Creativity is increasing in value worldwide, but the processes underlying various creative abilities remain ambiguous. The most frequently used assessments of creativity (i.e., divergent thinking tasks; creative problem-solving tasks) differ in surface features and are also rarely examined together. These inconsistencies, in addition to mixed findings in the literature, have caused considerable debate among creativity researchers concerning the particular roles of independent or dual processes that lead to success on different creativity tests. The present study expounded upon these mixed findings using a factor analytic method. The results indicated that individual differences in working memory and fluency ability impact performance on divergent thinking and creative problem-solving tasks, but to differing degrees. These results are discussed as supporting a dual-process view of creative thinking.

Parmi les personnes atteintes de maladies chroniques qui participent à des programmes de réhabilitation, deux tiers ne modifient pas leurs comportements à l’issue des interventions. Dans le domaine de l’activité physique et de la sédentarité, identifier les facteurs impliqués dans la régulation de ces comportements est donc crucial. En psychologie de la santé, les modèles contemporains indiquent que nos comportements sont le fruit de processus motivationnels à la fois explicites et implicites. Les processus explicites sont définis comme conscients et intentionnels ; à l’inverse, les processus implicites sont caractérisés par leur non-intentionnalité et leur caractère plutôt inconscient. A mi-chemin entre les domaines de la réhabilitation et la psychologie de la santé, les objectifs de cette thèse étaient (i) d’examiner le rôle de processus explicites et implicites dans la prédiction des comportements de l’activité physique et de la sédentarité, et (ii) d’étudier la malléabilité de ces variables motivationnelles en contexte de réhabilitation. Les résultats indiquent que les attitudes implicites sont associées avec les niveaux d’activité physique des participants, pendant les programmes et en post-réhabilitation. Les processus explicites (e.g., intentions) étudiés dans cette thèse n’étaient eux pas associés aux comportements. Sur le plan de la malléabilité des processus motivationnels, nos résultats mettent en évidence une amélioration significative mais minime de certaines variables au cours d’un programme de réhabilitation. Ces processus se sont toutefois montrés insensibles à une manipulation expérimentale délivrée en plus des programmes de réhabilitation. / Only two thirds of people living with chronic diseases and admitted for rehabilitation programs are sufficiently active in postrehabilitation. In the physical activity and sedentary behavior context, identifying the determinants of these behaviors is thus crucial. In the health psychology field, contemporary models indicate that people’s behaviors are regulated by two distinct motivational processes, defined as explicit and implicit. Explicit processes are intentional and conscious ; by contrast, implicit processes are defined as unintentional and less accessible to consciousness. The objectives of this thesis were (i) to examine the role of explicit and implicit processes in the prediction of physical activity and sedentary behaviors, and (ii) to study the malleability of these processes in rehabilitation context. Our results indicated that implicit attitudes, are significantly associated with participants’ physical activity levels, during and after rehabilitation programs. On the contrary, the explicit processes studied in this thesis were not significantly associated with physical activity or sedentary behaviors. Concerning the malleability of these processes, results highlighted significant but small favorable change of certains motivational variables during rehabilitation. Nonetheless, these motivational processes were not modified by an experimental intervention conducted during a rehabilitation program.

The overall objective of this thesis was to test the Default Interventionist (DI) account of belief-bias in human reasoning using the novel methodology introduced by Handley, Newstead & Trippas (2011). DI accounts focus on how our prior beliefs are the intuitive output that bias our reasoning process (Evans, 2006), whilst judgments based on logical validity require effortful processing. However, recent research has suggested that reasoning on the basis of beliefs may not be as fast and automatic as previous accounts claim. In order to investigate whether belief based judgments are resource demanding we instructed participants to reason on the basis of both the validity and believability of a conclusion whilst simultaneously engaging in a secondary task (Experiment 1 - 5). We used both a within and between subjects design (Experiment 5) examining both simple and complex arguments (Experiment 4 – 9). We also analysed the effect of incorporating additional instructional conditions (Experiment 7 – 9) and tested the relationships between various individual differences (ID) measures under belief and logic instruction (Experiment 4, 5, 7, 8, & 9). In line with Handley et al.’s findings we found that belief based judgments were more prone to error and that the logical structure of a problem interfered with judging the believability of its conclusion, contrary to the DI account of reasoning. However, logical outputs sometimes took longer to complete and were more affected by random number generation (RNG) (Experiment 5). To reconcile these findings we examined the role of Working Memory (WM) and Inhibition in Experiments 7 – 9 and found, contrary to Experiment 5, belief judgments were more demanding of executive resources and correlated with ID measures of WM and inhibition. Given that belief based judgments resulted in more errors and were more impacted on by the validity of an argument the behavioural data does not fit with the DI account of reasoning. Consequently, we propose that there are two routes to a logical solution and present an alternative Parallel Competitive model to explain the data. We conjecture that when instructed to reason on the basis of belief an automatic logical output completes and provides the reasoner with an intuitive logical cue which requires inhibiting in order for the belief based response to be generated. This creates a Type 1/Type 2 conflict, explaining the impact of logic on belief based judgments. When explicitly instructed to reason logically, it takes deliberate Type 2 processing to arrive at the logical solution. The engagement in Type 2 processing in order to produce an explicit logical output is impacted on by demanding secondary tasks (RNG) and any task that interferes with the integration of premise information (Experiments 8 and 9) leading to increased latencies. However the relatively simple nature of the problems means that accuracy is less affected. We conclude that the type of instructions provided along with the complexity of the problem and the inhibitory demands of the task all play key roles in determining the difficulty and time course of logical and belief based responses.

As a critical unit for identifying family-constructed meanings of education, a deeper contextual understanding of Korean immigrant parents' cultural/ethnic perceptions in relation to educational beliefs should be central to culturally responsive education designed to support Korean immigrant families. It is necessary for educators to examine the beliefs and practices of Korean immigrant families around education in order to broaden the educational conversation and mutual understanding between parents and teachers for effectively facilitating their children's learning and socialization. The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the variations in cultural/ethnic perceptions and educational beliefs about childrearing and early schooling among three Korean parent groups: (a) 79 Korean immigrant parents in the U.S., (b) 98 Korean parents with no transnational experiences outside of the country of origin, Korea, and (c) 42 transnational parents in Korea who have returned from the U.S. to Korea. It examined the relationships between cultural/ethnic factors and Korean parents' educational beliefs about young children's learning and socialization. This study was a mixed methods design. Research findings from the quantitative survey data indicate several significant intracultural variations in cultural/ethnic perceptions and educational beliefs and noteworthy relationships among variables (e.g., between socio-demographic factors and acculturation, between enculturation and educational beliefs, etc.). Probing further through interviews, this study qualitatively explored four Korean immigrant parents' cultural/ethnic experiences with their children's schooling to raise additional questions regarding beliefs, attitudes, and values emerging in daily family lives. The findings indicate that Korean immigrant families encounter dual processes of acculturation and enculturation, that is, integration rather than assimilation, that can be potentially challenging for facilitating their children's learning and socialization. (Cho, Chen, & Shin, 2010; Miyoshi, 2011; Song, 2010). The findings suggest that Korean immigrant families develop particular culture-belief structures derived from experiences of socio-cultural transformations between their own socio-cultural contexts and the mainstream school settings of their children. This study provides a critical foundation for a contextual understanding of Korean immigrant parents' educational beliefs and practices related to early school schooling while being acculturated into the dominant school culture and curriculum. The implications are discussed for culturally responsive education.