This research study was developed to investigate a group of Outstanding college personalities in Iran. The purposes of the study were: (a) to identify a "frequently nominated" group and an "infrequently nominated" group of University of Isfahan students based on the social criterion of "outstanding personality development"; (b) to determine whether or not "friendship nominations" unduly influenced the selection of "frequently nominated" students; (c) to determine whether or not "frequently nominated" and "infrequently nominated" students could be reliably differentiated on stressful life events, developmental histories, mental health adjustment, expressed needs, and descriptive data; and (d) to present a summary of the most striking and consistent findings on personality development of the "frequently nominated" students. This study concludes that 1. A "frequently nominated" group and an "infrequently nominated" group of normal Iranian student personalities, based on the social criterion of "outstanding personality development," can be identified and statistically differentiated. 2. "Outstanding" Iranian student personalities have greater affiliative capacities than other normal Iranian student personalities. 3. "Outstanding" Iranian student personalities possess ego strength, as evidenced by their desire to make decisions from inner self evaluations and to break parental standards, to a greater extent than other normal Iranian student personalities. 4. "Outstanding" Iranian student personalities do not practice self—sacrifice. 5. "Outstanding" Iranian student personalities are actualizing their capacities to a greater degree than are other normal Iranian student personalities. 6. "Outstanding" Iranian student personalities are not free from stressful situations, problems, or inner conflicts.

This study examines the relative influence of value priorities, ethnicity and 'worries' in the determination of political party affiliation amongst Ugandan university students. Schwartz's values questionnaire was administered to 309 male and 176 female first year students from the faculties of engineering, medicine, law, commerce, social sciences, sciences, education and mass communication at Makerere University Uganda. The sample included respondents from all of the six sub-ethnic groups in Uganda. Respondents also covered the major religious groups in the country and were also representative of the major political parties. Results from the statistical analysis on the data show that ethnicity and certain values playa role in the determination of these students' affiliation to a political party. Chi-square results show that achievement, benevolence, universalism, security, tradition and conformity values are given differing importance across political parties. And, Anova results show that the tradition value has a significant mean difference across parties. Other factors such as religion and course of study are also found to have significant influence on these student's affiliation to political parties. Although 'worries' are found not to have a significant influence on student's political party affiliation, findings show that students from different political parties differ in their ratings of the different types of ' worries'. Therefore results show that ethnicity and value priorities do infl4ence these students' affiliation to a political party but ' worries' do not. The discussion section explores these findings in the context of contemporary Ugandan politics.

The purpose of this study was to come to an understanding of the meaning and experience of community for undergraduate students at a research-intensive university. It was assumed that exploring community bounded by disciplinary affiliation would be a valuable approach to understanding this phenomenon within the context of the researchintensive university. In-depth interviews were conducted with 23 third year Psychology students pursuing either a Bachelor of Arts or a Bachelor of Science degree, and a survey designed to explore key aspects of interviewees' experiences was administered to a larger cohort of such students. Students' experiences were examined through the lens of constitutive and individualistic community frameworks, and ideal and actual experiences were compared. The results of this study show that a focus on disciplinary affiliation was a useful approach to understanding the meaning of community. Results document the significant influences of disciplinary affiliation on community membership and belonging. This exploration revealed that issues of community membership, involvement, and belonging were longitudinal processes that entailed complex patterns of participation and modes of exclusion that were influenced by students' aspirations and obligations as well as structural characteristics of the Psychology department and of the research-intensive university. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

This study examines personal problems which a selected group of 1970's college freshmen at North Texas State University considered important to them and investigates significant changes in the nature, configuration, and frequency of these problems from those indicated by selected freshmen of the 1960's and 1950's. None of the wide variety of previous approaches over the years in studying problems of students has presented such a broad time span as this study. The students of the 1950's and 1960's were North Texas State University freshmen enrolled in Education 161, "The Psychology of Social and Personal Adjustment." The 1970's population was taken from basic freshman English courses at North Texas State University. All students were administered the Mooney Problem Check List, and the results were prepared for computer analysis. An analysis-of-variance program was used on eight hypotheses, with a .05 level of significance required for the hypotheses to be retained. The Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient was used in answering two hypotheses. There were 2,809 freshmen from the 1950's, 1,440 from the 1960's, and 695 from the 1970's.

There are two general goals that personality researchers seek to accomplish. The first goal is to define domains that comprise the thousands of personal characteristics that make a person unique. And the second is to examine the generalizability of dimensions across cultures and languages, that is, to observe whether personality domains are universal or culture-specific. Following the steps of personality psychologists the first goal of this dissertation was to define dimensions of personality of Americans and Mexicans, and the second was to observe if dimensions were equivalent or unique across these two cultures. Typically personality researchers, in order to identify the most relevant aspects of human personality, have turned to a questionnaire method whereby people rate themselves along dimensions of traits most often described in natural language. These trait terms are derived from various dictionaries within the researchers' culture. Multiple ratings are then factor analyzed yielding a smaller group of broad traits that then serve to define the culture's primary personality dimensions. In this investigation, personality terms were culled from open-ended personality descriptions. Relying on a new text analytic procedure called the meaning extraction method, it was possible to define dimensions of personality in Americans and Mexicans. The factoranalytically derived results showed that there were seven relevant dimensions of personality for Americans and six dimensions for Mexicans. Using qualitative and quantitative analyses it was possible to observe which dimensions were equivalent and which dimensions were unique to each culture. Specifically, for both Americans and Mexicans, the most important dimensions were Sociability, Values, Hobbies/Activities, and Emotionality. Three dimensions were unique to Americans (i.e., Fun, Existentialism, and College Experience), and two for the Mexicans (Relationships and Simpatía). Other analyses were done to explore the universality and uniqueness of the dimensions. For example, dimensions were correlated with self-reports that measure dimensions wellestablished by personality researchers. The challenge of establishing dimensions across cultures and languages are discussed, along with the limitations of the approach.

The purpose of this project was to examine potential differences in undergraduate student attachment styles based on their nationality (Taiwanese and U.S.), gender (female and male), and the duration of their dating relationships (no relationship, less than 1 year, more than 1 year but less than 2 years, more than 2 years but less than 3 years, and more than 3 years). A total of 2,580 students participated in this study. Of these students, 1,298 were recruited from a university in Taiwan, and 1,282 were obtained from a university in the U.S. Due to a lack of culturally-sensitive attachment theory and measures for the Asian population, in the current project, the author created a new scale based on the five Eastern cultural constructs identified by Wang and Song (2010) in order to gather data to better understand Taiwanese relational patterns. However, rather than confirming the five cultural constructs, a three-factor solution was found in this project. This solution better fit the data for Taiwanese students. The three-factors that were discovered were dialectical thinking and interdependent self-construal, filial piety, and yuan. In the study to test the hypotheses, it was found that among the three cultural constructs, dialectical thinking and interdependency and yuan seemed to be more relevant to the attachment styles of Taiwanese students than filial piety. For the U.S. students, however, responses to yuan were significantly correlated with responses to attachment styles. Regarding the comparison between Taiwanese and U.S. participants, Taiwanese respondents seemed to relate to a dialectical thinking pattern, interdependency, and yuan better than U.S. students, while U.S. respondents rated higher on filial piety than the Taiwanese participants. In addition, the longer individuals were involved in a dating relationship, the lower they scored on attachment avoidance. Even though females' overall scores on avoidance were higher than males, being in a relationship had greater salience for females than males. Strengths, limitations, and implications for research, theory, and practice are discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 42-47).

This study investigated the Adlerian concept of social interest m entering community college students to determine the predictive value of social interest for academic achievement and to determine the relationship between social interest and ethnicity and gender. Data for this study included age, gender, ethnic origin, high school class quarter, financial aid status, ACT Composite, grade point average, and scores on the Social Interest Scale. The results of stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that the social interest scores did not contribute significantly to the prediction of academic achievement. The results of an analysis of variance indicated a significant difference in the social interest scores of Anglo-American, Black-American, and Mexican-American students but the Scheffe test for multiple comparisons did not indicate any significant differences among or between the three ethnic groups. The results of a two-tailed t-test for independent samples indicated no significant difference in the social interest scores of males and females.

published_or_final_version / Social Work and Social Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This study compares American and Turkish male and female university students in terms of moral orientation (justice and care) and Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning to examine the influence of culture and gender on moral development. A total of 324 undergraduate students between the ages of 18 and 46 are administered the Defining Issues Test (DIT) and the Measure of Moral Orientation (MMO). Statistical analyses indicate Turkish participants reflect more postconventional reasoning, while American participants reflect more conventional reasoning, particularly Stage 4 reasoning. Analyses also reveal Turkish participants reflect significantly more care orientation and more justice orientation compared to American participants. These findings are discussed in terms of cultural and gender influences in moral decision-making.