There is today much evidence for a positive relationship between alcohol and violence. There are however still many questions about the nature of the relationship. Somewhat simplified, the research on the link between alcohol and violence can be divided into four different lines of research, research focusing on: the effect of alcohol as a psychoactive substance, the drinking context, the personality of the drinker, and societal attitudes, expectations and values. The dissertation focuses on the last area, the importance of the cultural context. One influential theory within this field is the time-out theory formulated by MacAndrew and Edgerton in the late 1960s. Since drunken comportment varied between cultures and between different contexts within the same culture and changed over time, they suggested that the effects of alcohol on people’s behaviour was socially constructed. They suggest that many societies had a created a time-out situation for drunken behaviour that explained people’s behaviour while drunk. The general aim for this dissertation is to study young Swedes’ attitudes, experiences and expectations around drunken behaviour, with a special focus on expectancies around alcohol as a cause and excuse for violence. Three different data sets have been used. The first study is based on 4 focus-group interviews with Swedish football fans during the European football championship in Holland in 2000. The second material is eight focus-group interviews involving 47 students aged 18-20 living in Stockholm. The last material is a nationally representative survey of young adults, 16-25 years old. One part of the survey consisted of 4 vignettes which we used to elicit cultural norms around drunken behaviour. The findings suggest that young Swedes believe that alcohol can be used as a means to accomplish a pleasurable state of mind, and that alcohol could be used as a means to transgression – since alcohol reduce inhibitions it could be used to put them in a less controlled mode. The rationale for those changes was often described in terms of the psychoactive effect of alcohol. However, it was also shown that the context was important. When the situation demanded alcohol the most, their expectations together with the situation almost turned water into beer. It was also shown that there was a norm which said that one should not use alcohol as an excuse, but on the other hand, the participants said that they used alcohol as an excuse and that they thought that it was accepted. Alcohol could work as an excuse since alcohol made the aggressor look less deviant and the acts less severe. The vignette studies indicated that an aggressor who was drunk when he committed a violent act was seen as less blameworthy than a sober or less drunk aggressor. However, this applied only under certain circumstances: alcohol seemed to be a better excuse if the victim is drunk as well and the act is relatively severe. Taken together, the studies suggest that the Swedish drinking culture provides people with a drunken excuse, which helps young people to expand the room for possible action.

Bandura definierar (1997) outcome expectancy som individens skattning av sannolikheten att ett beteende ska leda till ett specifikt utfall. Utöver individens skattning av sitt eget beteendes följder (individual outcome expectancy), är hennes bedömning av sin grupps möjlighet att nå ett specifikt utfall (collective outcome expectancy) en del av begreppet (Riggs & Knight, 1994). Studien syftar till att undersöka huruvida arbetsrelaterad- self efficacy, locus of control och collective efficacy predicerar outcome expectancy. En enkätundersökning genomfördes med 102 deltagare från olika yrkesgrupper. Resultatet visade att arbetsrelaterad- self efficacy och locus of control samvarierade med individual outcome expectancy och att collective efficacy predicerade collective outcome expectancy. Dock var gruppstorleken av betydelse för prediktionen. Studiens hypoteser bekräftades av tidigare forskning.

A large body of research has identified that one of the major factors influencing decisions about automation use is operator's trust. Studies have shown that operator trust can be affected by individual differences in expectancy. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether operators with an expectancy that automation is trustworthy are better at calibrating their trust to changes in the capabilities of the automation. We also investigated why this individual difference affects calibration. In a baggage screening task 176 participants searched for weapons in 200 x-ray images of luggage. Participants were assisted by an automated decision aid exhibiting different levels of reliability. Measures of expectancy that automation is trustworthy were used in conjunction with subjective measures of trust and of perceived reliability to identify individual differences in trust calibration. We found that operators with high expectancy that automation is trustworthy were more sensitive to changes (both increases and decreases) in automation reliability, and that this difference was caused by attributing errors to the situation rather than the automation.

Previous studies examining memory biases for threatening faces in social anxiety (SA) have yielded inconclusive results. In the present study, memory and expectancy biases were tested within the context of a novel face recognition paradigm that was designed to offset some of the methodological challenges that have hampered previous research. Undergraduates with high (n = 40) and low (n = 40) levels of SA viewed a series of neutral faces randomly paired with phrases that communicated positive or negative social feedback. Participants’ recognition memory was tested for previously encountered faces, and for their categorization of each encoded face as having been associated with negative (mean) or positive (nice) interpersonal statements. For new faces, participants were asked whether the person seemed mean or nice. Results provided no evidence in support of a general memory bias for threatening (mean) faces among high SA individuals, but instead suggested that high SA individuals lack a positive expectancy bias to appraise new social partners as being nice. Implications are considered for cognitive behavioral and interpersonal models of SA.

The current study examined two means of reducing uncertainty in visual search: 1) visual relatedness of a prime to the target (a data-driven, bottom-up processing) and 2) expectancy (a top-down process based on the proportion of validly primed trials). The two processes were decoupled using a short and a long inter-stimulus interval (ISI) to examine their time course in visual search. Competing hypotheses were contrasted in order to determine whether relatedness is associated with iconic memory (Neely, 1977) or a longer lasting visual-structural implicit memory (Schacter and Cooper, 1995) and what role participant expectancy plays in visual search performance. Twelve participants engaged in a discrimination task and a visual search task. The obtained results suggest that visual relatedness is a bottom-up process, probably mediated by a short-term iconic store that affects search performance early, but whose effects rapidly decay. They also suggest that expectancy is a top-down process that requires time to build up before it can affect visual search performance, but whose effects are more long lasting than visual relatedness.

The activities attended by elementary students are surely not just the classroom lessons only. It includes the participations in classroom and school wide student organizations, in academic and sport competitions sponsored by schools, regions, and states, in self-study and school plays and other performance organized by schools, as well as the participations in after school activities , such as cram schools, dance schools, music and instrument lessons, sport trainings, homework, housework, and leisure activities. It is believed that student participation is somewhat related to their family socio-economic status and to some extent shaping their personality in respect to their self-esteem, autonomy, attitudes towards school, and educational aspiration. This study was designed to examine the interrelationships between student participation, the socioeconomic status of their family , and their personality development . Our data were collected from the survey administered to the fifth graders and the sixth graders in class randomly and systematically selected from two metropolitan elementary schools with a salient descent background in farming and labor in Kaohsiung City and Fonsan City. It was found that both participations in school activities and after school activities favor students more for students from upper socioeconomic status family than for those from lower socioeconomic status family, except sport competitions, homework, and housework. On the other hand, the participation in school activities appears to bear more impact upon self-esteem, autonomy, attitude, and aspiration than does the participation in after school activities. Nevertheless, neither the participation in school activities nor the participation in after school activities can completely explain away the relationship between socioeconomic status and the personality variables. The personality variables of self-esteem, autonomy, attitudes, and aspiration are a reflection in social opportunity structure, particularly, for those at the elementary schools, and also attuned to the earlier findings in the study in social inequality. This study provides information worthwhile for those in academic and education who are concerned with the welfare and the equal opportunity for the poor.

In this study, we integrate the theories of self-efficacy, outcome expectancy, and social capital to identify individual and contextual factors that may exert effect on professional teachers' knowledge sharing behaviors in an Internet-based knowledge community. Data collected from 441 members of this community reveal that knowledge sharing self-efficacy has significant influence on knowledge sharing outcome expectancy, anxiety, and knowledge sharing behaviors. In addition, relational identity, i.e., the degree of social capital among members, is found to have positive effects on knowledge sharing self-efficacy and knowledge sharing behaviors. The implication of this study is that both the individual perceptions toward knowledge sharing and the interpersonal relational development are important predictors of ongoing knowledge sharing activities. The organizers of Internet-based knowledge communities should therefore focus on the development of members' resilient self-efficacy, favorable outcome expectancy, and strong relational identity if they wish knowledge sharing to be effective.

This study analyzes the preservice elementary mathematics teachers&rsquo / self efficacy beliefs and outcome expectancies about using manipulatives and investigates whether, or not, university and gender differences have any significant effect on their self efficacy and outcome expectancies. In mathematics education, students&rsquo / conceptions about abstract mathematical ideas and being able to convert them into concrete ideas are very important. For this reason, it is very beneficial to use manipulative materials in the mathematics lessons. However, most of the preservice mathematics teachers in Turkey lack knowledge about using manipulatives. The sample of present study consisted of 77 senior undergraduate students studying in Elementary Mathematics Teacher Education programs at 2 different universities located in Ankara and Izmir. Data were collected in spring term of 2006-2007 academic years. The survey items were adopted from previously developed teacher efficacy instrument, which partly ensures the items to be parallel with the existing theory about the construct. The survey consisted of three parts / demographic information, knowledge about the manipulatives, and &lsquo / The Instrument of Preservice Mathematics Teachers&rsquo / Efficacy Beliefs about Using Manipulatives&rsquo / (EBMU). The present study demonstrated that the gender differences did not effect preservice elementary mathematics teachers&rsquo / personal manipulative use teaching efficacy whereas the university differences had a significant effect on their personal manipulative use teaching efficacy. In addition, the gender and university attended produced statistically significant main effect on preservice elementary mathematics teachers&rsquo / outcome expectancies.

Thesis (D.P.A.)--University of La Verne, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 216-227).

Thesis (D.P.A.)--University of La Verne, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 216-227).