This study assessed the personal, career and learning skills needs of 196 psychology students (M= 56, F= 103). The preferred means of counselling assistance, preferred experience of counselling and preferred counselling provider were also assessed. The most highly endorsed needs were time management skills (83.5 pecent, n=162), learning test-taking strategies (82 percent, n=159), job search strategies (73.6 percent, n=142), increasing self-confidence (70.3 percent, n=135), increasing motivation (72.4 percent, n=134), controlling anxiety and nervousness (68.7 percent, n=134), public speaking anxiety (68 percent, n=134), understanding career interests and abilities (67.5 percent, n=131), fear of failure (68.1 percent, n=130), and improving study skills (66.5 percent, n=129). Significant sex differences were found for the following, finding a greater purpose in life, controlling weight, job search strategies, concerns about career choice, understanding career interests and abilities in the selection of major subjects and improving study skills. Males highly endorsed the need for finding a greater purpose in life, job search strategies, and concern about career choice, understanding career interest and abilities, selection of major subjects and to improve study skills, whereas females endorsed the need for controlling weight. Respondents indicated individual counselling as being their preferred means of counselling assistance, but lectures were the most prevalent means of assistance previously received by respondents. Most respondents (78.1 percent) found the assistance they had received to be helpful.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The current study examined African American participants’ perceptions of and reactions to a White ally vs. a Black target (vs. a no confrontation control condition) prejudice confrontation. Based on intergroup helping theories suggesting that low-status group members question high-status helper motivations and consequently feel disempowered by their help (Fisher, Nadler, & Whitcher-Alagna, 1982; Nadler, 2002), we predicted that participants would report lower empowerment when a White vs. Black person confronted on their behalf, and that perceived confronter motivation would mediate the effect of confronter group membership on empowerment. To test these hypotheses, we recruited African American participants (N = 477) via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, randomly assigned them to either a no confrontation control, target confrontation, or ally confrontation condition, and then assessed participants’ sense of psychological empowerment and perceptions of the confronter’s motivation. The results supported our predictions for the primary dependent variables, and mediation analyses provided evidence for a causal model such that confronter group membership affected participants’ psychological empowerment via their perceptions of the confronter’s motivation. The findings suggest that although both target and ally confrontations are preferable to no confrontation, allies should be aware of the possible disempowering effect of their confronting on targets of prejudice and the importance of their own motivations when engaging in prejudice confrontation. The current study further emphasizes the importance of representing targets’ perspectives in studies of prejudice.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical reference (leaf 243-266).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 215-229).

This thesis studied the nature and consequences of close intergroup contact in Nigeria. Chapter 1 provides a background to intergroup relations between the ethno-religious groups in Nigeria. Chapter 2 provides an introduction to the theoretical framework, which is the intergroup contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954), with special emphasis on the role of friendship in intergroup contact research. The chapter addresses the possibility that negative intergroup contact exacerbates prejudice and outlines the role of indirect forms of intergroup contact, namely extended contact (Wright, Aron, McLaughlin-Volpe, & Ropp, 1997), vicarious contact (Mazziotta, Mummendey, & Wright, 2011), and imagined contact (Crisp & Turner, 2009) in prejudice reduction. Indirect forms of contact have been suggested as alternatives to direct contact, if no or only limited direct contact opportunities are available. All empirical studies in this thesis were conducted in south-west Nigeria with respondents who belong to the Yoruba majority group. The target groups were Hausas, Edos, and Igbos (minority groups in the area). Chapter 3 consists of two repeated measure studies (Studies 1 and 2) which compare the quality of in-group (Yoruba and Yoruba) and cross-group (Yoruba and Igbo) friendships. The findings showed that, provided the duration of friendship is controlled for, cross-group friendships are rated as largely similar in quality and closeness to in-group friendships, fulfilling key functions of friendship. Chapter 4 consists of two cross-sectional studies (Studies 3 and 4) which tested the secondary transfer effects from direct and extended cross-group friendships. The findings showed that direct and extended cross-group friendship with Igbos was associated with more favourable attitudes towards Hausas. The studies showed for the first time that extended cross-group friendship yields secondary transfer effects. Chapter 5 focuses on the effects of positive and negative intergroup contact with Igbos on out-group attitudes (Study 5). It was shown that negative intergroup contact had an effect on attitudes over and above the effect of positive contact. As expected, positive contact with Igbos was associated with more favourable attitudes towards Igbos, and negative contact with Igbos was associated with less favourable attitudes towards Igbos. Additionally, Study 5 showed secondary transfer effects of negative intergroup contact. Chapter 6 contains a multilevel-study (Study 6) which explores the effects of roommate diversity (i.e., having at least one Igbo roommate) on out-group attitudes. Roommate diversity was linked to more positive attitudes towards Igbos, the roommate’s ethnic group. Moreover, it was shown that contact with Igbos was associated with more positive attitudes towards Edos and Hausas on the within-level. On the between-level roommate diversity was associated with more positive attitudes towards Egos. Chapter 7 summarizes the key findings of the studies and discusses theoretical and practical implications of the research.

This dissertation investigated the effects of group size, group member proximity and the interaction of these two variables on the performance of brainstorming groups in a synchronous, computer-mediated environment. A laboratory experiment was employed to manipulate the independent variables group size (4- and 8-member) group member proximity. Group member proximity was manipulated by allowing proximate groups to work in a single meeting room, while members of distributed group worked in separate rooms. The subjects, upper-level, undergraduate business students, were asked to identify and discuss all "people, groups and organizations" that would be affected by a proposed policy to require all undergraduate business students to have individual access to a personal computer. The computer-mediated brainstorming system allowed all group members to enter and share information simultaneously, as all communication was electronic. Group performance was assessed by counting the total number of unique solutions generated and by the sum of expert rated quality scores for each unique solution. Groups in all conditions contributed approximately the same number of comments and felt equally satisfied. Contrary to an ample body of noncomputer-mediated brainstorming research, large groups were more productive than small groups for both idea quantity and quality. Small groups were, however, more productive than large groups on a per person basis, as increased group size yielded diminishing returns. Remote groups were more productive than proximate groups. Group researchers have found that group interaction produces productivity gains and losses, each of which increase in strength as the group size increases. This research found group productivity losses for computer-mediated brainstorming to be relatively constant, as the technology mitigated productivity inhibitors in conditions where prior noncomputer-mediated research has found these losses to increase (i.e., larger groups).

M.A. / The recent social and political changes that have taken place in South Africa, particularly the integration of the universities, makes this an ideal setting for the study of students’ attitudes and perceptions of their own and other cultural groups. A limitation of existing attitude studies in South Africa and abroad is that these studies have focussed minimally on identifying cultural perceptual processes that underlie intergroup attitudes. In addition, these studies tend to focus mainly on the attitudes of single ethno-cultural groups towards one or a few specific ethnic target groups. The variation of group attitudes of each other across diverse cultural orientation groups has thus mostly been neglected. In order to address such problems, this study aimed at examining cultural group attitudes and core value-orientations (Individualism and Collectivism) amongst 1st and 2nd year psychology volunteer students at RAU. More specifically, this study aimed at determining the variation of group attitudes and value-orientations in terms of a number of independent variables, and the correlation between group attitudes and core value-orientations. The study employed a questionnaire survey with a sample of 541 1st and 2nd year psychology volunteer students at RAU. The sample included male and female students from the broad cultural orientation groups (Western, African, Middle-Eastern (Muslim) and Indian/Asian cultural orientation groups), and the three main language groups (English, Afrikaans and African languages), as well as resident students and day-students from various faculties and academic years of study. The assessment instruments comprised of an Individualism and Collectivism Likert Scale (IS/CS) (Gudykunst, 1995), designed to measure generalised core value-orientations, and a Semantic Differential Scale (SDS) (Nieuwoudt, 1973), designed to measure attitudes towards five broad cultural orientation groups, namely: Western-Afrikaans, Western-English, Indian/Asian, Middle-Eastern (Muslim) and Indigenous African groups. The independent variables included in the analyses of the data were: gender, resident vs. day-students (intimacy and frequency of contact variable), cultural group membership/identity, and first language. The construct validity and the internal reliability of the I/CS and SDS were investigated by means of principal axis factor analysis and Cronbach alpha reliability coefficients. Independent t-tests were used to identify statistically significant differences between the IS/CS and SDS scores of the male and female respondents and the resident students and day-students. ANOVA and subsequent Scheffé or Dunnett T3 post-hoc tests were used to identify the group similarities and differences in the scores for the five cultural-identity groups and the three language groups. Finally, Pearsons’ product-moment correlations were used to identify significant correlations between the IS/CS and SDS scores. Important findings were the following: • Females indicated significantly stronger Individualism and Collectivism scores than males. • Day-students indicated significantly stronger Collectivism scores than resident students. • Statistically significant differences were identified in the IS/CS scores of the five cultural-identity groups and the three language groups. • Males and females differed significantly from one another in terms of their perceptions of Indian/Asian cultural groups. • Resident students and day-students differed significantly from one another in terms of their perceptions of Western-Afrikaans and African cultural groups. • The five cultural-orientation groups and the three language groups differed significantly from one another in terms of their perceptions of Western-Afrikaans, Western-English and African cultural groups. • Significant correlations for the Collectivism scores and the SDS scores for the perceptions of the Western-English, Indian/Asian, Middle-Eastern and African cultures were identified. These correlations were however extremely low, indicating that conducting a regression analysis of the SDS attitude scores in terms of the IS/CS scores was not feasible. Theoretical implications were discussed and recommendations were made for future research in this field.