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<p> While several investigations have reported a higher proportion of lipid oxidation (lower carbohydrate oxidation) in females performing heavy endurance exercise at the same relative intensity as males, some studies have failed to support this. Possible factors contributing to the lack of agreement may be differences in subject training status and diet, or the hormonal status of female subjects related to menstrual phase. All these variables are known to affect substrate metabolism during submaximal exercise. These factors were controlled in the present study by selecting subjects who were matched for level of physical conditioning and performance experience and placing them on eucaloric identical diets for 3 days. The females were tested during the mid-follicular phase of their menstrual cycle. Six males and 6 females ran on a treadmill at 65% VO2 max for a total distance of 15.5 km (range in performance times, 90 to 101 min). Pre and post exercise needle biopsies of vastus lateralis were assayed for glycogen concentration. Plasma glycerol, glucose, free fatty acids and selected hormones (catecholamines, growth hormone, insulin and glucagon) were measured throughout and following the run by sampling from an indwelling venous catheter. Exercise protein catabolism was estimated from 24 hr (resting and exercise) urinary urea N excretion. </p> <p> Males were found to have significantly higher respiratory exchange ratios (X =0.94 vs 0.87), greater muscle glycogen utilization (by 25%) and greater urea nitrogen excretion (by 30%) than females. Changes in selected hormone concentrations could not explain the greater lipid utilization observed in females. The lower insulin and higher epinephrine levels seen in males could in part explain the greater glycogenolysis and protein catabolism observed inn this group. It is concluded that, during moderate intensity long duration exercise, females demonstrate greater lipid utilization and less carbohydrate and protein metabolism than equally trained and nourished males. </p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

<p> This dissertation investigated the importance of information from various sensory receptors on the perception of self-orientation. In five experiments, we systematically manipulated the relative orientation between the gravitational inertial forces and the body. </p> <p> The first experiment was originally designed to evaluate the effect of body inversion on the perception of straight-ahead. Interestingly, when participants were inverted, females presented a greater footward bias in the perception of straight-ahead than males. Two follow-up experiments revealed that whole-body rotation and altered blood-distribution could not explain the gender differences in the perception of straightahead. As a result, we attributed the gender differences in the perception of selforientation to differences in the use of afferent information from stable gravireceptors (i.e., otoliths). </p> <p> A fourth experiment examined the contribution of perceptual strategy to the perception of self-orientation. Once again, females exhibited a greater footward bias than males in the perception of straight-ahead. However, this bias was reduced slightly when female participants were instructed to focus on cues arising from inside the body. This finding indicates that, at least to some extent, strategy mediates gender differences in perceptual decision-making. </p> <p> The final experiment was designed to examine the importance of limb movement on the perception of spatial orientation. Five response modes were used to gradually increase the motor demands associated with perceptual judgments about self-orientation. This study was designed to test a theory of visual information processing (i.e., Milner & Goodale, 1995), which claims that the use of distinct visual processing modules depend on the motor demands of a visual perception task. Interestingly, we found that whole limb movements affect the perception of an egocentric illusion (i.e., oculogravic illusion; see Graybiel, 1952). </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The primary goal of the present study was to assess linkages between parents' beliefs about children's emotions, parent-child discourse, and children's independent and interdependent self-construals with sixty 7th and 8th grade children. Children were interviewed with the Self-Guide Questionnaire (Higgins, Klein, & Strauman, 1985) and completed an independent and interdependent reaction time measure (Watson & Quatman, 2005). Children's self-guide responses were coded for independent and interdependent traits and behaviors. Parents completed the Parents' Beliefs about Children's Emotions Questionnaire (Halberstadt et al., 2008) to assess their beliefs about the danger of emotions and parents' and children's roles in emotion socialization. Parents' elaborative reminiscing style and both parent and child emotion labeling were measured through a cooperative game designed to elicit emotion-related discourse. Results showed that girls responded faster to interdependent traits and included more interdependent and connected self attributes than did boys, whereas boys included more independent and unique self attributes than did girls. Parents who believe children can guide their own emotion socialization elaborated less about their children's independent and interdependent memories. Their children who responded more slowly to both independent and interdependent traits, with a stronger effect for independent compared with interdependent traits. The interaction between parents' beliefs about the danger of emotions and about their guidance of their child's emotions was related to girls', but not boys', balance of independent and interdependent traits in their self-construal. Results have implications for identifying beneficial developmental trajectories of positive adjustment and mental health. / Ph. D.

This dissertation consists of three essays studying the occupational wages, skills, and gender wage gap in U.S. and other OECD countries. The analysis especially focuses on how the gender differences in skill levels and skill returns could explain the gender wage gaps and changes. The first chapter outlines the dissertation by briefly discussing the motivations, methods, and main findings in each of the following chapters. Chapter 2 focuses on the well-documented wage and employment polarizations in the U.S.. The occupations moving into the lower tail ("in" occupations) have more immigrant workers, more part-time workers, and less female workers. In addition, the wage gaps between domestic/immigrant, full-time/part-time, and male/female workers are also larger in "in" occupations. The opposite facts hold true in the occupations moving out of the lower tail ("out" occupations). Utilizing the regional differences, we also find stronger spillover effect from high-wage occupations to the "out" occupations than the effect to the "in" occupations. Chapter 3 investigates how gender differences in skills beyond education and experience can account for the observed gender wage gap and its changes between 1980 and 2015 by using data from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and the Occupational Information Network (O*NET). The main empirical finding is that female workers possess much higher level of caring skills, and the returns to caring skills are significantly negative but have increased over time, accounting for a major part of the persistent gender wage gap and the narrowing gender wage gap from 1980 to 2015. Another significant portion of the narrowed gender wage gap can be attributed to the faster growth in female workers' average directness skills and the fact that the returns to directness skills are significantly positive and stable over time. In the last chapter, we document significant cross-country variation in gender wage gaps among OECD countries by using the data from Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). We find significant cross-country variation in the gender differences in returns. The gender differences in returns to basic labor and experience are the most important factors in explaining the gender wage gap. In addition, gender differences in returns to cognitive and directness skills are playing milder but substantial roles in explaining the wage gap. We also find the social institutions and attitudes indicators are related to the cross-country variation in gender differences. / Ph. D. / This dissertation makes effort to understand the changes in wages in the U.S. and other OECD countries. I focus on two important features of the changes, namely, wage polarization and change in gender wage gap. Wage polarization describes the uneven changes in wages in different occupations; there is fast wage growth in the high-wage occupations, mild wage growth in the low-wage occupations, and slow even negative wage growth in middle-wage occupations. The analysis shows that technology advancement has increased the productivity of the high-wage occupations. Therefore, the wages in these occupations also increase. Meanwhile, there is strong spillover effect from the high-wage occupations to the low-wage occupations because low-wage occupations mostly provide services to the high-wage occupations. The spillover effect is the most likely cause on the wage growth in the low-wage occupations. In contrast, jobs in the middle-wage occupations are crowded out by the technology advancement. This harms the wage growth in these occupations. Gender wage gap is defined as the gender difference in the social average wages. In the U.S., female workers only earned 55% of what male workers earned in 1980. This number has increased to 70%. In our analysis, we argue that genders have different skills in the daily interaction with people. Female workers have much stronger skills in caring for others. However, this caring skills are negatively rewarded. Fortunately, the rewards to the caring skills are increasing. The negative reward to caring skills and changes in the rewards could account for the remaining gender wage gap and its change. Gender wage gap also presents a significant cross-country variation. Slovenia has gender wage gap at a level of 4% but Japan has a level of 40%. The analysis shows that potential explanation to the variation is social institutions and social attitudes. In a society emphasizing on competition or providing better benefits to maternity leaves, low-skill female workers are more likely to receive lower average wages.

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This study investigates the gender differences in final year undergraduates’ employment expectations, broken down by salary expectations, occupational expectations and working region expectations, in a university in Central China. It firstly examines whether or not there are gender differences in these employment expectations. It then identifies factors that have actually contributed to the gender differences in employment expectations. The study employs the conceptual framework of ‘choice and constraint’, which means that male and female final year undergraduates are able to make their own choices towards employment expectations; however, their choices are limited by a number of constraints. It adopts a mixed methods sequential explanatory design, using an on-site self-administration questionnaire survey and a follow-up semi-structured interview. The results showed that, overall, male final year undergraduates had higher salary expectations than their female counterparts. In terms of occupational expectations, both males and females preferred jobs in the ‘Education’ and ‘Party Agencies and Social Organizations’ occupations. However, male final year undergraduates were more inclined to expect to work in the ‘Party Agencies and Social Organizations’ occupation and less likely than their female peers to expect to work in the ‘Education’ occupation. With respect to working region expectations, males and females behaved differently. Males tended to put the highly developed area of East China first; whilst females seemed to prefer to stay in Central China. There was also a higher likelihood of females expecting to work near their places of origin than their male peers. Further explorations revealed that firstly, the economic roles being played in the family between the genders and the experienced or perceived sex discrimination in China’s labour market appeared to account for these gender differences in salary expectations. Secondly, gendered job preferences might be related to the gender differences in occupational expectations. That is, males were inclined to highlight pay, job reputation, promotion and even power; whereas females were more concerned with work-life balance, job stability and working environment. Finally, it seemed that parents’ expectations and the gendered orientations (males highlighting work-related issues and females underlining family ties) played a main role in shaping the gender differences in working region expectations.

The thesis examines attitudes towards outdoor advertising, with strong emphasis on gender-based differences. The research intends to reveal the most influencing factors, including gender, format, different images and recall. Earlier researchers have argued that females are inclined to rate advertisements more positively than men. Five different, but interconnected studies, one content analysis and four surveys, were implicated in order to measure the responses to advertising. It is further suggested that positive attitude towards outdoor advertising affects the purchase intent. The theme of sexualised advertising is also discussed within this research. After detailed examination of the advertisements in the centre of St. Petersburg it was concluded that females’ rating is considerably more positive compared to males in the situation of high processing opportunity. However, men were more positive when respondents were asked about more general attitudes to outdoor advertising. Recall of advertising was studied within the field settings and showed that women indeed demonstrate better visual memory. Such factors as format, content were proved to have influence on the recall. In addition, different visual preferences were tested within one study. The findings prove that gender differences in perception of outdoor advertising do exist and should be taken into consideration by advertisers in order to raise the effectiveness of advertising campaigns.

Studies investigating the etiology of delinquent involvement have pointed to two influential theories: Differential Association Theory and Social Control Theory. Both theories suggest that bonding can impact delinquent behavior. Strong friend relationships influence delinquent involvement while strong parental relationships serve as a positive influence in the curtailment of adolescent delinquency. Indeed, a great deal of research has shown that both friends and families are an integral part of adolescent delinquent involvement. Although these theories provide us with a framework for understanding adolescent delinquency, the contextual nuances of the connections among friend relationships, parental relationships, and delinquency are still unclear. In this project, I investigate the gender and race/ethnicity of the respondent as well as the predominant race/ethnicity and gender of the respondents’ friendship networks to better understand how both friend and parent-child relationships affect adolescent delinquency. I utilize data from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS). Results suggest that both friend relationships and parental relationships impact respondent delinquency; however, such effects differ by the gender and race/ethnicity of the respondent. Furthermore, the predominant race/ethnicity and predominant gender of the respondents’ friendship network appear to effect delinquent involvement for some groups and not others. The exploration of this topic provides a much-needed look into some understudied areas in human behavior. The long-standing tradition of investigating the role of peers in criminal offending has certainly examined the importance of family and the dynamics of friendships. However, few studies have incorporated both gender and race/ethnicity in their investigations into the relationship between friendships and delinquency. In addition, this study is unique in that it examines friendship network characteristics and how they relate to delinquency. Furthermore, this project explores how family and friend influences on delinquent behavior vary across different groups. Neither of these aspects have been adequately explored in past research. It is the purpose of this study to being to fill this gap in the literature and highlight how both gender and race/ethnicity influence involvement in delinquency. / text