This qualitative study explored the experiences of clients using the Life Story Board during personal therapy. LSB is a visual interview tool that consists of a colourful board, and sets of cards. The data from clients (N=7) was collected through follow up interviews after the sessions with the LSB. Two resulting themes, Role Play and Speaking Inside Out, explored the impact of the visual structure as well as how communication patterns were differently valuable compared to traditional therapy. Data collected from therapists (N=6) through two focus groups generated themes related to the therapists' assumptions about disclosure during therapy sessions. The LSB used in therapy sessions became an integral part of the process with active participation of client and therapist. Participant clients created a visual representation of their difficult life events and experiences in an organized way in a process of co-construction with the therapists, to improve their understanding.

Previous research has suggested that emotional expression is important for psychological adjustment to disease (e.g., Stanton et al., 2000). Indeed, experimentally prescribed emotional disclosure (traditionally, expressive writing) in the context of illness has been shown to provide benefits for mental and physical health (Pennebaker, 1993). However, the experimentally prescribed disclosure in previous research has typically been asocial, akin to writing in a diary. In contrast, the present research, by experimentally manipulating the intended audience of one’s disclosure, examined the effect of addressing one’s emotional disclosure to specific types of listener, namely a therapist or one’s spouse. Cardiac couples in which one partner had a recent cardiac event took part in the current study. First, partners completed pre-study characteristics questionnaires. Next, in a lab session, partners (in separate rooms) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) they disclosed their thoughts and feelings about the cardiac event as though speaking to their partner; (2) they disclosed their thoughts and feelings about the event as though speaking to a therapist; or (3) in a non-disclosure, control condition, they spoke about a neutral topic. Partners then engaged in a dyadic discussion about each partner’s experiences, thoughts and feelings about the cardiac event. Finally, a one-month follow-up measure assessed their relational outcomes since participation. It was hypothesized that the partner-oriented condition would lead to better outcomes than the therapist-oriented condition, and that disclosing overall would be more beneficial than non-disclosure. The study also examined the influence of pre-study characteristics on in-lab and follow-up outcomes, with the hypothesis being that participants doing less well initially (i.e., higher on psychological distress, Type D personality, emotional suppression, and lower on mindfulness, cognitive reappraisal, relationship satisfaction, and perceived social support) would experience relatively more benefits from participation than those initially doing well. In addition, the study investigated whether type of event (unexpected and sudden vs. planned and more gradual) would differentially influence measures throughout the study, with the hypothesis being that couples who experienced a sudden event (MI) would be more distressed and therefore benefit more from participation than those who went through a planned procedure. Hypotheses were partially supported. Although the manipulation of disclosing to one’s partner vs. a therapist did not elicit many differences, one important and novel finding emerged regarding the orientation of disclosures: partner-disclosures yielded a more communal orientation whereas therapist-disclosures yielded a more self-focused orientation. The importance of patients’ disclosure orientation (me vs. we) was revealed when it emerged that greater communal focus led to better outcomes for both partners, but greater self-focus led to less positive outcomes for spouses. Compared to non-disclosure, disclosure generally was found to provide greater benefits for relational communication as well as marital satisfaction at follow-up. Consistent with predictions, participants who seemed most in need at pre-study (i.e., greater distress, Type D personality, emotional suppression, and less marital satisfaction and perceived support) experienced better outcomes than those who were initially well. Finally, couples who went through a sudden event were found to be more in need and benefited more than those whose event was planned, and this was especially pronounced in the effects on the spouses. Directions for future research and implications for clinical practice were discussed. For example, in addition to highlighting the value of emotional disclosure in the context of serious illness, the findings identified characteristics of cardiac couples who may be more in need of communication interventions and drew attention to important, relatively unmet needs in the patients’ spouses.

There is a high rate of HIV/AIDS in the country and getting an estimate of the underlying contributing factors will help in creating interventions that will contribute towards reducing the high HIV rate. This study aimed to compare three methods the Unmatched Count Technique, Face to Face Interview and Self Report Questionnaire to explore which one yields higher rates of disclosure to questions about sensitive behavior. It aimed to get an estimate of people that engage in unprotected sex as well as those that have concurrent sexual partners amongst students. This study used a quantitative experimental survey design to compare the three methods. The study used convenience sampling and the questionnaires were randomised using the random number generator. A total of 283 questionnaires were analyzed. The study found mixed results. The Unmatched Count Technique did not produce higher base rates than the Self Report Questionnaire and Face to Face Interview on all the sensitive questions as there were instances in which more respondents in the SRQ and FTFI endorsed the sensitive statement than in the UCT. The UCT produced negative numbers and it yielded lower levels of disclosure than the SRQ and FTFI on some of the sensitive statements. The SRQ was expected to elicit higher base rate estimates than the FTFI but instead the study found that the SRQ only elicited higher reporting for one sensitive statement out of five. No statistically significant results were obtained for differences in disclosure levels of unprotected sex and multiple concurrent partners between the UCT, SRQ and FTFI on most of the questions. Accurate reporting of sexual behaviour is crucial especially in contexts where the major route of HIV transmission is through sexual intercourse. It is crucial in the creation of interventions that will respond directly to the problem. With the study having produced mixed results further research needs to be conducted in this area. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2014.

The objective of this thesis is to explain the behaviour of stock returns around the disclosure of different types of information release by UK companies. Previous literature has documented the existence of both market anticipation and the lagged impounding of value relevant information. The main objective of this research is, therefore, to identify the conditions under which investors choose to be informed in anticipation of and in response to, a corporate disclosure. More specifically, we explain the behaviour of stock returns in terms of the costs and benefits which investors must consider when deciding whether to acquire and interpret information. The results indicate that market anticipation is an increasing function of firm size, the number of years a firm has been trading and the volatility of prior stock returns. However, increased voluntary disclosure by firms would appear to reduce the ability of investors to and anticipate and interpret information. The volatility of stock returns, prior to the disclosure, is nevertheless the main driving force behind the explanation of post-announcement drift. There are also indications that investors' initial reactions to both earnings and non-earnings news are not based on informed judgements, and that bad news is generally associated with greater uncertainty than good news. Bad news would appear to be more difficult to anticipate and interpret, relative to good news. On further examination, however, investor anticipation is shown to be largely based on information as opposed to uninformed trading.

No description available.

Ample evidence suggests that the behaviour of people with low self-esteem (LSEs) can lead to problems in close relationships (Wood, Hogle, & McClellan, 2009). To my knowledge, however, no research has investigated the role that perceptions of close others’ self-esteem play in undermining beneficial relationship processes. In the current paper, I propose that capitalization, a process associated with greater relationship quality (Gable, Reis, Impett, & Asher, 2004), might be hindered by the friends, partners, or family members of LSEs. In studies 1 through 3 I obtain experimental and behavioural evidence that people are reluctant to disclose their positive experiences (i.e., capitalize) when they believe the recipient has low self-esteem. In Study 4, I show the external validity of my findings with couples having real discussions. In Studies 5a and b, I examine mechanism and find that although participants have both self- and other-focused concerns regarding capitalizing with LSEs, their self-focused concerns appear to drive their behaviour. Overall, my research suggests that the perception of others’ self-esteem is a variable that guides behaviour in important social situations.

Feeling that a partner is responsive to one’s needs is crucial to intimacy (Reis, Clark, & Holmes, 2004). Just as the well-known expression, “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” suggests that people who voice the most complaints elicit the most support from others, existing theory and research suggest that the more one expresses one’s emotions, the more one’s partners should behave responsively—with caring, understanding, and validation (Reis et al., 2004; Reis & Shaver, 1988). However, I suspected that when a person frequently expresses negativity, individual negative disclosures seem less diagnostic of true distress, and thus elicit less responsiveness from partners. Building on Biernat, Manis, and Nelson’s (1991) shifting standards model, I predicted that people use person-specific standards—taking into account the expresser’s typical (baseline) level of negative expressivity—when interpreting a close other’s negative disclosures. Results of six studies employing both correlational and experimental methods supported the hypothesis that people who frequently express negativity may have the severity of their distress underestimated and elicit less concern and responsiveness from their partners when they make negative disclosures. These findings provide insight into why even close relationship partners may fail to behave responsively to each other’s negative disclosures.

Recent research has demonstrated that high social anxiety is associated with uncertainty about one’s self views and self-concept (Moscovitch et al., 2009; Stopa et al., 2010; Wilson & Rapee, 2006). However, no research has addressed potential mechanisms underlying the link between high social anxiety and low self-certainty nor has research examined whether this relationship is bi-directional. In the current research, I propose a cyclical model in which high social anxiety leads to low self-certainty, which in turn, feeds back into higher levels of social anxiety. I also propose that the relationship between high social anxiety and low self-certainty is mediated by the self-protective self-disclosure patterns employed by socially anxious individuals. In three interconnected studies, I examine the hypothesis that social anxiety, self-disclosure and self-certainty operate in a cyclical model. Study 1 provided a correlational test of the hypothesized feedback model in its entirety and demonstrated that honesty of self-disclosure was the most important and influential mechanism underlying the link between high social anxiety and low self-certainty. Experimentally manipulating the honesty of participants’ self-disclosures in Study 2 demonstrated that dishonest self-disclosures during a social task led to low self-certainty, but only amongst individuals high in trait performance anxiety. Finally, experimentally manipulating self-certainty in Study 3 demonstrated that low self-certainty led to high anticipatory anxiety about an upcoming self-disclosure task. Together, these results elucidate a cyclical maladaptive pattern in which low self-certainty as a result of self-protective self-disclosure leads to high social anxiety and a greater reluctance to self-disclose. Results from the three studies are discussed with respect to their theoretical implications and in relation to clinical applications for individuals with social anxiety disorder.

Corporate disclosures play an important role in the capital market in passing on information to the relevant parties outside companies. Corporate information is useful because it can be used to assess businesses, update subjective estimations, and make effective decisions on the investment of resources. Analysts are considered major users of corporate information. Analysts are important in the sense that they are intermediaries who receive and process financial information for investors. The major tasks of analysts are to collect company information from various sources, analyse company performance, make earnings forecasts, and arrive at buy/hold/sell recommendations. As analysts intensely use financial information in their decision-making processes to reach decisions, the nature of their work is influenced by the quality of the information they use. / This thesis aims to provide evidence of the usefulness and relevance of voluntary disclosures to analysts' recommendation revisions. The study examines whether there is a relationship between voluntary disclosures and analysts' recommendations by observing what characteristics of voluntary disclosures are associated with the nature of analysts' recommendation revisions and the extent of that association. / The focus of the research is on changes in analyst recommendations and the new information disclosures that a company has made public since the previous revision. Company voluntary disclosures are observed from selected sources including company announcements, news and press releases, and annual reports. Analyst recommendation revisions are collected from the I/B/E/S recommendation history database, and these revisions are matched with the presence of voluntary disclosures during the change period. The nature of recommendation revisions are observed via four different measures: direction of change, magnitude of change, type of new recommendation and level of rating. Three research instruments are required for measuring the characteristics of voluntary disclosures; (1) content analysis methods used with company announcements and news to evaluate aspects of the narrative in terms of topic, favourability, and price-sensitivity, (2) a disclosure index used to measure information quantity in annual reports, and (3) a readability index used to measure quality of presentation. The use of alternative measures of recommendation revision, together with measures of both the quantity and quality of voluntary disclosures leads to the formulation of a number of subsidiary hypotheses for testing in this study. / Based on a sample of over 200 recommendation revisions of 40 listed Australian companies, the results suggest that voluntary disclosures do help to explain the variations in analyst recommendation revisions. The results reveal that the quantity of disclosures and readability scores are positively associated with the number of recommendation revisions, and that disclosures with favourable signals or with price-sensitive contents are significantly related to the direction and type of analyst revisions. In addition, disclosure of specific themes (e.g., dividend and product) in company announcements and news are significantly associated with the recommendation change. Readability scores also exhibit a significant positive relationship with the direction of change, suggesting that there is a relationship between the readability level of company announcements and recommendation revisions. However, no significant evidence is found between disclosure scores and the properties of recommendation revisions. / The findings have implications for both the formulation of accounting policies and the regulation of financial disclosures: knowledge of the key themes of disclosures which are associated with recommendation revisions might induce companies to adapt their disclosure strategy; regulators might also wish to pay more attention to such disclosures and their ability to meet the decision making needs of users. / Thesis (PhDBusinessandManagement)--University of South Australia, 2004.

This thesis examines the relationship between tax-loss selling (TLS), where investors with taxable gains sell stocks that have declined in value just before the fiscal year-end to generate offsetting tax losses, and managers?? incentives to influence stock prices, either through increased disclosure or by engaging in upwards earnings management. Firms whose stock prices represent greater potential tax losses in investors?? portfolios at year-end are predicted to increase their disclosure level in June to prevent further share price falls due to TLS, and have higher levels of accruals. Using the number of discretionary, market-sensitive news releases in the Signal G announcement database to measure disclosure frequency, this thesis finds that, for a sample of 14,713 firm-year observations drawn from all ASX firms for the years 1994 to 2007, stocks with larger negative returns have higher disclosure in June, after controlling for size, performance, risk and external financing dependence. This is particularly true of small mining and exploration companies that are more reliant on voluntary disclosure as a vehicle for lowering information asymmetry. This increased disclosure does not appear to contribute to the higher July returns earned by stocks that experienced significant TLS in June. Disclosure frequency is negatively associated with the magnitude of operating and total accruals, suggesting that earnings management is less likely for firms with higher disclosure. There is also evidence that smaller firms with poor stock price performance have higher levels of operating accruals and thus may be more likely to engage in earnings management.