The primary purposes of this dissertation were understanding the nature of an attitudinal scale designed to measure the consumptive orientation of recreational anglers and filling a gap in the published literature regarding measurement using the scale. Consumptive orientation was defined as the attitude anglers hold towards catching fish, including catching something, retaining fish (as opposed to releasing), catching large fish (size), and catching large amounts of fish (numbers). In order to confirm these four attitudes are measured by the scale, a model was hypothesized and tested using a confirmatory factor analysis on a sample of male anglers in Texas. It was reasoned that a different subculture may interpret the attitudinal statements differently; thus, the structure of the scale was explored using women as a separate sample. Finally, an example of how the scale could be used was provided by examining differences between tournament and nontournament anglers?? attitudes towards the four constructs measured by the scale. Overall, results were varied with the hypothesized model used to confirm the scale. While results indicated dropping four of the sixteen statements would not result in a significant change in the structure of the scale, results also confirmed there were four distinct attitudes measured by the consumptive orientation scale. The use of the scale with the larger angling population was confirmed by finding the same structure using a sample of women anglers. Finally, the scale was shown to be useful for examining activity-specific differences in angling social worlds. Differences were detected between tournament and nontournament anglers on three of the four consumptive attitudes: ??catching numbers,?? ??catching large/trophy fish,?? and ??retaining fish.?? Differences found were related to the commitment level of tournament and nontournament anglers. Further analysis examined how avidity may have affected differences among angler groups. These differences further current knowledge about tournament anglers and their expectations for fishing experiences. Overall, results support the usefulness of the consumptive orientation scale as a survey tool for understanding recreational fishing clientele.

Growth in research on the psychology of religion is contributing to a greater understanding of the impact of religious variables on mental health. The purpose of the current project was to examine how religious orientation (RO), locus of control (LOC), and spiritual meaning (SM) relate to anxious symptoms (AS) and depressive symptoms (DS) in a college sample. Specifically, locus of control (LOC) and spiritual meaning (SM) were hypothesized to mediate the relations between RO and AS and DS. The sample analyzed consisted of 401 undergraduate students who were primarily Caucasian and Christian. Correlational analyses, mediated regression analyses, and moderated regression analyses were used to examine the hypotheses. Because gender differences are noted in the literature when examining the relations between RO and mental health variables and were also found in the present study, gender was controlled in all analyses. In the current study, females had lower levels of internal LOC (ILOC) and chance LOC (CLOC) and higher levels of God LOC (GLOC), AS, and SM than males. Many mediational hypotheses were supported. SM mediated the relations between intrinsic religiousness (IRO) and AS and between IRO and DS. SM partially mediated the relation between extrinsic religious orientation (ERO) and AS. ILOC was not found to mediate the relations between RO and AS or between RO and DS. Powerful others LOC (PO LOC) mediated the relation between IRO and AS. PO LOC partially mediated the relations between ERO and AS, between quest religiousness (QRO) and AS, between IRO and DS, and between QRO and DS. CLOC mediated the relations between IRO and AS, between ERO and AS, between QRO and AS, and between QRO and DS. CLOC partially mediated the relation between IRO and DS. GLOC partially mediated the relation between QRO and DS. Social desirability was examined as moderating the relations between RO and AS and between RO and DS. Social desirability was found to moderate the relation between ERO and DS. In sum, LOC and SM were found to mediate relations between RO and AS and DS. Social desirability moderated the relation between ERO and DS.

Abstract Experienced the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the economic recession in Europe and the United States, the international banking industry generally believe that personal credit is more able to withstand the test of the economic cycle than company credit. Mean while, as the interest rate differentials continued to reduce, the company loan business is no longer contributed good profit, the commercial banks are forced to develop a variety of both the interest rate differentials and non-interest rate differentials business in the personal financial services in order to increase the diversification of the income. In today's M-based society trend, the growth of personal wealth and financial needs of individual customers have brought sustainable development for the commercial banks by providing a stable market and earnings, in addition to the widely use of the network of information technology, as well as the merger of the financial industry, have expanded the personal financial services space, and enhanced the personal financial services revenue comparison. It can be said that personal financial business is very important for the domestic banks. In consolidating the foundation of the traditional business, the domestic commercial banks start to focus on the new service areas, new service varieties, new benefit growth related service (such as personal financial management, personal consumer loans, housing loans, fund agent and so on) as the development priorities. At the same time, generally increase the personal finance center, finance department stores, financial services center as the main focus to meet medium high end customer demand in the operation layout. Since the government opened 16 new banks in 1991, the financial markets become over competitive, resulting in too many banks fight for the same market. Along with the ever-changing international economic situation, the domestic economy is suffered a long-term downturn, the industry's operating environment is getting worse everyday. Under these circumstances, how to build up good customer relationship and differentiate from the competitors are the immediate tasks for the domestic banks. Customer Relationship Management is the art of modern management science and advance information technology, is the business to re-establish a ¡§customer-centric¡¨ development strategy, and base on this, develops all business processes including judgments¡Bchoice¡Bcompetition¡Bdevelopment and maintaining customers. From the beginning of the establishment of customer database, including records of contact interaction¡Bthe customer basic information for further analysis with the use of analytical tools, in view of ¡§sections¡¨ contribution factors to distinguish customer base, the use of different services and products to meet the needs and establish long-term good relations. By providing tailored services under the premise that privacy is not infringed, finally measure with the relevant indicators to see if it achieves the effective customer management objectives. Customer relationship management of commercial banks as a new management model, is an advanced concept of development strategy and operational performance, but also a new kind of business model and management practice; also directly reflected in the means of modern information technology, including business operations¡Bcustomer information and data analysis as the main contents of the software and hardware systems, it is an unified technology platform and information service system for the bank to operate activities with the customers in full contact¡Bfull-service under the highly digitization, information technology, electronics and automation conditions. This research plans to utilize customer demand end and the bank execution end, through a variety of different asset size customers and different types of banks, to do in-depth interviews to understand customer expectations for the serviced-bank and the banks direction & correctness in customer relationship management. Interviewees including the industry (5), science (1), consumers (9), each with in-depth interviews to collect data analysis.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Psychology, Committee on Human Development, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Syracuse University, 1990. / Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 278-290).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Columbia International University, 2001. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 113-118).

Sexual orientation, especially between males, has historically been met with harsh criminal sanctions. Only in this century has the issue been one of fundamental freedom and private choices. This study analyses the legal history of the concept of choice in sexual orientation in the European Commission of Human Rights (the Commission) and the European Court of Human Right (the Court), and documents the evolution of sexual orientation rights from the 1950s until today specifically focusing on why the human rights protection has changed. Until 1975 the Commission did not consider absolute criminalisation contrary to the right to respect for privacy or as discrimination, but this approach started to change in 1975. A stricter test of what is considered necessary in a democratic society led to the Dudgeon judgement in 1980 where absolute criminalisation of homosexuality was found to be contrary to the right to respect for privacy in the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention). This judgement has largely been responsible for decriminalisation throughout the Council of Europe member-States. This decriminalisation was limited to private, adult acts that were consensual and this was the norm until 1997. In that year, unequal ages of consent also was found to be contrary to the Convention. The study showed that this evolution was facilitated mainly by a European consensus, based on the legislation of the member-States and expert knowledge. The European consensus doctrine has proven to be a very complex concept, and this study argues that a regional approach to the consensus enquiry is a better solution than the present doctrine, and solves some of the problems it has proven to cause.

Orientation – the process by which animals determine their position in an environment – can be accomplished by using the visually distinct properties of objects or surfaces, known as features (i.e., colour or pattern) or the relationship among objects and surfaces, known as geometry (i.e., wall length or angular information). Although features have been shown to facilitate the encoding of geometry, little is known as to whether restricting one’s viewpoint to include fewer features will still facilitate the encoding of geometry. During this experiment, men and women were trained to search near either an acute or an obtuse corner of a virtual parallelogram-shaped room that contained either three or four discrete and distinctive features. Participants were subsequently tested for their encoding of wall length and angles when the cues were presented in isolation, together, or in conflict. Results showed that the number of features present during training did not influence the encoding of geometry. However, the discrete and distinctive properties of the features overshadowed the encoding of angles by women as well as by participants who were trained with the obtuse corner. Although some groups of participants did not encode angular information when this was the only available geometric cue, all groups weighed angles more heavily than wall length when the cues provided conflicting information. This result suggests that one type of geometric cue (i.e., wall length) can facilitate the encoding of another (i.e., angles).

Orientation – the process by which animals determine their position in an environment – can be accomplished by using the visually distinct properties of objects or surfaces, known as features (i.e., colour or pattern) or the relationship among objects and surfaces, known as geometry (i.e., wall length or angular information). Although features have been shown to facilitate the encoding of geometry, little is known as to whether restricting one’s viewpoint to include fewer features will still facilitate the encoding of geometry. During this experiment, men and women were trained to search near either an acute or an obtuse corner of a virtual parallelogram-shaped room that contained either three or four discrete and distinctive features. Participants were subsequently tested for their encoding of wall length and angles when the cues were presented in isolation, together, or in conflict. Results showed that the number of features present during training did not influence the encoding of geometry. However, the discrete and distinctive properties of the features overshadowed the encoding of angles by women as well as by participants who were trained with the obtuse corner. Although some groups of participants did not encode angular information when this was the only available geometric cue, all groups weighed angles more heavily than wall length when the cues provided conflicting information. This result suggests that one type of geometric cue (i.e., wall length) can facilitate the encoding of another (i.e., angles).

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