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Introduction: The public often believes that ‘mentally ill’ individuals are more prone to dangerous and criminal behavior and more inclined towards gun violence. These misperceptions have negative consequences on justice-involved individuals with a mental illness who are reintegrating into society post-incarceration. Media is often cited as a reason for the spread of misperceptions, but these results may not apply to rural communities. Rather, in rural areas, social support is essential to success due to lack of modern technology, no/lacking public transportation, limited mental health services, employment opportunities, and available housing, and may play a more significant role in perception development. Misperceptions held by rural residents can exacerbate existing environmental barriers. Aims: This thesis examines how rural residents’ beliefs and perceptions regarding the association between mental illness and gun violence may be differentially impacted by: (1) media consumption, (2) social relationships, and (3) personal experiences. Method: 32 rural residents were recruited to participate in an open-ended qualitative interview. The qualitative interview examined the extent to which social relationships, personal experiences, and media consumption impacted development of beliefs and misperceptions regarding the association between mental illness and gun violence and beliefs about gun control. Analytical Plan: Using methods from both directed and traditional qualitative content analysis, codes were developed to analyze influential social relationships, personal experiences and media consumption on belief and perception development regarding mental illness and gun violence, along with gun control. These codes were then used to organize and analyze relevant aspects of participant interviews in order to create insight into emergent themes. Results: The most prominent emergent theme was idiosyncrasy, suggesting rural residents are a heterogeneous population. For example, participants reported that interpersonal contact both increased and decreased misperceptions, depending on the participant. While idiosyncrasies is a major thematic emergence, much more emerged beyond this. Participants displayed widely varying definitions of what a mental illness is, conflating mental illness with things such as mental retardation and lupus; this lack of an understanding of what a mental illness is, is reflected in another result – that misperceptions surrounding mental illness are prevalent in this rural sample. Participants also displayed distrust in the media and the way they portray mental illness and gun violence in particular. Other minor sub-themes and thematic emergences manifested within the data. Implications: The results of this thesis contribute to a better understanding of the role of factors such as: misunderstandings of what mental illness is, the lack of a role of relationship closeness, and the importance of personal experience, and how these may promote or reduce misconceptions regarding gun violence and mental illness in rural communities. This expanded understanding allows for the development of effective, culturally competent psychoeducation targeted specifically towards rural residents, which will ideally be accomplished by incorporating the effects on (mis)perception development of the aforementioned influences. This is imperative, as findings in extant literature may be differentially relevant in rural communities.

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Objectives: The purpose of the study was to examine potential differences between two approaches to defining adolescent weight misperception. Specifically, weight status perception was compared with self-reported weight status and actual weight status (based on body mass index percentiles calculated from self-reported and actual weights and heights, respectively). Furthermore, the accuracy of assigning weight status based on body mass index percentiles calculated from self-reported weights and heights was assessed by comparing them with actual weight status. Methods: Data were extracted from Team Up for Healthy Living, an 8-week, school-based obesity prevention program in southern Appalachia. Participants (N = 1509) were predominately white (93.4%) and ninth graders (89.5%), with approximately equivalent representation of both sexes (50.7% boys). Results: The study revealed significant differences between the approaches to defining weight misperception (χ2 = 16.2; P = 0.0003). Conclusions: Researchers should interpret study findings with awareness of potential differences based on the method of calculating weight misperception.

The study looked at how misperceptions of randomness (the gambler’s fallacy or the hot-hand fallacy) would show differences in self-serving-bias through different levels of perceived control. In order to investigate this relationship between misperceptions of randomness, self-serving bias, and perceived control, the study manipulated perceived control by varying who threw the coin (experimenter/participant) and by showing a skill prime to some participants. Thus, in the experiment, participants either saw a skill prime or not by random assignment. Afterwards, the participants predicted an outcome, rated the confidence of the prediction, then the participants would throw a coin for half of the trials while the experimenter would for the other trials. Due to little variability of the self-serving bias, the analysis could not test the hypothesis. However, the study found that other variable such as confidence was able to predict the misperception of randomness when the participants threw the coin.

Six neuropsychological topics illustrating altered perceptions and illusory beliefs are explored with particular emphasis on the neurobiological underpinnings of such phenomena. The first five topics are phantom limb, out-of-body experiences including depersonalization and near-death experiences, delusions with an emphasis on the effects of psychedelic drugs, autonomic reflex actions including respiration and heartbeat, and virtual reality. The last topic focuses on three disorders impairing perception and cognition, namely, Anton-Babinski, Charles Bonnet, and Diogenes Syndromes. Many of the related neurobiological mechanisms reflect disturbances of both lower-level and multisensory processing along with specific cortical impairments such as at the temporoparietal junction. The latter has been linked, for example, to out-of-body experiences. Similarly, aberrant neural learning and signaling such as that based on synaptic receptor disturbances show how the interplay between lower-level brain activity and that in the prefrontal cortex contributes to delusions. Specific hypotheses set forth to explain these alterations in perception and cognition are reviewed, such as a remapping theory which depicts cortical reorganization in response to synaptic changes mediated by receptors. The effects of these perceptual/cognitive distortions on experiential pleasure/pain and on adaptability are also explored.

The driving force for this study was firstly to gain insight into young children's understanding of their rights and responsibilities in democratic South Africa. Secondly, to identify whether the participating learners were educated about and had insight into their rights and responsibilities. Thirdly, I explored gaps in participating learners' knowledge of their rights and responsibilities and determined areas that can be improved by the education policy and practice related to children's rights. The main purpose of this research was to contribute to the growing body of knowledge and in so doing, improve the education of the young child in general. The aim of this research was to assist and guide educators and all adults working with children on all levels to transform education related to the rights and responsibility of the young child. Fourthly, I to give children a voice in society. Empowering them with knowledge could ultimately assist adults working with children to raise strong, well-adjusted learners through knowing and understanding their rights. It was imperative for this study that I closely listen to and heard the participant children's voices. Giving children the opportunity to be heard empowers them to be participating citizens rather than being passive and reliant on others. The right to be heard can be referred to as a self-improving or self-regulating right. Children are knowledgeable regarding their own lives and their rights to self-expression, citizenship and their sense to fit in. Being knowledgeable makes children experts in their life-world. This is why it is very important to know how the South African child understands his or her rights and responsibilities. South Africa became a democracy in 1994. The children in this study live in South Africa and were born into the democracy of South Africa. The participant children were accustomed to living in democratic South Africa and voiced their opinions contextually and accordingly. This research design is of a qualitative nature, utilising case study as a method and took place in the natural environment of the participants where data was collected. Multiple case studies were utilised and viewed from an interpretivist perspective. This enabled the researcher to provide a construct of young children's understanding of their rights and responsibilities in democratic South Africa. The research context was the school grounds as well as the classroom of the participants. Data concerning the understanding that young children have of their rights and responsibilities was gathered through observations, interviews, discussions, artefacts made by the participants, photographs taken by the participants, stories and narratives in the form of text written by the participants and analysed by the researcher. The analysis of visual artefacts was instrumental in gathering data for this study. Data gathering took place in a Grade 3 classroom. The 17 research participants for this study were selected via convenience sampling. I examined the data collected to find and discover young learners' perceptions of their rights and responsibilities. I chose an independent school where the participants had diverse backgrounds regarding language, ability, socio-economic background, race and religion. This independent school had a high standard of education. According to the UNCRC children's ages ranges from birth to 18 years of age. The general age of Grade 3 children is nine years. This is right in the centre of childhood and therefore considered it an appropriate age to obtain an understanding of what the child has come to know and understand as his or her rights and responsibilities. A conceptual framework was developed during this study for children's rights and responsibility. By combining the social constructivist theory, the three p's and the ladder of participation, it assisted me in understanding the phenomenon under study. My findings are that the participant children had a certain amount of insight and possessed promising potential in participating. However, misperceptions occur and inadequate knowledge disappoints children to participate at their full potential. Rights education is crucial, as it will assist our children to understand their rights more clearly in order to become future citizens that will have the ability to participate in democratic processes. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Early Childhood Education / MEd / Unrestricted

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