and that styles of attachment to God (ATG) may have implications for mental health similar to human attachment. However, few studies have directly investigated the relationship between ATG and mental health, and limitations of these studies make it difficult to draw conclusions. The present study provides a more rigorous exploration of this relationship through the use of a cross-lagged research design, advanced statistical modelling, and investigation of potential moderators (gender and negative events). A convenience sample of 531 Christian adults was surveyed at two time points approximately four months apart. ATG was measured on two dimensions: ATG-avoidance (avoidance of intimacy with/dependence on God) and ATG-anxiety (preoccupations and fears regarding God’s rejection). Higher levels of baseline ATG-anxiety predicted poorer emotional wellbeing at Time 2, after controlling for baseline emotional wellbeing. This effect was stronger amongst participants experiencing a high level of negative events. Findings also indicate a potential mechanism for this effect. Specifically, ATG-anxiety was associated with a tendency to appraise negative events as indicating God’s abandonment/punishment. These appraisals mediated the relationship between ATG-anxiety and emotional wellbeing. In contrast, low levels of ATG-anxiety buffered the effects of negative events. The effects of ATG-anxiety were significant only amongst males, contrary to hypotheses. ATG-avoidance did not show hypothesised effects on emotional wellbeing in either gender. Possible limitations of the ATG-avoidance measure were noted, and may have influenced findings. Suggestions were made as to how future studies might address this potential measurement issue and other limitations of the study. Findings indicate that ATG theory may have useful therapeutic applications, as proposed by previous researchers. Specifically, the ATG framework may be useful for conceptualising clients’ relationship with God and its effects on mental health, although establishing this will ultimately require testing in clinical samples.

Reviews conflict regarding the effectiveness of psycho-oncological therapies at reducing patient anxiety, depression and general distress, suggesting that unknown factors are moderating trial results. This meta-analysis investigates the moderating impact of a large range of socio-demographic, psychological, medical and therapy factors using published and unpublished data from 146 prospective controlled trials, including non-random designs. Preliminary analyses of trial design quality features exposed 2 moderators: recruit screening for psychological distress or history, and the nature of the control condition. These structured a 2 x 2 matrix used to conduct substantive analyses. Admitting only recruits with established baseline distress was found to predict greater effect size, as was excluding patients with a history of distress. Main effects for patients with baseline distress compared with untreated controls, were medium-strong at g = 0.52 - 0.70. Evidence of varying strengths indicated that patients who were older, of lower income, male, single, or suffering from cancer sited elsewhere than breast produced higher effect sizes. Data also highlighted particular stages in the cancer journey: re-entry to normal life at the end of medical treatment, recurrence, and distant disease spread. Findings suggest that risk and distress screening should be employed by both clinicians and researchers. Researchers should also re-direct attention away from unscreened middle class early stage breast cancer patients, towards more vulnerable socio-demographic and medical groups. The potential of using survivors and indirect therapies to effectively and efficiently reach vulnerable groups deserves exploration. Reviewers need to take into account the 2 trial design moderators discovered, and should include non-random controlled trials which may have more access to particularly vulnerable groups because some past conclusions were confounded by the co-variation of study design with sampling characteristics.

The role of discourse in the construction of institutional and academic knowledge is now recognised within a wide variety of theoretical perspectives, including social constructionism, the sociology of scientific knowledge, the rhetoric of inquiry and discursive psychology. The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which such discursive knowledge construction practices occur in relation to psychological phenomena. The site of this investigation was the highly contentious debate surrounding the reality of repressed/recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Ten 'popular' psychology texts (five supporting the concept of recovered memories and five questioning it) were discursively and rhetorically analysed in order to gain an understanding of how the authors of these texts deployed arguments to support their own positions and undermine those of their opponents. Five broad rhetorical resources were identified as being prominent in the texts, each of which was examined in detail to determine more specifically the source of their persuasive power. The five resources included authorial credibility, definitions, science, history and personal experience. Despite the meta-rhetoric surrounding the debate, which suggests that it is essentially an argument between researchers (drawing on scientific evidence) and clinicians (drawing on clinical experience), what was apparent was that all of these resources were utilised to varying degrees to support both pro- and anti- recovered memory positions. This analysis suggested that a reasonably structured set of discursive resources were available for making arguments about the nature of psychological phenomena. Furthermore, when given the opportunity, rhetors utilised as many of these resources as possible in order to produce a convincing argument, even when this resulted in inconsistencies within their texts. It was concluded that in the memory debate, the demands of the rhetorical imperative (to persuade the audience) often appear to be paramount, and should not be discounted by those seeking to understand this difficult and often distressing topic.