The overall aim of the present study was to contribute to the argument put forward by Burt, Chmiel and Hayes (2009) that trust in the context of employee selection and training can be negative for safety. The present study builds on these authors argument that new employees pose a safety risk and any effort to build trust in the safety behaviours of new team members and/or to reduce perceptions of the safety risk of new employees (e.g. through selection and training) could likely have negative consequences. The research was conducted in eight organisations from the manufacturing, construction, engineering and rail industries which are characterised by high accident rates (Statistics New Zealand, 2008). There were 118 participants which completed an anonymous occupational safety questionnaire. The participants were employees who worked in teams in high risk industries characterised by a history of turnover. The results supported past findings in that trust in selection and training was positively correlated with immediate trust in new team members. There were mixed results regarding the hypothesis that trust in selection and training is negatively correlated with perceived risk from new team members. In particular there was some support for this hypothesis at the highest job risk level. The results supported the hypothesis that there is a positive correlation between the number of selection and training processes used by organisations and immediate trust in new team members. The results also indicated that the previous safety outcomes of new team members acts as a mediator between trust in selection and training, and immediate trust in new team members. Results are discussed in terms of the concerns and implications for organisations aiming to reduce accident rates.

Objective: Childhood abuse (CA) is commonly associated with increased frequency of high-risk behaviours (HRB) in adolescence. Similarly, research has highlighted links between CA and blunted responses to reward. To date, little attention has been devoted to examine if altered reward processes may also be linked to increased engagement in HRB. To explore this hypothesis, this systematic review collated research that investigated the relationship among CA, reward processes and HRB. Specifically, the review addressed the question: Are HRB associated with altered reward processes in children and adults with a history of CA? Method: Behavioural and neurobiological studies on CA, reward processing and HRB in children and adults were selected from multidisciplinary and subject-specific databases published prior to the 1st of March 2016. The systematic literature search yielded 271 records with 198 non-duplicated results. Screening of 14 full-text publications led to five eligible studies synthesized in this review. Results: Results confirmed impaired reward learning and increased HRB in those with a history of CA. Associations of blunted anticipatory or consummatory reward processing and HRB in individuals with CA remained inconclusive. Conclusions: Reward learning appears to be associated with CA. Further research is required to explore the relationship between reward processes and HRB. Understanding CA from a neurodevelopment perspective is a critical step to developing effective intervention strategies to reduce HRB. Empirical Paper: Abstract Objective: Following childhood abuse (CA), adolescence often sees the onset of depression and high-risk behaviour (HRB). Despite the prevalence, little is known about underlying neurobiological factors linking CA and HRB. To address this gap, I examined if anticipatory and consummatory reward processing in adolescents with CA predict frequency of HRB, irrespective of depressive symptoms. Methods: Thirty-seven adolescents (M=17.08 years; SD = 1.86) participated in the study: 13 females with CA and current major depressive disorder (MDD), eight females with MDD and no CA, and 16 individuals with no CA and no MDD for comparison (control group). Adolescents completed the Card-Guessing paradigm to assess reward processing, while undergoing a magnetic resonance imaging scan. Neural region-of-interest responses in the striatum and pallidum were assessed during anticipatory and consummatory reward phases. Hierarchical regression models investigated if neural responses to reward were altered based on exposure to CA and if altered neural responses predicted higher use of HRB. Results: Data showed that (1) depressed adolescents engaged more frequently in HRB irrespective of history of CA, (2) anticipatory and consummatory reward processes were not altered based on a history of CA, and (3) blunted activation in right pallidum in anticipation of rewards predicted HRB irrespective of depressive symptoms. Conclusion: Although the current study did not confirm changes in reward processing following CA, blunted reward ‘wanting’ was linked to more frequent HRB. Findings are relevant to theories highlighting the critical role of the pallidum in perceiving cues as rewarding and in initiating goal-directed actions to obtain rewards.

Previous research has shown a large genetic influence over personality traits, especially sensation seeking. One gene thought to influence this behavioural trait is the dopamine-4-receptor gene (DRD4), in which variants have been associated with sensation seeking and novelty seeking in some, but not all studies. The inconsistencies between studies may be due to heterogeneity in both the behaviours and the populations being assessed. Some studies included only males and few studies have a priori analyzed males and females separately. SS has been associated with high-risk sports, including skiing; however, this is the first study to address the possibility that genetics may play a role in individuals’ inclination towards SS in sport. Using the Contextual Sensation Seeking Questionnaire for Skiing (CSSQ-S), developed and validated for this study, and the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire (ZKPQ), levels of SS in males and females were analyzed in association with the alleles of a polymorphism in the dopamine-4-receptor, -521 C/T (a C or a T at position -521). Behavioural analysis of skiers (N = 200) revealed a significant correlation (r²= .506, p < .001) between skier behaviour (CSSQ-S) and skier personality score (ZKPQ) for sensation seeking. Genotype analysis (N = 74) revealed allele frequencies of .58 C and .42 T and an over-representation of the C allele was found in the population of skiers compared with a general Caucasian population (p < .01). In females, a significant association was found between the homozygous C/C genotype and high levels of contextual skiing SS behaviour (N = 36, p = .006, η² = .2), along with a non-significant trend between ZKPQ impulsive SS scores and the alleles of -521 C/T (p = .086). No association, however, was found in males (N=38, p ZKPQ = .473, p CSSQ-S = .345). This study supports the hypothesis that alleles of the DRD4 -521 C/T polymorphism are associated with context-specific SS behaviours, however only in females. Social pressures may differentially influence male and female sensation-seeking behaviour which may explain the lack of association in males, though this hypothesis requires further investigation. / Education, Faculty of / Kinesiology, School of / Graduate

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Emotion processing and regulatory deficits have been well established in individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder (BD). Both structural and functional neural deficits have been associated with the presence of psychiatric symptoms in BD. In Chapter 2, we reviewed cortical thickness deficits found in patients with BD. It is unclear however, how early these deficits appear; whether they contribute to risk, or whether these deficits develop as a consequence of the onset of symptoms. To address this, many researchers have turned to high-risk offspring populations. These high-risk offspring are at much greater risk of developing BD by virtue of having a parent diagnosed with BD. Moreover, the presence of anxiety, depression or ADHD related symptoms in this population suggest these children are at even greater risk to develop BD. By comparing high-risk offspring with and without the symptoms can help to elicudate neural correlates associated with risk and resilience for BD. It was the aim of this thesis research to investigate the behavioural, structural and functional correlates of risk. Specifically, presented in this thesis, we compared the gray matter integrity, through volume (Chapter 3) and cortical thickness (Chapter 4) techniques, in symptomatic and asymptomatic high-risk offspring to healthy children of healthy parents. We also compared the ability of these offspring to perform an emotion-labelling task (Chapter 5) and engage in emotional conflict monitoring and conflict adaptation during an fMRI scan (Chapter 6). Altogether, our results provide evidence for the presence of gray matter volume, emotion labelling, and conflict monitoring and conflict adaptation functional deficits in high-risk offspring compared to healthy children of healthy parents. With the exception of cortical thickness, we found that the deficits between symptomatic and asymptomatic high-risk offspring were comparable. This suggests that behavioural, structural and functional deficits may reflect neural correlates of risk and are not associated with the presence of symptoms. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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Schizophrenia is often a debilitating psychiatric disorder, characterised by both positive and negative symptoms, and cognitive and psychosocial impairments. The established disorder has been associated with a number of brain abnormalities, however it is at present unknown whether these brain changes occur prior to onset of schizophrenia, or in unaffected relatives with a familial vulnerability to develop the disorder, or only in those at high risk that go on to develop the disorder. Furthermore, most studies have been conducted cross-sectionally, which may have obscured subtle longitudinal changes in familial high risk individuals, and these studies tend to have focused on localized cortical gray matter , and thus it is unclear whether they affect different cortical parameters differentially. Prospective familial high risk studies utilizing surface based MRI programmes provide a good method to investigate this. In the Edinburgh High Risk Study, structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 150 young individuals at familial high risk of schizophrenia, 34 patients with first-episode schizophrenia and 36 matched controls were obtained. Of the high risk participants with scans suitable for analysis, 17 developed schizophrenia after the scans were taken, whilst 57 experienced isolated or sub-clinical psychotic symptoms, and 70 remained well. We used Freesurfer to extract volumetric and surface-based measurements of several cortical and localized sub-cortical regions with the aim of assessing whether any alterations found were present in all those at high risk, or selectively in the high risk cohort based on future clinical outcome, or only in those experiencing their first-episode of psychosis. It was found that those experiencing their first episode of schizophrenia exhibited significantly more widespread brain alterations compared to those at high risk or controls, both on a more global cortical level and in more localized regions of the cortex, with cortical thickness being generally thinner than in the other groups, and cortical surface area and gyrification increased compared to the other groups. An increased global surface area was also shared with the HR[ill] group, suggesting that this could be a marker that is predictive of future transition to psychosis. Within the high risk cohort, some brain alterations seemed to present as general vulnerability markers, specifically in the temporal lobe at baseline, whilst longitudinally both localized and global cortical alterations distinguished the high risk cohort from the control group, and a different developmental trajectory of the hippocampus was also found. These findings show that some brain alterations may be more accurately characterized as general vulnerability markers of the disorder, whilst some are specifically present in patients who have experienced their first episode of schizophrenia, whilst some also occur before disorder onset in those at high risk that go on to develop schizophrenia. The findings have some clinical implications, as they suggest that it is possible to assess who at high risk will go on to develop schizophrenia based on brain structural alterations. This may provide clinicians with an early window of opportunity for intervention, as it has been found that early intervention may improve patient's prognosis. The findings also have important implications for the understanding of the underlying eitology of schizophrenia, as they suggest that some of these alterations are present before illness onset, and not associated with medication effects, thus potentially lying on the causal path of developing schizophrenia.

Purpose: This thesis investigated whether perceived parental care and overprotection predicted accuracy of face emotion recognition in psychiatrically healthy youth. The study also examined whether child gender and having a parent with a history of anxiety moderated the relationship between parental bonding and facial emotion recognition, and whether behavioural inhibition mediated this relationship. Methods: The sample comprised 176 males and females aged 7-18 years. Participants completed the Parental Bonding Instrument, Childhood Self-Report of Inhibition, and the Ekman emotion recognition task. Results: Child gender and parental history of anxiety moderated the relationship between perceived parenting style and affect recognition. In boys, overprotection by father predicted deficits in recognizing fearful faces; in children with parental anxiety, low paternal care predicted deficits in recognizing angry faces; and in boys with parental anxiety, negative maternal bonding predicted deficits in recognizing expressions of surprise. Also, maternal overprotection predicted intensity of subjective anxiety while viewing expressions of surprise and happiness for all offspring, and behaviour inhibition mediated these relationships. Implications: The present study provides preliminary evidence that parental bonding interacts with risk group and gender in predicting accuracy of facial affect recognition in healthy youth. Further research is needed to confirm these findings and determine whether the interaction between gender, risk group and deficits in social cognition increase risk for developing pathological anxiety.