Previous research shows that socio-cultural factors play an important role in determining the outcomes of natural resource conservation. Conservationists have discovered that when such factors are not properly incorporated from the earliest planning stages, projects are often less successful than hoped and at times outright failures. Thus, several core values that vary among cultures were studied to examine their relationships to natural resources and conservation. This study investigated the relationships between natural resources and conservation and the 3 value orientations individualism, collectivism, and locus of control and socio-demographics in the North Rupununi, Guyana. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected in 5 villages (Annai Central, Apoteri, Rewa, Aranaputa, and Wowetta) via participant observation and mostly structured interviews of 167 local residents. Field research took place from January to November 2008, and interviews occurred from July to October of the same year. Analysis indicates the following results for this sample. Neither the individualism measurement used in this study not the locus of control scale showed many statistically significant associations, but some interesting patterns and trends appear in the case of locus of control. In contrast, the collectivism scale showed associations to several of the natural resource items. The main conclusions from the study are that to promote more successful conservation, professionals need to focus on several factors that promote more effective communication and negotiation. Developing equity among participants; empowering people through their own knowledge, influence, and options; establishing respect by and for all parties; co-creating a common mental model among the parties; and fostering the competence and confidence of all parties to actively participate in the negotiations are key to success. This can be especially tricky in cases in which the various parties come from different socio-cultural backgrounds, such as in the case of Western scientists working with remote indigenous peoples. Coming to a shared mental model and feelings of true equity among the parties is even harder then because the disparate backgrounds make common understanding difficult at best. However, it is that much more necessary when common backgrounds are absent. In such cases, a well-trained, culturally sensitive, and neutral facilitator can be the most useful tool to help co-create the right circumstances for authoring solutions which foster natural resource conservation that can succeed.

Bandura definierar (1997) outcome expectancy som individens skattning av sannolikheten att ett beteende ska leda till ett specifikt utfall. Utöver individens skattning av sitt eget beteendes följder (individual outcome expectancy), är hennes bedömning av sin grupps möjlighet att nå ett specifikt utfall (collective outcome expectancy) en del av begreppet (Riggs & Knight, 1994). Studien syftar till att undersöka huruvida arbetsrelaterad- self efficacy, locus of control och collective efficacy predicerar outcome expectancy. En enkätundersökning genomfördes med 102 deltagare från olika yrkesgrupper. Resultatet visade att arbetsrelaterad- self efficacy och locus of control samvarierade med individual outcome expectancy och att collective efficacy predicerade collective outcome expectancy. Dock var gruppstorleken av betydelse för prediktionen. Studiens hypoteser bekräftades av tidigare forskning.

Forskning har visat att self-efficacy, självkänsla, KASAM och locus of control alla har en effekt på graden av upplevd stress. Dock inte alla tillsammans, vilket denna studie avsåg att undersöka samt deras inbördes relationer och vilken variabel som predicerar stress bäst. Högskolestudenter (n = 65) svarade på varsin enkät. Resultatet visade att alla variablerna hade signifikant negativ korrelation med upplevd stress. Ju högre nivå på variablerna desto mindre stressade var studenterna. De kvinnliga studenterna var mer stressade än de manliga. Resultatet visade även genom multiple regression att self-efficacy var den variabel som var viktigast för att hantera stress inför en examination, näst viktigast var KASAM. Slutsatsen blev att dessa variabler hade en avgörande inbördes relation när det gäller graden av upplevd stress inför en examination.

This thesis studied four CEMUS courses offered in spring 2011. The purpose of this study was: 1) to measure CEMUS students‘ self-reported behavior and action as well as behavior intention towards sustainable development; 2) to analyze different factors and barriers to their behavior and action; 3) to analyze course coordinators‘ knowledge and perspectives about behavior change and action towards sustainable development; and 4) to analyze each course‘s impact on students. Finally, this thesis discusses how education can be improved to foster behavior and action towards sustainable development. This study used both qualitative and quantitative methods. According to the results, most CEMUS students were willing to recycle; to switch off electricity when it‘s not needed; and to travel by bicycle or public transportation instead of by car. On the other hand, fewer students had a willingness to pay for environmental costs and to cut down water consumption and waste. Among the opportunities for indirect action, it was political participation and working within the field of sustainable development (SD) that were most preferred. In contrast, much fewer students were willing to avoid purchasing products from companies with poor track records on CSR, to participate in voluntary work related to SD and to donate money for social or environmental causes. The two most frequently perceived constraints for behavior change among students were a lack of money and obstructive social norms. As a course outcome, four out of six coordinators expect students to take action afterwards but there is a lack of knowledge on how to encourage students to behave and act more sustainably. Based on the results, this thesis discussed what kinds of learning methods can be applied in CEMUS and ESD. It was concluded that education should focus on a specific domain and a small spatial scale, and assign project assignments in which students communicate and interact with stakeholders. Such an approach will help to approach the goals of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). CEMUS could also implement the theory of locus of control, emotional involvement and four different kinds of knowledge in their education in order to improve the effectiveness of CEMUS courses when it comes to promoting behavior and action towards sustainable development.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between Health Locus of Control, Exercise habits, Food habits and Self-esteem (Personal self and Physical self) between two groups of student teachers at a university in the south of Sweden. Is health such as exercise, eating and self-esteem something that is controlled by internal or external factors? Student teachers that participated in Physical and Health programme and student teachers that participeted in other programme were investigeted. The participants (N = 160) answered the questionnaire. The Health Locus of Control scale and Tennessee Self-Concept Scale were used. A form was constructed to measure the students exercise habits and food habits. The study showed differences between the two groups of student teachers concerning Internal HLoC and Exercise habits. A positive tendency concerning Phycial self was also found. The results showed that there were positive correlations between the variables Health Locus of Control, Exercise habits, Food habits, Personal self and Physical self. Negative correlations were also found, between the variables Health Locus of Control and Physicals self. The study showed that the programme a student was participating in, only could explain a students Exercise habits. The result also showed that a students Food habits only could be explained by how the student think of their body and their appearance.

Objectives. The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between the personality variables Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC), Negativ affect and Social inhibition (the D-personality), and health behavior and attitudes toward keep-fit measures. Methods. The participants in this study were 170 embloyees at a regional social insurance office in a midsize town in the south of Sweden. Scales concerning health behavior and attitudes toward keep-fit measures were constructed and the participants completed these scales as well as those of MHLC and D-personality. Results. Participants with strong beliefs that other people, such as doctors or family-members, are responsible for their health, showed a more positive attitude as to keep-fit measures than those with a belief that health is controlled by themselves. The D-personality was significantly related to negative health behaviors. Conclusions. This study suggest that different personality-types show different health behavior and attitudes toward keep-fit meausures and therefore are in need of different kinds of support in order to promote a good health. This is especially relevant for persons with a high level of negativ affect and social inhibition.

Många hushåll och individer har i dagens samhälle tvingats börja pendla till sina arbeten bl.a. på grund av en förändrad arbetsmarknad. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att se om individer som pendlar regelbundet har ett lägre KASAM. Utgångspunkten var att individer med en mer extern kontrollokus ofta har lägre KASAM och att pendling hypotetiskt sett bör påverka individen lokus i en extern riktning. Sammanlagt 27 försökspersoner i åldrarna 22 – 50 år undersöktes med hjälp av KASAM test och I-E test. Deltagarna togs med bekvämlighetsurval från ett nordiskt flygbolag i Sverige, där 13 personer pendlande till arbetet och 14 var bosatta på arbetsorten, vilket visade att KASAM var signifikant lägre på 5 % nivå för de pendlande individerna, samt att kontrollokus var signifikant mer externt, också på 5 % nivå. Vidare forskning bör fokusera på individer från andra branscher för att se om resultaten är allmänna.

Organizational commitment (OC) is a psychological state that binds an employee to an organization, and the Three-Component Model of organizational commitment (Meyer and Allen, 1991) posits that employees bind with their organizations as a result of desire (affective commitment), need (continuance commitment) and obligation (normative commitment). Similarly, relationship commitment between two people also has been conceived as a psychological state (Rusbult and Buunk, 1993), and Arriaga and Agnew (2001) outlined affective, cognitive and conative components of the state. This exploratory study examined the similarities between these conceptually parallel commitment models by determining how the dimensions of the two types of commitment correlate with one another, attachment style (Bowlby 1969/1982) and locus of control (Rotter, 1966). Data collected from 171 working adults yield several noteworthy associations and suggest future directions of inquiry.

In order to meet our needs, consumer always believe that the more wild of selection, the better to choose the best of us. One such assumption is the regularity principle, which asserts that the addition of a new option to the choice set should not increase the probability of choosing any of the original options (Luce 1977). Clearly, both the attraction and compromise effects reflect an increase in the share of the target option after adding a third option. It implies that a new option added to a given set should take shares from existing options in proportion to their original shares. In fact, not all of the consumers react to these "third option" in the same level, because of the different personality traits , everyone have different thoughts even they get the same message. So, we want to know the impact of personality traits on compromise and attraction effects, and the intensity of those effects. We choose ¡§self-confidence¡¨, ¡§need for cognition¡¨, ¡§need for uniqueness¡¨, ¡§locus of control¡¨, and ¡§self-monitoring¡¨ to test the compromise and attraction effects, and we found that people with ¡§low need for uniqueness¡¨ had the strongest compromise effect; and with ¡§high need for cognition¡¨ had the strongest attraction effect. In addition, ¡§high self-confidence¡¨, ¡§high need for cognition¡¨, ¡§high need for uniqueness¡¨, and ¡§low self-monitoring¡¨ groups only exist attraction effect but compromise effect; ¡§low self-confidence¡¨, ¡§low need for cognition¡¨, ¡§low need for uniqueness¡¨ and ¡§high self-monitoring¡¨ groups react not only on attraction effect, but on compromise effect.

Political behavior does exist in organizations. Perceptions of organizational politics affect decision-making of many issues in human resource departments from promotions to salaries. When members of organizations realize that political behavior will affect their promotions and salaries, thereby not fulfilling their expectations; the resulting perception may potentially bring an adverse effect on their work ethic. In recent years, many studies have taken place on the perceptions of organizational politics and its negative effects, the studies not only took objective environmental factors into consideration but also examined the subjective personal factors. Thus, the purpose of this study is to measure the effects of the organization¡¦s member¡¦s awareness of the existence of political behavior on work stress, and to examine if intervening variables, such as, ¡§Type A personality¡¨, ¡§locus of control¡¨, ¡§understanding¡¨, and ¡§control¡¨, would modulate the adverse effects of their perceptions of organizational politics on work stress. Four national financial institutions were the recipients of this study, from whom 280 valid copies were received. The use of methodology includes factor analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis, regression analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. The survey indicated that a) the perceptions of organizational politics have adverse effects on work stress, b) Type A personality, locus of control, and control, have remarkable modulating effects on the relationship between the perceptions of organizational politics and work stress in terms of under-utilization of skill, c) locus of control has significant modulating effects on the relationship between the perceptions of organizational politics and work stress in terms of work overload.