This study narratively explores the experiences of five public school counsellors and one high school teacher using Conversation Peace, a restorative action peer mediation program published jointly in 2001 by Fraser Region Community Justice Initiatives Association (CJI), Langley, British Columbia, Canada, and School District #35, Langley, British Columbia, Canada. This categorical-content analysis (Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, & Zilber, 1998) resulted in data describing 20 common themes, 12 with similar responses, and 8 with varying responses amongst participants. Two of the similar findings were the crucial importance of (a) confidentiality within the mediation process, and (b) the school counsellor’s role within the overall and day-to-day implementation of this peer mediation program. Two of the varying findings were (a) the time involvement of the school counsellor within the peer mediation program, and (b) the differences in the number of trained peer mediators and peer mediations within schools.

People prefer symmetric over asymmetric patterns (Reber, Schwarz, & Winkielman, 2004). According to the fluency attribution perspective, this preference reflects differences in processing speed where increased processing efficiency leads to increased pattern preference. To test the account, in Experiment 1, participants’ speed of response to a pattern predicted the relationship between pattern symmetry and pattern preference. Experiment 2 expanded this account and found that a second measure of processing efficiency, recognition accuracy for patterns, predicted the relationship between pattern symmetry and pattern preference. Experiment 3 tested the attribution account of the fluency attribution hypothesis. Participants made a judgment of pattern mood rather than pattern preference. Despite a change of judgment task to an unintuitive judgment of pattern mood, participants attributed increased processing efficiency for patterns to increased pattern happiness. The three experiments provide an integration of the information processing and fluency attribution perspectives to account for symmetry preference judgments.

The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the role of mindfulness as a resilience resource in depressed and trauma exposed college students (Thompson, Arnkoff, & Glass, 2011). Chapter one reviews current literature that is relevant to the role of mindfulness in resilience and focuses on depression as an outcome. Further, chapter two details the research study. The study proposed and tested a model in which resilience and mindfulness predict trauma symptoms and depressive symptoms and mindfulness mediates the relationship between resilience and trauma and depression symptomology. A total of 529 college students were recruited at a large urban university. They were asked to complete a demographics questionnaire followed by an assessment of their trauma exposure using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM–5; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Participants were then be asked to complete the Five Factor Mindfulness Questionnaire (Baer, 2003), the Connor Davidson Resilience Scale (Connor & Davidson, 2003), the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (Radloff, 1977), and the Trauma Symptom Checklist (Briere & Runtz, 1989). To assess how well resilience and mindfulness predict depression and trauma symptomology in trauma exposed individuals vs. individuals who did not endorse trauma exposure, separate hierarchical regression analyses were completed based on trauma exposure and outcome variable. The results showed that while mindfulness significantly predicted trauma symptoms and depressive symptoms in trauma exposed college students as well as students with no trauma exposure, resilience did not significantly predict the outcome variables. Further, to test the mediational effects of mindfulness on the relationship between resilience and the outcome variables for the trauma exposed and non-trauma exposed college students, the Preacher and Hayes (2008) bootstrapping approach was utilized by performing the analysis using the macro PROCESS. The results indicated that mindfulness mediated the relationship between resilience and trauma symptoms as well as resilience and depressive symptoms in both trauma-exposed and non-trauma exposed college students. Limitations were discussed and implications for practitioners and future research were provided.

People prefer symmetric over asymmetric patterns (Reber, Schwarz, & Winkielman, 2004). According to the fluency attribution perspective, this preference reflects differences in processing speed where increased processing efficiency leads to increased pattern preference. To test the account, in Experiment 1, participants’ speed of response to a pattern predicted the relationship between pattern symmetry and pattern preference. Experiment 2 expanded this account and found that a second measure of processing efficiency, recognition accuracy for patterns, predicted the relationship between pattern symmetry and pattern preference. Experiment 3 tested the attribution account of the fluency attribution hypothesis. Participants made a judgment of pattern mood rather than pattern preference. Despite a change of judgment task to an unintuitive judgment of pattern mood, participants attributed increased processing efficiency for patterns to increased pattern happiness. The three experiments provide an integration of the information processing and fluency attribution perspectives to account for symmetry preference judgments.

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Zugl.: Leipzig, Univ., Diss., 2006 / Literaturverz. S. 205 - 208

Zugl.: Frankfurt (Oder), Univ., Diss., 2004

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2008. / "August, 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 32-37). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Univ., Habil.-Schr.--Tübingen, 2002.

Zugl.: Konstanz, Univ., Diss., 2008