No description available.

No description available.

This study was conducted to examine the relationship between human sexuality, online dating, and personality. The two sexual subcultures investigated were the hook-up culture (casual sexuality) and unconventional sexual subculture (such as fetishes). The first hypothesis was that one's casual sexuality would influence one’s online dating participation. The second hypothesis was that there would be gender differences between participation in casual sexuality and participation in unconventional sexuality. The third hypothesis was certain personality traits would influence whether they would participate both sexuality measures. The measures used for the survey were Online Dating Index, Brief Sexual Attitudes Scale, Big Five Inventory, and Alternative Sexuality Questionnaire. 87 University of Central Florida undergraduate students completed the study measures from a Qualtrics survey. 70 females, 16 males, and 1 transgendered person took the survey. Results showed that there were no gender differences when it came to participation in either sexuality measure. Certain personality traits did influence the participation in one or both sexuality cultures. And lastly, online dating did ultimately correlate with one's participation in the hook-up culture.

Educators perceive female bullies differently than male bullies. Despite evidence that bullying is a serious problem within schools in the United States, there is little research which focuses on how educators perceive differences and similarities of adolescent bullies based upon the gender of the bully. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine how educators perceive male and female bullies when they are described as exhibiting identical behavior. Goffman's theory of frames formed the theoretical foundation for this study. The independent variable of this study was gender of bully, and the three dependent variables were internalizing behavior, externalizing behavior, and social skills. Seventy-nine educators read one of two scenarios, featuring either a male bully or a female bully and then completed the Clinical Assessment of Behavior - Teacher Rating Form to reflect how they perceived the personality of the bully depicted in the scenario. The data collected were statistically analyzed using Analysis of Variance, Chi-square tests of independence and regression analyses. The results showed that educators do perceive male and female bullying behavior differently. The female bully was seen as more pathological, displaying higher levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors whereas the male bully was perceived as exhibiting normal levels of both internalizing and externalizing behavior. There was no difference in perceived social skills. Implications for positive social change are that the results could be used to sensitize teachers about the importance of considering gender issues when intervening in bullying incidents.

Although the current literature calls for generally increased attention to culture-specific influences in therapeutic settings, much more needs to be known regarding specific groups. Accordingly, this exploratory phenomenological study addressed the lack of awareness of the pendejo construct and its perceived threat as a stigmatizing attribute among indigenous Puerto Ricans. Since this phenomenon is believed to jeopardize self-other relationships including therapeutic relationships, the purpose of the study was to describe the pendejo concept as a cultural dimension of Puerto Rican psychology. The research focus included participants' personal and collective experiences of the pendejo construct, with attention directed to how this phenomenon was represented as a cognitive distortion, a self-referent in discourse, and manifested behaviorally. The study employed data collected via in-depth interviews with 8 successful, college-educated native Puerto Ricans. Transcribed data was organized by categories, coded by significant statements and distilled into structural and textural descriptions that revealed a marked similarity of participants' descriptions of the pendejo experience in terms of definitions, assumptions, emotional and behavioral responses, propensity and consequences. Psychological manifestations included escapist behaviors, cognitive distortions (people are out to "take me for pendejo"), and negative self-referents ("I am a pendejo") that translate into nonclinical paranoid tendencies and introjected hurt feelings. Awareness of this phenomenon can help culturally oriented therapists assist Puerto Rican clients toward becoming more assertive and proactive persons. This can lead to positive social change by enhancing mental health and interpersonal behavior within this population at the individual and the collective levels, as well as adding new insight to the literature.

Both information technology and small business are considered to be of great importance for economy today. Several empirical studies have however showed that the diffusion of information technology among small business have been limited. Since information technology is considered to be of strategic importance for organisations, the aim of this study is to identify and analyse strategic dispositions to information technology. This study has shown that information technology can be of different strategic importance for different managers. Strategic dispositions is a concept based on the managers perceptions of the strategic context, perceptions of information technology and the individual characteristics of the manager. The perspective used is based on a view upon strategies formed in an entrepreneurial mode or an adaptive mode.A survey is conducted with a sample of 600 managers in small business in Sweden. Analyses are conducted with a multivariate approach, using factor analysis to reduce complexity in data, cluster analysis to group objects and finally discriminant analysis to categorise groups and analyse different strategic dispositions to information technology.The classification of managers resulted in six groups, separated by their inclination to use technology, their dynamics and their uncertainty avoidance. Further analysis however showed that there are mainly four strategic dispositions within the population, where the two groups with a lower inclination to use technology showed similar patterns to two of the other groups. The four strategic dispositions are therefore divided by means of dynamics and uncertainty avoidance. Dynamics is a concept mainly based on contextual characteristics and uncertainty avoidance is a concept mainly based on how the firms handles the context. The overall context and handling of this context constitute an application context.The first application context in a situation of high dynamics and low uncertainty avoidance is labelled stratège development, where information technology has a strong linkage to core competencies in the business. In this application context, the strategic disposition is proactive. The second, based on high dynamics and high uncertainty avoidance, labelled adaptive change, includes patterns where information technology are used to adapt to uncertain environments. The strategic disposition is reactive. The third application context, in low dynamics and high uncertainty avoidance, is labelled fixed relations, where information technology is used to maintain a fixed relation with an other actor in the environment. This strategic disposition is interactive. Finally, in low dynamics and low uncertainty avoidance, the application context is labelled fixed structures. Information technology is in this case used not to achieve dynamics or growth, nor to reduce uncertainty, but merely because of a fixed structural complexity best handled with information technology. The disposition is inactive in its mode.The different strategic dispositions show that introduction of information technology is influenced by both context as well as individual intentions. The strategic importance of information technology is therefore a complex conception, to be used with discretion. / digitalisering@umu

Military personnel and first responders operate in complex operational environments, and must be able to perform under physical, psychological, and emotional stress. Research suggests that resiliency assuages stress and improves the performance of military personnel and first responders. However, there are no studies examining the effects of resiliency on military first responders in training. The purpose of this research was to determine whether the dispositional hardiness traits of commitment, control and challenge displayed by Marine aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) specialist trainees correlated to success in classroom performance, success during practical exercises, higher graduation rates. The theoretical foundation for this ex post facto quantitative study was psychological and organizational resiliency, as represented by Kobasa's hardiness theory. The convenience sample consisted of 60 Marine ARFF specialists trainees using self-report surveys during 2013. Independent samples t tests and hierarchical regression analyses revealed no statistical significance between higher hardiness levels and academic and practical application performance, although physical injury and other factors not measured by the hardiness construct were found to impact graduation rates negatively. The implications for positive social change include expanding organizational conceptions of resilience to measure dispositional factors not assessed by hardiness. This study may also offer insights into improving Marine Corps and first responder selection, training, and educational programs, as well as their performance and quality of life.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest religious motivations mediate the relationship between the religious philosophy and perceived well-being of believers. The intrinsic-extrinsic-quest paradigm has been the dominant measure of religious motivation for more than 3 decades. However, the different effects of intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest motivation on the well-being of believers has not been tested on a stratified, purposeful sample of the major world religions. A quantitative, quasi-experimental research design was used with an online, self-report questionnaire and mediation analysis to examine the effects of religious motivation on the relationship between religious philosophy and well-being. A stratified, purposeful sample of 763 members of the major world religions completed assessments of religion and well-being. Linear regressions revealed that intrinsic, extrinsic, and quest religious motivations were three distinct constructs, that they do exist across the world religions, and that they mediated the relationship between different religions and well-being, depending on which predictor and outcome variables were being examined in the mediation triangle. Positive social change is possible for counselors, therapists, psychologists of religion, religious leaders, and laypersons at the individual and societal level through knowing which religious beliefs, motivations, and practices are associated with positive affect, satisfaction with life, the fulfilment of basic human needs, eudaimonic well-being, and better physical health. Individuals come to religion mainly during times of personal crises as a way of coping, expecting urgent results, and these findings illuminate the effectiveness of their chosen coping strategy.

No description available.

The development of emotion regulation skills is an imperative task early in development. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a physiological proxy of regulation, is indicative of one’s regulatory capacity and can be predictive of behavior in later life (Graham, Ablow, & Measelle, 2010; Moore, 2010). Children begin regulating their emotions at a physiological level early in infancy. Infants who are able to properly suppress RSA have higher quality social interactions in childhood (Graziano, Keane, & Calkins, 2007). Previous work has suggested that parents play a role in predicting infant RSA (Conradt & Ablow, 2010). For example, parent marital satisfaction is known to impact infants’ physiological regulation, such that infants whose parents are less satisfied with their marriages have a decreased ability to regulate physiologically (Moore et al., 2009; Porter, Wouden-Miller, Silva, & Porter, 2003). Previous research has found that parent personality impacts parenting strategies (Cummings & Davies, 1994; Prinzie, Stams, Deković, Reijntjes, & Belsky, 2009), however work examining how parent personality interacts with marital satisfaction to predict infant RSA is lacking. Moreover, the majority of previous work assessing the parent predictors of infant RSA focused on mothers (e.g., Moore et al., 2009). There are known differences in the way mothers and fathers interact with their infants, as well as differences in the way fathers and mothers respond to marital dissatisfaction (Forbes, Cohn, Allen, & Lewinsohn, 2004; Karney & Bradbury, 1995). The present study focused on examining how marital satisfaction and parent personality predicts infant RSA with mothers and fathers. The current study involved 38 families (6-month old infants, mothers, and fathers). Parents completed questionnaires measuring marital satisfaction and personality. Mother-infant and fatherinfant dyads participated in a baseline and face-to-face play task (Still Face Paradigm; Tronick, Als, Adamson, Wise, & Brazelton, 1978), where infant physiological regulation was assessed. Results involving mothers did not yield significant findings predicting infant physiological regulation. For fathers, results indicated that parent personality and parent marital satisfaction predicted infant physiological regulation. The current study highlights the importance of examining the roles of both mothers and fathers predicting infant physiological regulation.