Women outperform men in face recognition and are especially good at recognizing other females’ faces. This may be caused by a larger female interest in faces. The aims of this study were to investigate if women were more interested in female faces and if depth of friendship was related to face recognition. Forty-one women and 16 men completed two face recognition tasks: one in which the faces shown earlier had been presented one at a time, and one where they had been shown two and two. The Network of Relationships Inventory was used to assess depth of friendships. As hypothesized, but not statistically significant, women tended to recognize more female faces when faces were presented two and two. No relationships were found between depth of friendships and face recognition. The results gave some support for the previously untested hypothesis that interest has importance in women’s recognition of female faces.

Syftet med studien var att beskriva hur ungdomar i åldersgruppen 16-19 år upplever sin livskvalitet samt att undersöka om det finns skillnader i hur flickor och pojkar upplever sin livskvalitet. Studien genomfördes på en gymnasieskola i Mellansverige i januari 2008 och är en empirisk kvantitativ tvärsnittsstudie med beskrivande och jämförande design. Sammanlagt deltog 90 elever, 47 flickor och 43 pojkar. Författarna använde sig av instrumentet Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (LSQ). Huvudresultatet visade att hela undersökningsgruppen skattade högst livskvalitet i faktorn fysiska symtom. Lägst livskvalitet upplevde eleverna sig ha i faktorerna kvaliteten i vardagslivets meningsfulla och roliga aktiviteter. I jämförelsen mellan könen, fanns signifikanta skillnader i upplevd livskvalitet. Pojkarna upplevde signifikant färre fysiska symtom än flickorna. Flickorna i sin tur upplevde kvaliteten i relationer till vänner och närstående signifikant högre än pojkarna. Ungdomarna bedömde sina studieresultat och sin förmåga att klara av studierna som goda, flickor hade på dessa frågor skattat signifikant högre värden än pojkarna. De flesta eleverna upplevde sig inte som mobbade. På frågan om nedstämdhet hade en tredjedel av ungdomarna uppgett att de i viss utsträckning eller mer känt sig nedstämda. På denna fråga hade pojkarna skattat signifikant högre värden än flickorna. Nyckelord: Livskvalitet, / The purpose of this study was to describe how adolescents in the age of 16-19 experience their quality of life and to explore if there are any differences between the sexes. The study was carried out at a high school in Sweden during January 2008 and is an empirical, quantitative cross sectional study with a descriptive and comparative design. The final sum of participants were 90, 47 girls and 43 boys. The authors used the Life Satisfaction Questionnaire. The results of the study showed that the highest scores were found in physical symptoms. The teenagers scored lowest in the everyday life’s fun and meaningful activities. The result showed differences between the sexes, boys rated significantly higher quality of life than girls in physical symptoms, whereas girls rated their quality of life significantly higher in relations to family members and friends. The teenagers estimated their study result and their ability to manage their studies as rather good, in these subjects, the girls rated significantly higher scores than the boys. The majority of the students did not feel harassed. A third of the adolescents stated that they had felt depressed in some degree or higher. In this question, the boys rated significantly higher scores than the girls. Keywords: Quality

Två experiment undersökte om en människa och ett djur som far lika illa väcker olika mycket empati. I Experiment 1 fick 108 personer läsa en berättelse där antingen en man, kvinna, hund eller katt farit illa och därefter skatta sin empati. Män hade låg empati för såväl människor som för djur. Kvinnor hade (1) mer empati än män oavsett offer, (2) mer empati för djur än för människor, samt (3) något mer empati för hund än för katt. I Experiment 2 fick 69 kvinnor läsa en berättelse där antingen ett barn eller en hundvalp farit illa. Kvinnorna hade något mer empati för hundvalpen än för barnet. Sammantaget var kvinnorna alltså främsta givare och hundarna främsta mottagare av empati.

How we smell is important to a lot of people, as indicated by the high spending on perfumes. Most perfumes are categorized as feminine or masculine, and this gender categorization is an important factor when people purchase perfumes. This thesis explores odor perception and perfume preference when the person sniffing the perfume does not know the commercial gender categorization. Three psychophysical experiments were conducted, in which the participants scaled the femininity and masculinity of the perfumes, indicated preferences, and gender categorized the perfumes. The perfumes were presented both in glass bottles and when applied on human skin. Results of three experiments indicate that female and male participants (20–30 years old) preferred the same perfumes, both for themselves and for their potential partners. The preferred perfumes tended to be “unisex,” that is, perceived as neither strongly feminine nor strongly masculine. The participants did not succeed well in identifying the commercial gender categorizations of the perfumes, and they did not succeed in guessing the gender of the human when the perfumes were applied on human skin. The commercial gender associations of the perfumes only corresponded to how they were perceived in the case of extremely feminine or extremely masculine perfumes. I conclude that the gender categorizations of most perfumes are not related to how they are actually perceived. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defence the following paper was unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript.</p>

The purpose of this study is to investigate some of the conditions for teaching based on questions asked by the students. Special attention is given to the possibilities inherent in students' questions and to the limitations in the classroom. Two classes in each of the grades 3, 6 and 9 in six different schools were visited and the teaching was tape-recorded and observed. Complete descriptions of the lessons could be written down on the basis of these recordings and the observer's notes. 1024 questions that students asked were extracted and analysed on the basis of these descriptions. It appeared that boys asked almost twice as many questions as girls in almost all categories of questions with the exception of questions that the teacher invited the students to ask, orally or in writing, at the beginning of a new content area. Girls also asked comparatively more questions that opened the perspective by putting things into a wider context. In the visited classes 55 students were randomly selected for interviews. In the interviews the students were told to ask questions about six different objects. Altogether the students produced 1345 questions, girls slightly more than boys. The questions had to be systematized in order to be described in a suitable way. From the systematizing activity both content-oriented themes and cognitive categories emerged. The content-oriented themes were different for different objects, but certain similarities were observed. The themes could be organized along two lines, one stretching from the history or origin through actual appearance to future use and the other from details through appearance to relations to the surroundings. The cognitive categories that were found remained the same for all objects. It is worth emphasizing that the identification and description of the themes and categories of the content of the pupils' questions, within as well as outside the classroom, are to be seen as a main result of this study. Both concerning content-oriented themes and cognitive categories it was found that boys, working class students and students in grade 3 favoured the different categories in much the same way. The same applies to girls, upper middle class students and students in grade 6. In interviews teachers claimed that students were allowed to influence the teaching content by asking questions. Questions were said to be welcomed, noticed and answered. At the same time some of the teachers expressed strong ideas about what the students should know and what was expected of them. The analysis of the teachers' handling of the students' questions clearly demonstrated how teachers used certain strategies in order to adjust the questions to suit their purpose of stressing or repeating things that they considered to be important. All in the interest of being efficient and not wasting time. / digitalisering@umu

The purpose of this study was to analyze whether cultural differences existed in forms of aggression and prosocial behaviors among 8 to 10 year old students in Ireland (N=145) and Puerto Rico (N=56) and if the prevalence of these forms of aggression differed between genders. Classroom teachers using the Children’s Social Behavior Scale – Teacher Form (Crick, 1996) rated all students in their classes on relational aggression, physical aggression, and prosocial behaviors. Three 2 (culture) by 2 (gender) analyses of variance were performed on each of the following dependent variables: relational aggression, physical aggression, and prosocial behavior. Teachers reported greater prevalence of relational aggression in Puerto Ricanstudents and greater prevalence of prosocial behavior among Irish students. Nosignificant differences were reported between cultures in physical aggression. Teachersreported higher prevalence of physical aggression among males compared to females andhigher prevalence of prosocial behavior among females when compared to males. Nosignificant gender differences were found in relational aggression. An interaction effectwas found in prosocial behavior with Irish females being higher in prosocial behaviorthan Puerto Rican females and Irish males. This research supports that culturaldifferences exist in relational aggression and prosocial behaviors among 8 to 10 yearviiolds. Gender differences in physical aggression and prosocial behaviors in this agesample were also supported. Future research, and the study's limitations were discussed.

Despite significant efforts to boost female enrollment levels and retention rates in engineering programs, females continue to make up only a small portion of the Canadian undergraduate engineering student population. However, this traditionally-male field is undergoing a culture change as a result of the recent establishment of a female minority. New initiatives that are encouraging women to enter the field are also challenging assumed gender differences previously used to legitimize women's low participation. Through a series of multiple-choice, scenario-based questionnaires, this exploratory study seeks to establish whether or not gender differences observed in the broader population are applicable to the unique engineering undergraduate population at the University of Waterloo. In particular, respondents are quizzed on their preferences for specific job attributes and aspects of life outside of work. In addition, short-answer open-ended questions are used to gauge the level of integration experienced by female students in the faculty. Attention is paid to the general academic and social engineering environment as well as the specific dynamics of mixed-gender groups. Although some gender differences, such as higher preference for earnings on the part of males and work-life balance on the part of females, are in line with previous findings, other differences are found to be either absent or reversed. A surprising side effect of our culturally-diverse sample is the emergence of cultural background as a strong factor which, besides gender, affects work and life attribute preferences, especially preferences for task challenge and earnings. Another interesting outcome of the study is the resulting asymmetry between factors that respondents acknowledge as contributing to their happiness, and factors, which when absent, are found to contribute to the respondents' unhappiness. The study also reveals that female engineering students find themselves in a balancing act between perceived privileges due to their minority, and reduced participation and decision making power due to perceptions of engineering projects as stereotypically in the male domain.

Att ständigt vara tillgänglig och hantera inkommande e-post under en arbetsdag kan skapa upplevelse av stress. Syftet med studien var att se om skattningen av stressen minskade om en procedur som liknar traditionell postmottagning tillämpades. Studien genomfördes som ett experiment på en IT-avdelning. Deltagarna delades upp i en kontrollgrupp som arbetade som vanligt med sin e-post och en försöksgrupp som arbetade enligt instruktion. Studien pågick under 8 veckor och stressmätning genomfördes vid tre tillfällen, innan start av experimentet, efter 4 veckor och efter ytterligare 4 veckor. Resultatet visade att stresskattningen var högre för kvinnor medan männens stressupplevelse inte påverkades alls. Den ökade stresskattningen tog sig uttryck i en ökad takt i det egna beteendet, negativ känslomässig upplevelse i relation till andras beteende samt känslan av brist på inre kontroll. Utifrån resultatet är det angeläget att forska vidare på området så länge e-post förblir ett centralt arbetsverktyg. / To be readily accessible and constantly manage incoming e-mail in a working day can create perception of stress. The purpose of this study was to see if the perceived stress was reduced if a procedure similar to traditional mail handling was used. The study was conducted as an experiment in an IT department. Participants were divided into a control group who were working as usual with their e-mail and a test group that worked according to given instructions. The study lasted for 8 weeks and the stress was evaluated on three occasions, before the start of the experiment, after 4 weeks and at the end. The results showed that perceived stress level increased with women, while men's stress levels were not affected at all. The increased stress showed itself in an increased work pace, negative emotional experience in relation to the behavior of others and the feeling of a lack of internal control. Based on these results, it is certainty that further research in this area is needed as long as e-mail remains a key work tool.

Despite significant efforts to boost female enrollment levels and retention rates in engineering programs, females continue to make up only a small portion of the Canadian undergraduate engineering student population. However, this traditionally-male field is undergoing a culture change as a result of the recent establishment of a female minority. New initiatives that are encouraging women to enter the field are also challenging assumed gender differences previously used to legitimize women's low participation. Through a series of multiple-choice, scenario-based questionnaires, this exploratory study seeks to establish whether or not gender differences observed in the broader population are applicable to the unique engineering undergraduate population at the University of Waterloo. In particular, respondents are quizzed on their preferences for specific job attributes and aspects of life outside of work. In addition, short-answer open-ended questions are used to gauge the level of integration experienced by female students in the faculty. Attention is paid to the general academic and social engineering environment as well as the specific dynamics of mixed-gender groups. Although some gender differences, such as higher preference for earnings on the part of males and work-life balance on the part of females, are in line with previous findings, other differences are found to be either absent or reversed. A surprising side effect of our culturally-diverse sample is the emergence of cultural background as a strong factor which, besides gender, affects work and life attribute preferences, especially preferences for task challenge and earnings. Another interesting outcome of the study is the resulting asymmetry between factors that respondents acknowledge as contributing to their happiness, and factors, which when absent, are found to contribute to the respondents' unhappiness. The study also reveals that female engineering students find themselves in a balancing act between perceived privileges due to their minority, and reduced participation and decision making power due to perceptions of engineering projects as stereotypically in the male domain.

Do teachers’ expectations of their pupils become a part in the judgement of which grade a pupil will receive in the end? Several of the polical parties in Sweden have recently been argueing that teachers should be able to give pupils a grade in how they behave in school. Several newspapers also have reported that pupils today have gotten lower results for the last few years and more pupils do not get approved in all subjects. Because many of the studies about pupils results focus on the pupils’ skills, I deciced to focus on the teachers part in how a pupil get a better grade or not. In the study I have been looking at a small community in the south of Sweden. I have sent out a form that teachers in the community’s high schools have been asked to answer. During the study I have also gone to these three schools and done four classroom observations at every school. There I have looked at the environment, how the teacher works and how the pupils react on the teacher’s way of behaving and vice versa. The results of this study has shown that there are more men that choose to include a pupils beahviour when deciding which grade she should get. There is also a tendency that shows that even if teachers themselves do or do not weigh in pupils behaviour, the teachers overall think that it´s more likely that their companions do so.