The complexity of behaviour necessitates a clear and concise approach in order to comprehend its functioning. An example of such an approach is highlighted by the field of cybernetics. Cybernetic models have been used extensively throughout the various fields of Psychology but perhaps never more so as in the case of short term memory (STM). This particular field abounds with behavioural models and research workers are constantly developing new models or testing the universality of existing models. Universal validity is essential to the strength of the behavioural principles inherent in any model but unfortunately such validity tends to be neglected. The present study attempts to reconcile this position with reference to specific models of STM, with relation to the phenomena of eidetic imagery (EI). Certain studies concerning the incidence of EI in illiterate Africans have produced results which are contradictory to those obtained in the Western culture. Two of the most important contradictions concern the fact that the illiterate Africans experienced the absence of an age parameter on the occurrence of such imagery and the fact that the incidence of imagery was more extensive in the African culture. A reason for these contradictions was sought and it was reasoned that as eidetic images have been closely linked with memory images, it may, therefore, be assumed that these particular cultures may use EI as an aid to memory in the absence of written material. Further, it would not be unreasonable to assume that this visual imagery may tend to dominate the STM process and thereby challenge the universality of those memory models that proposed acoustic domination of this process. No work has been done in investigating the memory process of the Africans. Thus, a study which did so would not only test the universality of specific memory models but would also possibly throw more light on the memory process itself. In this particular study there were three specific aims; (a) to ascertain the relative incidence of EI on a cross-cultural level, (b) to assess the influence of EI on the memory process, and (c) to ascertain the extent to which principles of STM developed in the West applied to the African groups. The groups concerned in the study comprised two Xhosa groups and a European group. The European group (WS) was drawn from a White Student population at Rhodes University and was regarded as a control group. The equivalent literate Xhosa group (BS) was drawn from a Black Student population at the University of Fort Hare. The illiterate Xhosa group (RX) was drawn from a population of Red Xhosa people in the Transkei. Four tasks were administered to the groups with the cross-cultural variable carefully controlled as much as possible. The following comprised the four tasks; (a) eidetic imagery (b) auditory serial recall (c) visual serial recall and (d) an acoustic confusable task. Each subject commenced with the eidetic imagery task and was then confronted with a random presentation of the other three tasks. The EI task began with an after image task which was foIlowed by three selected pictures which comprised the EI task. After each picture presentation the subject was closely questioned as to the presence of imagery. Scoring was of a subjective nature. The visual and acoustic confusion tasks constituted serial presentation of ten items over six randomized trials. Each item was presented for 0,75 seconds with a negligible inter-item interval. The presentation order of the items was randomized throughout the trials. Presentation was by means of a preprogrammed 16mm colour film. Items were scored for correct serial position. The auditory task consisted of the serial presentation of ten items over six randomized trials. The items were once again randomized throughout the trials with regards to presentation order. The presentation speed was one word per second. The presentation was by means of a pre-programmed tape. Items were scored for correct serial position. The visual task was common to both language groups whilst the other two tasks correlated with the language group. Thus, the items in the auditory and acoustic confusion tasks were different for each language but an attempt was made to control this variable. The tasks were conducted in the subjects home language which was either Xhosa or English. It was assumed that the RX group would demonstrate a greater incidence of EI, irrespective of the age of the subject, and that imagery would be reflected in the recall performance of the memory tasks. It was suggested that imagery may determine or encourage the mode of storage that the subject employed, which, in this case, would be the visual modality. If so then it would be expected that visual storage would circumvent the detrimental influence of acoustic confusability. The Xhosa university group (BS ) was an unknown quantity but was included to ascertain whether there were any marked differences between the group and the other two. The results revealed that imagery was in fact more prevalent in the Xhosa groups whilst the WS group demonstrated a complete lack of EI but did report the presence of pictorial imagery (PI). However, imagery did not appear to function as an aid to memory. It seemed, however, that in certain instances it correlated with visual encoding. Generally the Xhosa subjects, especially with regards to the visual tasks, tended to encode visually whilst the WS group encoded auditorily. With reference to recall performance, it was found that in all instances the WS group demonstrated superior recall followed by the BS and RX groups in that order. There was a significant difference in the strength of recall between each of the groups. The results of the auditory and visual tasks were interpreted within the STM principles developed in the West. It was found that the WS group adhered to these principles thereby justifying its position as a central group. The BS group followed a similar pattern with exception to the recency effect which was much weaker in their case. The RX group reported the absence of any storage and rehearsal strategies and this was reflected in their poor recall performance. They too were characterized by a very weak recency effect. The interesting point arose, however, when the auditory and visual recency effects were compared. According to Crawder and Norton (1969) the influence or the precategorical acoustic store (PAS) on recall should be reflected by a comparatively stronger auditory recency effect. This trend was observed in relation to the WS group but not to the Xhosa groups who tended to demonstrate a stronger visual recency effect. It was therefore, suspected that PAS did not operate with the same effectiveness with the Xhosa subjects. In fact it was suggested that in the case of the Xhosa subjects the visual peripheral store may be stronger than PAS. Contrary to expectation all three groups exhibited acoustic confusion. This was expected of the WS group as the subjects preferred auditory storage , but not of the Xhosa subjects who preferred visual storage. It was suggested however, that in the case of the Xhosa subjects the visual storage technique would have to be abandoned immediately prior to or during recall as recall was necessarily in the auditory modality. The outcome of the experiment generally confirmed Doab's conclusions as to the incidence of imagery and its relation with memory. However, due to the Xhosa preference for visual storage and their stronger visual recency effect, Sperling's model was slightly modified. Conrad 's findings were, of course, substantiated.

A measure of the self-esteem of 426 subjects was obtained by means of the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory. The sample comprised two Afrikaans, two Coloured and two English groups. Each of the above three groups was made up of pupils and students, (i. e. there were six separate sample groups). The major purpose of this study was to ascertain whether or not the Coloureds could be said to differ meaningfully from their White counterparts with regard to their general level of self-esteem. A secondary objective was to investigate the possibility of the Afrikaans and English groups differing in self-esteem. No significant differences were found to exist between any of the three student sample groups. The ranking of the mean self-esteem scores of these groups was: Afrikaans (highest), Coloured, English (lowest). The only groups that differed significantly from one another at the pupil level were the Afrikaans and the Coloureds. Their ranking was: Afrikaans (highest), English, Coloured (lowest). The prediction arising from the hypothesis of this study was that the Coloureds do not necessarily differ from Whites in their general level of self-esteem. This view is held because factors similar to those which are believed to have facilitated the rise in the self-esteem of the American Negroes are now operating in South Africa. It was concluded that this prediction was upheld.

Hardiness é um conceito que está cada vez mais sendo usado com a finalidade de explicar as possíveis diferenças individuais no enfrentamento do stress. Os instrumentos de medida de hardiness são em língua inglesa, dos quais optou-se pela adaptação cultural da Hardiness Scale, original dos Estados Unidos da América, de autoria de Bartone, Ursano, Wright e Ingraham (1989). Sua finalidade é avaliar o quanto de atitudes Hardy as pessoas têm no enfrentamento de situações estressantes. É uma escala do tipo Likert, com escores que variam de 0 (nada verdadeiro) a 3 (totalmente verdadeiro), possui 30 itens que são distribuídos em três domínios (Compromisso, Controle e Desafio). Os objetivos deste estudo foram realizar a adaptação cultural da Hardiness Scale para a língua portuguesa do Brasil; avaliar a validade de construto e a confiabilidade da versão adaptada. As etapas propostas por Ferrer et al (1996) foram obedecidas, a saber: 1. Tradução para língua portuguesa (Consenso: Versão I em Português); 2. Avaliação pelo Comitê de Revisão (Versão II em Português); 3. Retradução (Back translation); 4. Avaliação semântica dos itens (Versão III em Português); 5. Pré-teste (Versão Final Português) e 6. Análise das propriedades da medida adaptada. A coleta de dados da aplicação do instrumento foi realizada junto aos enfermeiros do serviço público de saúde de dois municípios do interior do estado de São Paulo, totalizando 71 participantes. A confiabilidade interna medida com o uso de Alpha de Cronbach obteve os seguintes valores: para a composição da escala foi de 0,732, enquanto que os domínios apresentaram alfa de 0,683 para Compromisso, 0,632 para Controle e 0,441 para Desafio. Na análise da Escala de Hardiness adaptada quanto à validade de construto obteve-se relação positiva e significante com o Inventário de Estratégias de Coping de Folkman e Lazarus, e negativa e significante com o Inventário de Depressão de Beck. Pode-se concluir que a Escala de Hardiness apresenta-se adaptada para a língua portuguesa do Brasil, com consistência interna satisfatória e validade de construto na população estudada e seus achados corroboram com a literatura corrente / Hardiness is a concept that is increasingly being used in order to explain possible individual differences in the coping of stress. The instruments for measuring hardiness are in English language and of witch opted for the cultural adaptation of the Hardiness Scale, original United States of America, by Bartone, Ursano, Wright and Ingraham (1989). Its purpose is to assess how much Hardy attitudes the people have in coping with stressful situations. It is a Likert-type scale, with scores ranging from 0 (not true) to 3 (completely true), it contains 30 items that are distributed in three domains (Commitment, Control and Challenge). The objectives of this study were to perform cultural adaptation of the Hardiness Scale into Portuguese of Brazil, to evaluate the reliability and construct validity of the adapted version. The steps proposed by Ferrer et al. (1996) were followed, namely: 1. Translation to Portuguese language (Consensus: Version I in Portuguese), 2. Evaluation by the Committee of Review (Version II in Portuguese), 3. Back translation, 4. Semantics evaluation of the items (Version III in Portuguese), 5. Pre-test (Final Version Portuguese) and 6. Analysis of the properties of the adapted measure. The data from the application of the instrument was conducted with nurses from the public health service in two cities country side of São Paulo State, totalizing 71 participants. The internal reliability measured by use of Cronbach\'s Alpha achieved the following values: for the composition of the scale was .732, while the areas showed Commitment to .683, .632 for Control and 0.441 to Challenge. In the analysis of the adapted Hardiness Scale concerning the validity of construct obtained significant and positive relation with the Inventory of Coping Strategies of Folkman and Lazarus, and negative and significant with the Beck Depression Inventory. It can be concluded that the Hardiness Scale, it is adapted to the Portuguese language of Brazil, with satisfactory internal consistency and construct validity in the studied population and its findings corroborate with current literature

Much cross-cultural research has been done on the topic of schizophrenia, but few studies thus far have focused on lifetime prevalence and prognosis together, grouped by world region. Additionally, there has been severe bias in which countries and regions have been studied both historically and currently. Any study that had statistics on lifetime prevalence per 1000 people and/or DALYs, from a specified country or region, was included in this thesis. Results showed that lifetime prevalence of schizophrenia does not differ among WHO regions, but DALYs and thus prognosis do differ. Several major conclusions can be drawn from these results. One is that prognosis differs even though prevalence does not. Another is that schizophrenia is not a region-specific disorder. A third is that the reason that prevalence does not differ among regions could be due to biological causes of schizophrenia being more powerful than environmental causes. A fourth is that the reasons that prognosis differs in different regions are plentiful, but can all be derived from social support and community. The implications of these conclusions can be used to better the prognosis of people with schizophrenia worldwide, but further cross-cultural research in underrepresented countries is essential.

Human species display complex intraspecies population structure and unparalleled behavioral and cultural diversity. In order to elucidate human population history and pattern of evolutionary change of socio-cultural and ecological traits, the first composite phylogenetic tree of 574 human populations (ethno-linguistic groups) was created on the basis of 129 recently published phylogenetic hypotheses based on genomic, genetic and linguistic data, utilizing supertree method matrix representation with parsimony. Subsequently, 56 selected socio-cultural and ecological characters based on ethnographic cross-cultural data were optimized on topology of obtained supertrees in order to reconstruct patterns of evolutionary change and states present in ancestral populations. The results are discussed in the light of recent studies of human phylogeography and cultural phylogenetic studies.

Before Sir Thomas More published Utopia and defined his ideal world with this fictional land, humans had been looking for their ideal society for centuries based on various religions and cultures. Yet, there are a few studies focusing on Utopia and Dystopia in cross-cultural contexts. This thesis will explore the two main questions: 1) can Utopia and Dystopia be separated? and 2) how does the utopian concept in the West involve in Eastern culture during the postwar period in postcolonial perspective? Phoenix in Japan and THX 1138 in U.S. are two well-known works during the post-World War II period via their popular media: manga in Japan and film in U.S. Phoenix, a renowned Japanese manga created by Osamu Tezuka. Phoenix the manga not only reveals the rise and fall of human civilization but also shows the reincarnation of life with Buddhist ideas, which means one living being starts its new life in different physical form after it dies. This reincarnation of life also points out how utopian-dystopian system functions in the East. THX 1138, a famous American film directed by George Lucas, starts with a robot-dominated world. More's definition of Utopia reveals several features of ideal society: an isolated society, well-trained and well-ordered citizens, a democratic government, universal education, and loose religious limits. According to More's utopian features, the society in THX 1138 is quite familiar with the so-called utopian world. However, the method of dehumanization in this film brings the concept and features of Dystopia. After the 16th century, the term Utopia, as a Western ideology, entered East Asian cultures. In Eastern perspective, Utopia and Dystopia are the continuous states of one society like a circulation system. In the West, utopian-dystopian works tend to focus on the specific period. By discussing Phoenix and THX 1138, I want to show this continuous social pattern in different cultural contexts.

The use of psychology to study influence has mainly escaped the attention of negotiation researchers. Seen as combining the theories of cultural negotiation with that of negotiation and social influence, this study builds on previous research by Malhotra and Bazerman, (2008) and complements that body of work by demonstrating the cognitive perceptions of cultural and gender bias and the influence phenomenon on the negotiation process - an indirect contact on intergroup attitudes and perceptions. Indirect contact includes the influence on the negotiation process of (a) cultural bias: learning about the groups’ attitudes towards projects of targeted stereotype groups, (b) gender bias: exploring each gender’s perceptions of their own ability to negotiate and testing the genders’ perceptions about the opposite gender’s ability to negotiate, and (c) gender power: testing the perceptions of physical attraction on the negotiation process when dealing with the opposite sex. This study proposes a pragmatic guide to business leaders and finds evidence that business leaders may safely and confidently apply less significance to the literature on influence in the context of cultural and gender bias, and may rather apply more significance to the influence of attribution bias by reducing stereotype endorsement, prejudice, and even discrimination relating to decision-making in influencing the negotiation process. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / pagibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

Master of Science / Department of Psychology / Donald A. Saucier / This study explored how people perceive and receive social support, react to stress, and value different communication skills across cultures. Three hundred and four American students and 134 Taiwanese students participated. It was predicted that Taiwanese students would utilize social support less and rely on internally targeted control strategies more than would American students. Conversely, it was predicted that both groups would equally favor comforting and ego support from friendship. The results, however, indicated that the groups did not differ on utilizing social support, and Americans favored ego support more than did Taiwanese. Since cross-cultural contacts are encouraged in many fields such as business and academia, the results have pragmatic implications for cross-cultural mutual understanding, international trading, and sojourners' adjustment training.

M.A.

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