No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to explore how a small group of white South African men going through menopause attached meaning to this major event in their lives, and also how it affected the decisions they took as leaders in the financial sector. In view of the fact that menopause is a natural process that, according to the existing literature, has a strong influence on men’s behaviour, the following research question was formulated: “Do behavioural changes due to menopause ultimately affect men’s social lives, and particularly their behaviour in the work environment where as leaders they take important decisions?” In collecting data I followed a field research approach where focused interviews were used involving asking questions, listening, expressing interest and recording what was said. Five participants were selected, including myself (I provided an autoethnographic narrative). Having opted for a particular application of the grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and in keeping within the requirements of modernist qualitative research, i.e., providing sufficient information to establish the study’s credibility, and at the same time giving the participants a voice, I conveyed the data, the findings of the study, and the inferences I made according to grounded theory’s three analytical steps namely, open coding, axial coding and selective coding. The findings indicated that menopause symptoms in particular (their physical, psychological and sexual dimensions) had a profound influence on the systemic male. The themes that I inferred from the data through continuous and systematic comparisons were related to decision-making in the work environment. This continuous comparative approach crystallised in the study’s emerging core theme, namely: “the decreased need for work power in the work environment due to psychological integration occurring during their menopause” as well as its substantive theory: “work power trade-offs result in decreased decision-making power during the male menopause phase”.

The Arizona Child Acoustic Database consists of longitudinal audio recordings from a group of children over a critical period of growth and development (ages 2-7 years). The goal of this database is to 1) document acoustic changes in speech production that may be related to physical growth 2) inform development of a model of speech production for child talkers. This work was funded by NSF BSC-1145011 awarded to Kate Bunton, Ph.D. and Brad Story, Ph.D, Principal Investigators. This database contains longitudinal audio recordings of 55 American English speaking children between the ages of 2-7 at 3-month intervals. Since children began the study at different ages, some children have fewer recording sessions than others. The database can also be used to provide cross-sectional data for children of a specific age. Please refer to the subject data table for information on specific sessions available here http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/handle/10150/316065. All children were recorded using the same protocol; therefore, task numbers are consistent across children and sessions. A calibration tone is included as Record 1 for all sessions. The speech protocol focused on production of English monopthong and diphthong vowels in isolation, sVd, hVd, and monosyllabic real words. In addition, the protocol includes several nonsense vowel-to-vowel transitions. Speakers were prompted either verbally by investigators or by graphical prompts. Details of the protocol with reference to task numbers can be found in the protocol spreadsheet available here http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/handle/10150/316065. Details on data recording: All samples were recorded digitally using an AKG SE 300B microphone with a mouth to mic distance of approximately 10 inches. Signals were recorded digitally using a Marantz PMD671, 16 bit PCM (uncompressed) at 44.1KHz. Recordings are made available in .wav format. Individual zip files contain all recordings from a single session.

No description available.

The gender gap is a political phenomenon that has been observed in the electorate since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, with women being more Democratic and liberal than men. Many studies have examined its existence among the white public, but little has been done to document its presence among blacks. This study examines the gender gap among whites and blacks and compares the results in order to see if there is a gender gap that exists among blacks and if it is similar to that for whites. Bivariate and multivariate analyses conducted for both blacks and whites find that the documented gender gap among whites is more pervasive than that for blacks, largely because blacks are more united in their Democratic partisanship and liberal attitudes. However, there are also significant gender differences among blacks that usually are similar to and at times different from those among whites.

This research explored the possible reasons for the lack of males in professional psychology in the South African context, by examining the reasons why second and third year, male psychology students decide not to enter postgraduate studies in psychology. A mixed methods research design was employed. The quantitative aspect consisted of the administration of a questionnaire including the Male Attitude Norms Inventory-II (MANI-II), a questionnaire measuring levels of hegemonic masculinity, to test for the degree to which hegemonic masculinity may influence the decision to pursue or not to pursue postgraduate studies in psychology. The qualitative aspect involved semi-structured, one-on-one interviews with second and third year undergraduate, male, psychology students who specified that they did not intend on pursuing postgraduate studies in psychology. This aspect of the research was designed to determine the possible reasons for the decision not to pursue postgraduate studies in psychology, as well as to assess the degree to which masculinity affects this decision. Quantitative results showed that there was not a significant difference on the MANI-II between groups (although certain individual items did show significant results). The results of the qualitative interviews showed that many issues were potentially contributing to distorted and negative views of professional psychology, although a major finding was that the participants viewed their masculinity as being incompatible with the requirements of professional psychology and that professional psychology would be an unfulfilling career. Recommendations included greater education on the reality of the work involved in professional psychology as well as possibly increasing the exposure of undergraduate males to postgraduate and professional male psychologists as well as greater consultation to improve the media‟s representation to reflect the realities of psychological practice

This study explored adolescent township boys’ attitudes and perceptions towards sexual relationships. There has been substantial evidence in recent literature that violence against women is a problem worldwide and a growing concern, especially in South Africa (Human Rights Watch, 2001; Jewkes, Levin, Mbananga & Bradshaw, 2002; Statistics South Africa, 2005; Stats SA Archive, 2002). In addition, it appears that South African girls are more likely to be sexually assaulted by one, or more of their male classmates (Haffejee, 2006; Human Rights Watch, 2001; Mirsky, 2003; Posel, 2005). Moreover, adolescents’ attitudes regarding violence against girls have been found to help perpetuate such violence (Lewis, 2000; Varga, 2003; Vogelman, 1990). On the basis of the socialisation theory, it was postulated that the way in which a boy is socialised in his home, school, peer group and society at large, impacts on his attitudes and perceptions of rape and hence the incidence of sexual violence in South Africa (Vogelman, 1990). This study therefore aimed to understand and investigate male adolescents’ perceptions and attitudes towards gender stereotypes, sexual consent and rape supportive beliefs or myths, in particular, focusing on what the construct of ‘rape’ is perceived to be. The subjective world of adolescent township boys was explored within the qualitative paradigm. In investigating the research aims, 11 adolescent boys, aged between 16 and 19 attending one high school in Alexandra participated in the study. The research was conducted in the form of both semi-structured individual interviews and focus groups of 3-5 participants. Various psychological, social and emotional themes relating to the theory of socialisation were explored. The participants’ responses were recorded and then analysed utilising content analysis. From the analysis one can infer that society has got a major role to play in attitudes towards sexual assault and how it is dealt with. It was found that the majority of the participants in this study have adopted some rape supportive beliefs and ideas, and have been heavily encouraged to display, and hence do display some sexrole stereotypes and hegemonic masculinity. This study therefore supports the notion that socialisation factors play an important role in the development of stereotypical notions of sex role behaviour in adolescent males, which may further contribute to the incidence of rape.