Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Social dysfunction is a hallmark of schizophrenia and leads to significant disability and distress. Decreased positive and increased negative affect predict poorer social functioning in those with schizophrenia. Social functioning and affect have traditionally been measured in the laboratory; yet, these methods are limited. Experience sampling methods (ESM) offer more immediate, ecologically valid assessments of these constructs. The purpose of this study was to examine social functioning and affect in schizophrenia using a novel form of ESM that passively collects audio data. The two primary hypotheses were: 1) clinical status (schizophrenia versus control) will predict social functioning, level of positive affect, and level of negative affect; and 2) the relationship between clinical status and affect will be moderated by context (social versus non-social). Additional exploratory aims tested the convergent validity between traditional, laboratory-based assessments of social functioning and this novel ESM. Data was collected from 38 people with schizophrenia and 36 control participants; Results partially supported the hypotheses. As expected, laboratory measures of social functioning revealed that those with schizophrenia performed worse than controls. ESM measures of social functioning found that the schizophrenia group interacted with others at the same rate as the control group but did not exhibit as much social engagement. ESM measures of affect revealed the schizophrenia group reported more negative affect than controls, but no differences in positive affect were found. Social context did not moderate the relationship between clinical status and affect. Lastly, correlations between laboratory measures and ESM measures of social functioning were significant for the schizophrenia group but not the control group. Results further our understanding of social functioning and affect in those with schizophrenia and yield important implications for future work.

Magister Artium (Human Ecology) - MA(HE) / The research focused on 60 coloured, Afrikaans-speaking men and women residing in Bell ville South who completed a structured questionnaire and open-ended interview questions. Their perceptions held on the influence of male unemployment on family relations with specific reference to gender role perception, relational satisfaction, communication, decision making, finances and labour within the family were investigated. Unemployment of the male partner was found to have no statistically significant differences for the manner in which males and females perceive their gender roles, finances and labour distribution within the family. Statistically significant differences were found for the manner in which males/and females perceive decision-making and communication within the family when the male partner is unemployed. The results revealed that unemployment does not have an influence on role perception and that the respondents uphold a traditional role perception. Decision making was not male dominated, as more egalitarian decision were taken. The respondents expressed combination gender roles with regard to management of finances and appeared to be satisfied with family and partner relations. The minority of respondents who experienced problems with communication attributed this to the consequences of being unemployed. Social agencies need to offer services to empower families to deal with the affects of unemployment on family life to ensure the survival of families during these challenging periods. A multi-disciplinary approach, provided by a team of professionals is the basis for recommendations for proposed support programme development, access and further research.

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Researchers have found executive functioning (EF) to be important for reading and math performance but have paid less attention to their role in writing. Van Dijk and Kintsch (1983) identified three levels of writing: microstructure, macrostructure, and superstructure. The existing work on EF and writing has several limitations: researchers have primarily focused on microstructural writing in children, studied a limited range of EF, not included measures of self-reported EF to compare to laboratory-/lab-based-based measures of EF and not examined the differential contributions of multiple EF to the different levels of writing. Hence, the purpose of this study was to better understand the differential involvement of various laboratory and self-reported EF across various levels of micro- and macrostructural writing measures in emerging adult writing. Results indicated that inhibition was a significant predictor of microstructural writing, such that working carefully increases the accuracy of spelling and mechanics skills. Working memory was related to microstructural grammar and mechanics sentence formulation, potentially through processing the sentences, mentally manipulating the sentence structure, and recording the response while maintaining the sentence information in mind. Verbal fluency was related to microstructural spelling and grammar and mechanics accuracy, as well as macrostructural essay organization, possibly through the ability to efficiently retrieve knowledge critical to perform these tasks. The main analyses did not yield significant results for macrostructural theme development, likely due to methodological issues, but an exploratory analysis demonstrated that organization and problem solving skills predicted theme development, potentially through the ability to think critically about, and organize, the arguments made. Finally, lab-based EF measures were better predictors of the writing measures than the self-reported EF measure, suggesting that these two methods captured different aspects of EF, and that the lab-based predictors were more appropriate to use with lab-based outcome variables, likely due to their narrower and less environmentally-influenced constructs. The results of this study help inform the factors that contribute to writing skills, and this knowledge can be used to improve the detection of writing difficulties and to target writing interventions.

EEG activation studies suggest cerebral lateralization of emotions with greater left than right prefrontal activation during positive mood states and greater right than left prefrontal activation during negative mood states (Davidson et al., 1990). Cerebral lateralization is also observed in cognitive tasks, with verbal fluency associated with left frontal activation and design fluency associated with right frontal activation (Baldo et al., 2001). Further, there are lateralized associations between emotion and cognition; that is, verbal fluency is positively associated with induced positive mood, whereas design fluency is positively associated with induced negative mood (Bartolic et al., 1999). The current study expected naturally occurring mood states to be differentially associated with performance on executive function fluency tasks, and based on previous findings (Cabeza, 2002), that age would moderate the association between emotion and fluency. Results suggest a trend for a positive association between positive affect (PA) and verbal fluency. Age did not moderate associations between emotion and cognitive tasks, although greater interdependence between cognitive and emotion variables in older relative to middle-aged adults suggests decreased lateralization in older adults; however differences in interdependence between older and younger adults were negligible. These results suggest that PA may positively influence some areas of cognition, although age may not moderate these results. Sample and measurement limitations may have contributed to this finding.

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