The study was to investigate the effectiveness of Sociocultural Competency Training (SCCT) as an intervention in enhancing self-efficacy among trainees in the health care profession. The purposes of the study were threefold: (a) to evaluate the effectiveness of the training in enhancing the trainees' self-efficacy and behavioural performance; (b) to examine their personal experiences in the learning ofthe sociocultural competencies, and (c) to identify the factors that contribute to effective outcomes. A sample of 84 participants in the Health Sciences program at the Vancouver Community College was recruited. There were 26 local born Canadians and 32 immigrants in the experimental group, whereas 11 local born Canadians and 15 immigrants were in the control group. Experimental group participants took part in an 18- hour training over a 6-week period as part of their regular Human Relations Skills course curriculum. The control group also took the same training course after post-test data collection. This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods. Self-efficacy and behavioural performance were assessed quantitatively by the results from the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE), Situational Social Avoidance Scale (SSA), Social Self-Efficacy Scale (SSE), and Interpersonal Skills Checklist (ISC-33). Qualitative data was collected through written feedback from 28 participants and semi-structured interviewing with 24 volunteer interviewees in the experimental group. The results of this study supported the hypotheses that the Sociocultural Competency Training was effective in improving the interpersonal skills and lowering the social avoidance tendency among participants in the experimental group when compared to individuals in the control group. The hypothesis that there would be more significant change in participants' social self-efficacy was also supported. The Sociocultural Competency Training offered effective ways of helping people develop positive self-efficacy and behavioural competencies. Participants reported the training enabled them to have the sociocultural competencies to conduct their professional career in a multicultural community. In the future, the training can be used with high school students, college and university students, international students, professionals, business people, and expatriates who need to learn the sociocultural competencies for career success.

Derived from a marxist/liberal humanist view of power, conventional critiques and historical accounts of the socio-medical sciences in South Africa see only their power to repress and negate the true bodily attributes and authentic person of the African. In so doing, they ignore the productive capacity of these knowledges and practices as a manifestation of what Michel Foucault termed "disciplinary" power, by which the human body is manufactured and made manageable as an object of medical knowledge and industrial utilisation. Accordingly, this thesis offers just such a Foucaultian reading of western socio-medical knowledge in South Africa to demonstrate how it has operated to fabricate the bodies of Africans as visible objects possessed of distinct attributes that have provoked particular strategies for their surveillance, management, and government in health and disease. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

Alguns saberes têm se destacado no estudo da autolesão, entre eles a medicina, (notadamente a psiquiatria), a psicologia e a psicanálise. Estes campos do conhecimento diferenciam os atos de ferir a si mesmo como parte de uma cultura específica ou ritual religioso das práticas autolesivas que são atribuídas a patologias ou disfunções. Estas últimas são consideradas como atos de autodestruição produzidos por pessoas que precisam de intervenções de especialistas para que deixem de ferir-se. Partimos do pressuposto de que a autolesão é um modo de subjetivação construído e transformado por diferentes discursos dependendo do contexto sociocultural em que acontece. Assim, a intenção deste trabalho é analisar, à luz da perspectiva pós-estruturalista, mensagens de pessoas que se autolesionam e discutem a sua experiência em comunidades virtuais da rede social Orkut. Resultados indicam que além dos discursos em comum com os citados campos de saber e com a religião, há ainda quem defina a autolesão como arte, maneira privilegiada de expressão das emoções ou mesmo fonte de prazer. Alguns internautas reivindicam o corpo como território de intervenção pertencente unicamente a si próprios, reclamando o direito de utilizá-lo como bem entendem, no que se pode caracterizar como um movimento de resistência à norma de ter que apresentar um corpo dócil. Por fim, compreende-se que os sujeitos envolvidos nessa prática relacionam-se com seu corpo e com as comunidades de que participam enquanto locais de produção de identidades. / Some fields of knowledge have been highlighted in the study of self-harm, such as medicine (especially psychiatry), psychology and psychoanalysis. These areas differentiate the acts of harming oneself as part of a specific culture or religious ritual from those recognized as pathologies or dysfunctional behavior. The last ones are considered as acts of self-destruction produced by individuals who need assistance so that they can stop self-injuring. Partimos do pressuposto de que a autolesão é um modo de subjetivação construído e transformado por diferentes discursos dependendo do contexto sociocultural em que acontece. Assuming that self-harm is a form of subjectivity produced and transformed by different speeches, depending on the social context in which it takes place, this study intends to analyze, using the post-structuralism perspective, messages left on Orkut virtual communities by people who self-harm and discuss their experiences in that social network. Results indicate discourses in common with the aforementioned fields of knowledge and with religion, as well as definitions of self-harm as art, a privileged way of expressing emotions or even a source of pleasure. Some internet users claim for the right to use their bodies as they please since it is meant to be their territory of intervention and their only, what can be understood as a movement of resistance to the rule of having a docile body. In conclusion, it is understood that the subjects involved with self-harm relate to their bodies and with virtual communities as means of producing identities.

The focus of this study was to determine how attribution patterns of children with an internal or external locus of control differ when playing a computer video game. Forty subjects each (twenty internally controlled and twenty externally controlled) were placed in a competitive or non-competitive treatment setting with a successful or unsuccessful outcome. Each subject played a computer video game made by a major manufacturer. At the completion of each session, each subject was asked to rate the four attributes of ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. The results were then analyzed using analysis of variance with age as a covariate.

Evidence is cited in this paper which suggests religion is gaining in influence on American life. Although interest in religiosity is increasing, mental health research into the area is meager. As psychological researchers grow cognizant of the impact of social systems on the individual, it becomes important to examine the impact of religion and religious belief on the emotional health of the individual. The literature also suggests that attitudes toward death and the individual's perception of power/helplessness, which are elements closely associated with religious belief, are also important factors in determining one's state of psychological well-being. This study is an attempt to look more closely at the role of religion, attitudes toward death, and perception of power/helplessness in a psychiatric population as compared to a nonpsychiatric population. The major variable under consideration, religious orientation, was measured with the Intrinsic-Extrinsic Religious Orientation Inventory which measures the nature of one's involvement with religion. The individual with an intrinsic orientation toward religion is believed to exhibit a healthier adjustment than the individual with an extrinsic orientation toward religion. It was hypothesized that healthier religious adjustment would be related to lower death anxiety, as measured by the Death Anxiety Scale, and lower locus of control scores, as measured by the Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. Further, it was assumed that whether or not one's religious belief system includes a belief in punishment after death would exert some influence on death anxiety. The information obtained in this study suggests that the most important factor of concern to psychiatric patients in the area of religious orientation and death anxiety is belief in punishment after death and its relationship to locus of control. Death anxiety was greatest in psychiatric patients who believed in punishment after death. Overall subjects who believed in punishment after death tended to exhibit higher external locus of control scores. Implications of these findings are discussed.

This descriptive correlational study was designed to examine the relationship between situational control, and both psychological and physical well-being, in the institutionalized elderly. A convenience sample of 52 elderly institutionalized subjects was selected from two intermediate care facilities. The subjects completed the Perceived Weil-Being Scale, the Situational Control Of Daily Activities Scale, and the Subject Information Sheet. All residents were found to have an overall perception of situational control. However, residents perceived a lack of control for the daily activities of eating and grooming. The majority of residents obtained a moderately high score on the psychological well-being and physical well-being scales. No significant relationship was found between situational control and psychological well-being, or situational control and physical well-being. A significant positive relationship was found between psychological well-being and physical well-being. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Nursing, School of / Graduate

The study was to investigate the effectiveness of Sociocultural Competency Training (SCCT) as an intervention in enhancing self-efficacy among trainees in the health care profession. The purposes of the study were threefold: (a) to evaluate the effectiveness of the training in enhancing the trainees' self-efficacy and behavioural performance; (b) to examine their personal experiences in the learning ofthe sociocultural competencies, and (c) to identify the factors that contribute to effective outcomes. A sample of 84 participants in the Health Sciences program at the Vancouver Community College was recruited. There were 26 local born Canadians and 32 immigrants in the experimental group, whereas 11 local born Canadians and 15 immigrants were in the control group. Experimental group participants took part in an 18- hour training over a 6-week period as part of their regular Human Relations Skills course curriculum. The control group also took the same training course after post-test data collection. This study used both quantitative and qualitative methods. Self-efficacy and behavioural performance were assessed quantitatively by the results from the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE), Situational Social Avoidance Scale (SSA), Social Self-Efficacy Scale (SSE), and Interpersonal Skills Checklist (ISC-33). Qualitative data was collected through written feedback from 28 participants and semi-structured interviewing with 24 volunteer interviewees in the experimental group. The results of this study supported the hypotheses that the Sociocultural Competency Training was effective in improving the interpersonal skills and lowering the social avoidance tendency among participants in the experimental group when compared to individuals in the control group. The hypothesis that there would be more significant change in participants' social self-efficacy was also supported. The Sociocultural Competency Training offered effective ways of helping people develop positive self-efficacy and behavioural competencies. Participants reported the training enabled them to have the sociocultural competencies to conduct their professional career in a multicultural community. In the future, the training can be used with high school students, college and university students, international students, professionals, business people, and expatriates who need to learn the sociocultural competencies for career success. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

The problem of this study was to search for relationships between selected learning styles as measured by the Grasha-Riechmann Learning Style Scales and personality variables as measured by the Eysenck Personality Inventory and Rotter's Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. An additional problem was to test for differences along the male-female dimension among the personality and attitude variables.

Studies investigating the development of perceived control and coping in the academic domain generally adopt an individual differences approach, reporting mean-level changes in these and associated constructs. Very few studies attempt to chart the process by which these personal resources exert individual and combined influences on academic outcomes, such as motivation and achievement, in light of normative developmental changes. Further, a consideration of reciprocal influences of these constructs on developmental changes and the contribution of social partners to these processes is not common. Conceptualized from a systems perspective, this study integrates these different approaches in a longitudinal inquiry into the development of perceived control and coping, the impact of coping on academic engagement and achievement, and how support from the context shapes, and is subsequently shaped by, student behavior. An action-theoretic model is used to describe the hypothesized relationships, deriving from Deci & Ryan's (1985) self-determination theory, and incorporating a flexible framework of coping as functionally similar yet structurally distinct strategies, defined as action-regulation under stress (Skinner, Edge, Altman, Sherwood, 2003; Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2007). Four ways of coping are examined, divided into two categories: mastery coping, comprising problem-solving and information-seeking, and helplessness coping, comprising escape and confusion ways of coping. Contextual support is conceptualized as teacher provision of structure, involvement, and autonomy support. Engagement, as a motivational resource that leads to increased achievement, comprises both behavioral and emotional aspects of engagement. A tri-partite formulation of perceived control is used (Skinner, Chapman, & Baltes, 1988a), comprising means-end (strategy), agency (capacity), and generalized control beliefs. Data collected during one year of a four-year longitudinal study from 665 students in grades four and six, and fifty-three of their teachers, were used for this investigation. Normative developmental differences were examined through comparisons of mean-level shifts in each of the model constructs; regression-based analyses tested for age differences over time in the process structure of the model. Reciprocal influences of coping and engagement on teacher support and perceived control, and of engagement and achievement on coping, were also tested for age differences. Results highlight the normative developmental changes that occur in these constructs during middle childhood, and indicate that the pattern of these changes is largely consistent with expectations; however, the process structure of the model relating the constructs of interest was found to be stable over time, with only one significant age difference detected: the influence on mastery coping of means-end control beliefs for effort. All other relationships tested did not differ significantly as children get older. Discussion focuses on evidence provided by the results of age trends in the developmental processes believed to be the drivers of change in the study constructs. Implications for the study of coping, regulatory processes, and features of the educational context, as they relate to the development of children's coping and control resources, are explored, with suggestions for the direction future research in these areas might take.

The problem with which this study was concerned was that of evaluating and comparing of locus of control scores and interpersonal distance among the institutionalized and non-institutionalized mildly retarded populations. The hypothetical assumptions specifically stated that the institutionalized retardates will be more externally oriented, will show a greater interpersonal distance towards stimuli with no specific expectancies. In view of the findings of the study, the following recommendations are offered: 1. Determination and evaluation of locus of control in retardates may be a useful technique in assessing their personality and understanding their psychological needs. Several investigators have been attempted with neurotics and subjects with character disorders, but none is reported with retarded populations. Such information may contribute to planning and programming for this particular group. 2. Determination of the retardates' interpersonal space may be an important approach in assessing their personality structure. Such studies have been conducted with the emotionally disturbed children, schizophrenics and normal subjects; however, none has been conducted with retardates. 3. The instruments used for this study have been designed for and standardized on samples of normal populations. To achieve more accurate results, these instruments should be designed for and standardized on a sample consisting of retarded subjects. 4. The only validity and reliability studies available have been conducted with normal subjects. To determine applicability of these instruments with retarded populations, further validity and reliability studies are needed. 5. Samples of more comparable average ages may be more suitable for the replication of this study. Previous research by Bailer has clearly indicated that there is a positive correlation between chronological ages of the subjects and the degree of internal locus of control. Therefore, in future studies this factor must seriously be considered.