Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Virginia, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 168-181) and index.

Includes vita. / Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 97 pages. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Alcohol expectancy theory suggests that genetically influenced personality characteristics may lead to differential acquisition of expectancy information, and that this information then may serve as one mediational pathway for alcoholism risk. Research has already shown that expectancy information can predict and even mediate risk, but it has yet to be shown that personality traits can influence the acquisition of alcohol expectancy information. To that end, personality characteristics known to be risk factors for the development of excessive alcohol use were assessed in 83 male undergraduates. In addition, each participant studied, in a paired-associate learning/cued-recall test paradigm, a list of word pairs matching alcohol content words (keg, beer), positive/arousing alcohol expectancy words (happy, fun), and neutral words (backpack, desk). / ABSTRACT: Their rate of learning the second word from each pair after being cued with the first word was then assessed across three trials of this task, and overall learning of the pairs was then assessed using free-recall. To determine whether learning rates for each type of word pair was a function of participants' status on the personality risk measures, hierarchical regression analyses were conducted for cued- and free-recall data. Results indicated that higher sensation seeking, more drinking-related problems, and a lesser degree of a family history of alcohol problems were predictive of greater recall for word pairs containing alcohol and expectancy information. Consistent with predictions, these risk indicators were also associated with a higher rate of learning for the alcohol and expectancy pairs. / ABSTRACT: These findings suggest that significant differences exist in the ability to learn alcohol to expectancy word associations, and lend support to recent theories that implicate individual difference factors as a predisposition for the development of problematic alcohol to expectancy associations in memory. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1991. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 131-151). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-153).

Cultural mapping is a technique in the field of conservation that is currently gaining popularity. Cultural maps provide a means to better understand an area and produce easily understood documentation of an area’s tangible and intangible cultural assets. These serve as an inventory for the local knowledge and resources of an area. As cities continue to grow and develop, it becomes ever more important to document local traditions and historical sites before they disappear and are forgotten. Cultural mapping provides the means to do this. As the field of cultural heritage conservation has emerged and evolved in Hong Kong, numerous aspects of this city’s heritage and culture have been examined. These have included analyses of Hong Kong’s market culture, temples, food culture, architectural styles and local traditions. One aspect, however, that has been somewhat ignored is Hong Kong’s drinking culture. This is an unfortunate oversight since through the analysis of an area’s drinking culture, a greater understanding of an area as a whole can be achieved. Lockhart Road has a history spanning eighty years and throughout this history it has had a reputation as an entertainment centre. A key feature of this entertainment has involved the consumption of alcohol. In a city such as Hong Kong that has witnessed much change over the last century, it is intriguing to find an area with such continuity in its tradition. It is on account of this that Lockhart Road is an appropriate study area in order to better understand Hong Kong’s drinking culture. This dissertation will focus on 20-86 Lockhart Road as its case study. The purpose is to analyse the area in order to understand its history and evolution, establish its tangible and intangible features, highlight the role and impact of drinking culture and thoroughly document the area to help in making decisions about its future and serve as a model for other similar studies. / published_or_final_version / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

Introduction Suicidality and excessive alcohol use are both important public health issues. Various risk factors including alcoholism have been studied and identified to be associated with suicidality. Increasing evidence has shown that excessive alcohol use is associated with a wide range of physical and mental health issues. There is a lack of local study to study the association between alcohol consumption and suicidality in details including the association of different patterns of alcohol use with suicidal thoughts and behaviors. The aim of this study is to study the association between alcohol use and suicidality, taking into account of possible differences between different pattern of alcohol use and various possible confounding factors. Methods This study was based on analysis of data collected in Population Health Survey (PHS) conducted in 2003/04, which was conducted by the Department of Health (HKSAR) and the Department of Community Medicine (HKU). A total of 5600 respondents between the age of 18 to 64 were included in this study. The primary outcome was current suicidal ideation. Association between history of suicidal attempt with the other variables was also studied. The primary predictors variables included alcohol-related variables (presence of drinking, age of first drink, type of drink, amount of drinking, presence of binge drinking), history of mental illness (self-reported known history of depression, anxiety disorder and schizophrenia), level of depression and anxiety (STAI and CES-D scores), quality of life (WHOQOL-BREF score), exercises, stress management and various demographic variables including age, sex, place of birth, marital status, education level and income level. Logistic regression was used to analyze the association between suicidality and alcohol use. Results The prevalence of lifetime history of suicidal attempts is 5.1% in this population. 17.3% has lifetime history of suicidal ideations, 1.3% has a suicidal attempt in the past 1 year and 11.9% have suicidal ideations in the past one week. Being divorced or separated, being female, being a smoker, considering themselves having need for emotional support, having more severe depressive symptoms, having chronic diseases, depression and anxiety disorder were associated with presence of a history of suicidal attempt. The presence of current suicidal ideations was found to be associated with more severe depressive symptoms, poorer quality of life as reflected by a lower physical domain score of WHOQOL-BREF, being single, having history of binge drinking, having recent suicidal thoughts and lifetime history f suicidal thought. The presence of alcohol drinking and larger amount of alcohol intake were not shown to be significantly associated with presence of suicidal ideations and behaviors in the binary logistic regression models. Only the association between presence of current suicidal ideation and binge drinking was shown to be statistically significant. Conclusion This study did not find a strong association between alcohol consumption and suicidality. Among the alcohol-related variables, only binge drinking was found to be statistically significantly associated with current suicidal ideations. Further study to further explore association between alcohol and suicidality should be considered. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

M. Tech. Marketing / The primary objective of this study was to investigate the role that advertising plays in alcoholic beverage consumption patterns of the youth of Tshwane. Several secondary research objectives were set which include: examining the overall alcoholic beverage consumption of young people, the alcoholic beverage types and brands consumed, exposure to alcoholic beverage brand advertising, exposure to media in which alcoholic beverages are advertised, differences between males and females with regards to their consumption of alcoholic beverages as well as the alcoholic beverage types they consume, the relationship between age and alcoholic beverage consumption, income and alcoholic beverage consumption and other factors that can influence young people to consume alcoholic beverages.

Social norms play a pivotal role in both explaining the development and maintenance of collegiate alcohol use and creating prevention and intervention programs targeted at reducing heavy drinking. By theoretically functioning as a model of normative and popular behavior, descriptive and injunctive norms are consistently associated with college drinking. In the current study, we endeavored to test the mechanisms through which social norms influence drinking by experimentally manipulating normative beliefs. Participants (N = 181) were assigned to one of nine conditions in a 3 (descriptive norms (DN): positive, negative, none) x 3 (injunctive norms (IN): positive, negative, none) experimental design. Norms exposure occurred within a series of three same-gender Internet-based chat room sessions. The norms manipulation was partially successful in creating groups with distinct normative beliefs, with the no norms groups failing to maintain a neutral norm for both descriptive and injunctive norms. Consequently, no descriptive norms groups were combined with positive descriptive norms groups and no injunctive norms groups were combined with negative injunctive norms groups, resulting in a 2 (DN: positive, negative) x 2 (IN: positive, negative) design for analyses. Overall findings for type (DN, IN) and valence (positive, negative) of norms indicated that participants globally reduced descriptive norms and drinking from pre-chat room to post-chat room, regardless of the type or valence of the manipulation, indicating that there were no experimental effects by condition. Whereas drinking appeared to stabilize at post-chat room, descriptive norms continued to decrease by three-month follow-up. Injunctive norms and personal attitudes about alcohol use also decreased by three-month follow-up. Although we were unsuccessful in changing normative beliefs in expected directions, these findings have important implications for college prevention and intervention programs for reducing drinking. The lack of experimental effects suggested that changing norms may be more complex than previously hypothesized and that changes in norms may not result in changes in drinking, which is the purported mechanism of change in norms-based interventions. These results further suggested that continued research is necessary to provide empirical support for a causal link between norms and drinking and that alternative explanations for the association between norms and drinking need to be considered. / text

Many studies have explored the relationship of one's alcohol use both to family environment and to the drinking behavior of the parents. However, most of these studies have used clinical samples. The participants in this study were from a non-clinical, college undergraduate sample (N = 206). The sample included 69% females and 31% males who were primarily Caucasian.A causal path model was used to assess the relationships between familial alcohol use, the perceptions of family environment, propensity for substance use, and actual alcohol use. Participants completed the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST) for themselves, their parents, and one sibling. Family environment measures completed by participants included: the Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (CAST) to measure the "experience" of family alcohol use; the Family of Origin Scale (FOS) as a measure of the family affectional environment; and the Family Adaptability and Cohesion Scales (FACES Ill) as a measure of family structural and relational factors. The MacAndrew Scale (MAC) was completed to assess the propensity for substance use.A path analysis of the proposed model indicated that family alcohol use did not exert a significant direct effect on propensity for or actual use of alcohol, nor did it exert any significant effect on the family affectional environment. Each of these is a rather surprising result and contrary to results of previous studies. However, family alcohol use significantly affected the "experience" of living in such a family environment, especially when alcohol use became more problematic. Family alcohol use, mediated by this "experience," had significant effects on family structural components of leadership and control, as measured by FACES III. The "experience" of family alcohol use was significantly and negatively related to the affectional environment of the family. The indirect effects of this "experience" were significant only through the control component of family structure and direct effects this "experience" were significant only for actual use of alcohol. Propensity for use and actual use were also significantly related as was expected.Nearly 50% of the sample indicated a propensity for use (MAC > 24), actual problematic use of alcohol (MAST > 5), or both, when using the standard cutoff scores of these instruments. It appears that further analysis of family influences on these behaviors, especially those behaviors that create difficulties in life, is warranted. Treatment approaches have typically maintained that improved family affective and relational environments are primary treatment goals. That the affectional environment of the family was not significantly affected by familial use of alcohol was another unexpected outcome and also warrants further study. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services