The aim of this study was to examine the association between parental use of corporal punishment and anxiety in youth. Parental warmth, child's age, and child's ethnicity were examined in order to explore their effects on the association. Parents and their children (ages 6 – 17; N=153) completed the parent and child versions of the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire [APQ-P (parent) and APQ-C (child)], used to measure corporal punishment and parental warmth, and other questionnaires assessing anxiety [Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scales parent (RCADS-P) and child (RCADS-C) versions; Revised Fear Survey Schedule for Children parent (FSSCR-P) and child (FSSCR-C) versions] and externalizing symptoms (used as a control variable). Corporal punishment was significantly associated with the child reports of anxiety even when controlling for externalizing symptoms, but was not associated with the parent reports of anxiety. The results also indicated that age, ethnicity, and parental warmth did not moderate the association.

Urininkontinens är ett problem alla kan drabbas av. Det innebär att personen läcker urin eller kissar på sig. Det ses som ett vanligt folkhälsoproblem i hela världen och det förekommer mest hos kvinnor. Det påverkar kvinnorna och hämmar dem i det dagliga livet. Hämningen grundar sig i rädsla och oro för att läcka samt lukta urin. Kvinnorna med urininkontinens upplever att ämnet är tabubelagt samt nedtystat och associeras med skamkänslor. De känner en daglig påverkan av urininkontinensen och den planerade livsplanen spricker med en överhängande känsla av maktlöshet samt frustration. De försöker hitta olika sätt att acceptera sina symtom men flertalet av kvinnorna ser symtomen som en oundviklig del av livet. Ett problem som kommer med stigande ålder eller en åkomma efter förlossning. Kvinnor som är äldre än femtio år har lättare att acceptera sin urininkontinens än de som är trettio år. De okontrollerade symtomen ger kvinnorna en känsla av förlorad kroppskontroll och sårbarhet. Detta kan leda till dåligt självförtroende och depression. Kvinnorna begränsas i sociala sammanhang och de hindras att utföra fysiska aktiviteter till följd av nervositet att läcka samt lukta urin. Detta upplevs som en förlust i vardagen. Kvinnorna uttrycker även en försämring i deras sexuella relationer och de känner en svårighet att vara spontana i sexuella aktiviteter. Mindre feminitet och en känsla av att inte vara fräsch uttrycks också av kvinnorna. Till följd av detta känner de en sämre självkänsla. Olika strategier används för att fungera i det dagliga livet. Vilket kan innebära att de anpassar sin klädsel och förbereder sig med extra inkontinensskydd för att dölja fläckar från läckage. De tar även alltid reda på tillgång till toaletter i offentliga miljöer. Ett annat problem dessa kvinnor upplever är ett ignorant bemötande av vårdpersonal och brist på kunskap om urininkontinens. Kvinnorna önskar en mer förstående attityd och bättre kommunikation i vården för att få möjlighet till rätt behandling. Vården har mycket att förbättra i mötet med dessa kvinnor både professionellt samt kunskapsmässigt och i öppenheten till ämnet. Det går inte att förvänta sig att kvinnorna tar sina egna besvär på allvar när inte vårdpersonalen gör det. / Background: Urinary incontinence denotes an involuntary leakage from the bladder which can affect women of all ages, but leakage problems are often more common with rising age. It is a common issue, however there is a large unrecorded number of women who do not seek medical attention for their urinary incontinence. Urinary incontinence is very costly for the society because of the medical and social disability it causes the affected. Aim: To illuminate the experiences of women living with urinary incontinence Method: A literary study was done where nine scientific articles were examined and analyzed according to a five step model. Results: The women experienced their urinary incontinence as taboo and shameful. The issue was too intimate and private and therefore unnatural to talk about. Their leakage lead to fear and nervousness which made them end up in a vulnerable situation. This affected them on several emotional levels both psychosocial, psychological and physical. The women experienced an ignorance and a nonchalant attitude from their care providers which caused an hesitancy in their search of healthcare. They experienced that their bodies were unreliable which lead to a reduced spontaneity and restrictions in life. Conclusion: Urinary incontinence is not solely an issue with leaking urine, it is affecting the women's lives as a whole on many levels. The hindrance that the urinary incontinence caused the women on a daily basis made them feel a sense of loss and affected their joy and zest of life. It requires an improvement of healthcare praxis in order to meet these women in a professional and trustworthy manner.

The threat superiority effect refers to an ability to quickly and efficiently detect threatening cues in one’s environment. Hence, ensuing and appropriate behavioral defense responses entail greater chances of survival for an organism. Some researchers argue that natural selection has led us to automatically prioritize threats that would have been salient during the period of evolutionary adaptation; as for example snakes. However, others have also argued that activation of our defense response system is more flexible, thus able to also be triggered to dangers of more recent age: such as guns or airplane crashes. The present study has sought to impact this debate, by measuring the electrodermal activity (EDA) – more specifically the skin conductance responses (SCRs) – of subjects who were visually presented with both evolutionary (snakes and spiders) and modern (guns and knives) fear-relevant stimuli. The results demonstrated no significant difference between the two categories within subjects, suggesting that both evolutionary and modern threatening cues activate the defense response system in a similar manner. Although the results are preliminary, and would need further verification in higher powered studies, they can be seen to favor the view that our defense response system is flexibly adaptive in relation to the age of a given threat.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the phenomenon of fear of crime in the context of two highly distinct small town environments: one characterized by extremely rapid population growth due to energy development, and the other characterized by relative stability and slow population expansion. Although in general prior fear of crime research has indicated relatively low levels of fear in rural small towns, the altered social environment of the rapid growth community may result in substantially heightened fear of crime. Using survey data collected from random samples of households in each of the study communities, the relationships between fear of crime and community of residence was examined, as were relationships between fear and respondents' age, sex, length of residence, and criminal victimization experiences. Results indicate substantially higher fear of crime among boomtown residents, a finding which is tentatively interpreted as indicative of more general social disruption under conditions of rapid growth.

This study examines physiological aspects of anxiety using different scales.Anxiety can be positively related to the high-order dimension of negative affect only, whereas depression is not only positively related to negative affect but is also negatively related to the higher-order dimension of positive affect.In this thesis, an exploration of the factor structure of the ASI was undertaken, as well as other measures of anxiety and hyperchondriasis using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).Some results indicated that most constructs examined are multidimensional.Socially observable symptoms were also negatively related to positive affect (lack of self assurance) and mental incapacitation were positively related to guilt.There must be some consensus on the meaning of anxiety in order to establish its relationship with the higher-order dimensions of positive and negative affect. Results point to the importance of examining the construct validity of various scales. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study examines physiological aspects of anxiety using different scales.Anxiety can be positively related to the high-order dimension of negative affect only, whereas depression is not only positively related to negative affect but is also negatively related to the higher-order dimension of positive affect.In this thesis, an exploration of the factor structure of the ASI was undertaken, as well as other measures of anxiety and hyperchondriasis using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).Some results indicated that most constructs examined are multidimensional.Socially observable symptoms were also negatively related to positive affect (lack of self assurance) and mental incapacitation were positively related to guilt.There must be some consensus on the meaning of anxiety in order to establish its relationship with the higher-order dimensions of positive and negative affect. Results point to the importance of examining the construct validity of various scales / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Fear is a central aspect in mammalian evolution, prompting escape from and avoidance of threat and dangers. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that we have a well developed system to detect dangers and quickly respond to them. It has been shown that threatening information has an advantage in information processing; it seems to promote a rapid capture of selective attention and puts demand on processing resources. It has been suggested that the elicitation of fear occurs automatically, and that it is independent of and impenetrable to cognition. The idea with the present research is that fear processing is dependent on all concurrent internal or external processing demands. One visual search study (Study II) and two secondary task studies (Study I & III) have been conducted to investigate if external or internal distraction can interfere with fear processing. In order to provoke fear responses, spider or snake fearful individuals have been exposed to pictures of their feared stimulus. The aim of Study II was to investigate if the selective attention to fear stimuli could be influenced by contextual factors, such as the nature of the distracting stimuli in a visual search. Study I and III aimed to investigate manipulation of resources allocated to fear stimuli. In Study I, task demand was used as the manipulation, and in Study III an internal cognitive directive was used. The results from these studies indicate that fear is susceptible to manipulation by both external and internal means. By changing circumstances in the surrounding or in the individuals’ internal states, responses to threatening stimuli can be altered. This means that processing of threatening stimuli is influenced by other concurrent processing demands, suggesting that a fear response is not occurring as an isolated and impenetrable process. In an evolutionary perspective, a fear system that is easily triggered but has access to cognitive evaluation at all times ought to be far more flexible, thus creating a better chance for survival than a modular and impenetrable fear system.

The main purpose of this study was to develop Inventory of Concepts of Good Death to explore the concepts of good death and the relationships among fear of death and concepts of good death in adolescents. This study used Inventory of Concepts of Good Death and The Multidimensional Fear of Death Scale to investigate the Junior high school students within the Taipei and Kaohsiung County , 600 copies of the questionnaire were distributed to the subjects who were chosen. 495 of the 600 subjects were available.The data gathered from questuonnaires were analyzed by statistical methods such as descriptive analysis, t-test, one-way ANOVA, point-biserial correlation, Pearson¡¦s correlation and interaction regression analysis.The main findings in this study were as follows: The concepts of good death included Physical, Perceptive, Affective, Spiritual and Socie-Cultural levels. Adolescents¡¦ fear of death and concepts of good death were up to the median. They showed the highest fear of death on Fear for Significant Others, and the best concepts of good death on Spiritual level. Adolescents who were females, personal religion was Chinese or western religious belief, parental religion was Chinese religious belief, being aware of good physical mental condition held better concepts of good death. Adolescents who talked about death publicly at home, had experienced the death of pets, were exposed to impressive death experience through the mass media like broadcasting and TV, have more death-relevant experience and held better concepts of good death. The fear of death in adolescents was higher and the concepts of good death were better. The fear of death could predict the concepts of good death when adolescents had less death-relevant experience. Based on the findings, some suggestions were proposed for teachers, counselor, parents, school, educational authorities and future studies.

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 11, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Jamie Arndt. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-67).