abstract: Psychological distress occurs at disproportionate rates among minority groups and individuals with lower socioeconomic status. This dissertation focuses on the relationship between living in a disadvantaged neighborhood and distress among Latinos, the formal and informal organizations that mediate the direct and indirect relationship between disadvantage and distress in this population, and the differences of social stress processes based on aspects of Latino social status, linguistic acculturation status, and the percentage of residents in the neighborhood that identify as Latino. This dissertation focuses its investigation on Latinos living in Chicago, specifically asking: In a metropolitan city, can the presence of formal and informal community organizations protect Latinos living in disadvantage neighborhoods from experiencing psychological distress? The findings demonstrate an indirect association between disadvantage and distress though objective disorganization and perception of disorganization. Both the density of community centers and block watch had an indirect protective effect, mediating the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and distress, but did not decrease the indirect effect of disadvantage on distress through objective or perceptions of disorganization. The results of this dissertation suggest that changes to a neighborhood's environment may decrease population rates of distress in disadvantaged neighborhoods. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Social Work 2014

The thesis is focused on the functional analysis of the organization. The theoretical part of the thesis is aimed at the concept of formal organizations in terms of the main sociological paradigms, with an emphasis on the structural functional paradigm and AGIL paradigm defining the four major subsystems of the organization. The research part of the thesis deals with the indentification and analysis of these subsystems. For data collection were used three research methods - questionnaire, interview and study of documents. The output is the analysis of subsystems in order to determine their functionality. On the basis of its results the socio-technical recommendations are determined for the organization.

Human face is a complex semantic organ, which among others reflects also human individuality due to the high variance of facial morphologies. This study examines the relationship between psychological characteristics and social status. Moreover, we have analyzed variability in facial form and its relation to a particular social rank. The study was performed on a set of photographs containing 55 pictures of men in a management position. These photographs were evaluated by 47 male (average age - 22 years) and 77 female (average age 21,6 years) respondents. The data were analyzed by means of classical methods of statistical testing as well as geometric morphometrics methods. This study tests whether there is a relation between three psychological characteristics - dominance, attractiveness, trustworthiness - and social status. The effect of perceived dominance and attractiveness on social status were not significant. Nevertheless, we found statistically significant relationship between perceived trustworthiness and social rank. We were not able to detect morphological facial structures, which would distinguish the heads of department from the chief executive directors. However the parametric tests discovered statistically significant differences between the facial morphology of a trustworthy and...

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