M.Com. (Industrial Psychology) / Traditional experimental psychology and cognitive science have regarded the mind as an abstract information processor that places little importance on the connections to the surrounding environment (Bilda, Candy, & Edmonds, 2007). Contemporary research into the functioning of the mind, however, has discovered the essential role that the body plays in constructing perceptual and mental processes. This is known as embodied cognition, which holds that cognitive processes and even intelligence are deeply embedded in the body’s interactions with the environment, as a result of sensory motor activity (Barsalou, 2008; Jostmann, Lakens, & Schubert, 2009; Smith & Gasser, 2005; Wilson, 2002). As such, even haptic sensations such as touch could have an effect on the way individuals perceive and process information. Touch may even have an effect on the way people judge themselves (Ackerman, Nocera, & Bargh, 2010). This is the focus of the current study. The work of Ackerman and et al. (2010) is a recent and seminal study that also provides the guidance for this particular study, which aims to determine whether haptic sensations (in particular the touch sensation of the physical questionnaire) have an effect on the self-judgements of individuals completing a personality questionnaire. In this chapter the following will be considered: the background and rationale for the study; a problem statement presented in the form of a research question; research objectives; and an overview of the metatheory that forms the basis of the study. The latter will also be linked to the rationale of this study.

Affirming or positive family communication is important to equip families and individuals to meet life challenges. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between affirming family communication and family functioning, as well as the relationship between family functioning and the quality of communication between the adolescent and the father and mother respectively. Following this, affirming family communication was explored qualitatively from the perspective of the adolescent. A cross-sectional, quantitative survey research design was combined with an exploratory, qualitative design. The quantitative data was collected by asking participants to complete self-report questionnaires. The qualitative component consisted of focus groups discussing the topic of affirming family communication. One hundred first-year Psychology students of Stellenbosch University in South Africa completed the questionnaires. Fourteen of these students also participated in the focus groups. The quantitative results revealed a significant positive correlation between affirming family communication and family functioning. Furthermore, a significant positive correlation was found between family functioning and openness in communication between the adolescent and the mother and father respectively. Three core categories (with sub- categories) emerged from the content analysis of the focus group discussions. These core categories were verbal affirming communication, non-verbal affirming communication and functional affirming communication. The findings of this study highlight the importance of affirming family communication, especially in families with adolescent children, while also providing a description of affirming family communication from the adolescent’s perspective.

Single-mother families represent a large and growing segment of the population and are the poorest of all family types. There is a demonstrated link between educational attainment and employment and income, yet single mothers are also, as a group, the lowest-educated of all family heads. Little published research exists on the needs and issues of single-mother students. The purpose of this descriptive and exploratory study was to discover and categorize the types of incidents that facilitate and hinder single mother students in their progress through a two-year college program. Ten single-mother students were interviewed using the critical incidents technique. Two-hundred-and-fifty two incidents were identified and categorized into three major and nine minor categories. The first major category was Intrapersonal, containing two minor categories, Coping Strategies and Academic Issues. Interpersonal, the next major category, subsumed five minor categories: Instructors; Children; Friends and Family Members; Other Students and Ex-Husbands. The third major category, Situational, contained two minor categories, College Administration and Policies and Government Services and Programs. Tentative implications for future research, counselling practice and social policy are discussed. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

M.A. (Practical Theology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.A. (Psychology) / Research shows that infidelity has been and continues to be one of the major causes of divorce. Current literature on infidelity appears to focus on the effects infidelity has on one‟s health and has alluded to a woman‟s experience of her „self‟ as being intertwined in her relationship. The primary aim of the research was to explore the ideas, feelings, and attitudes a wife has about her identity, worth, capabilities, and limitations following her husband‟s sexual infidelity. A qualitative approach was adopted to explore the experience and the meanings which participants attribute to their circumstances. Participants were interviewed using a series of semi-structured questions and were afforded the opportunity to openly share their experience, thoughts, and feelings. Participant interviews were transcribed and analyzed using an interpretative phenomenological analysis. Despite both participants experiencing infidelity in their marriage and revealing accounts of the experience which proved to be quite different, the researcher identified three master themes across both participants‟ experiences. These themes are encapsulated as follows: (a) Laying of the self aside for the betterment of others; (b) Spirituality; and (c) Health. The researcher has highlighted overarching themes which concluded that the effect infidelity had on each participant‟s self appear to be comparable.

This thesis focuses on the development of an operational and theoretically eclectic concept of psychological well-being. A comprehensive research strategy was employed to examine various personality factors thought to be components of psychological health (i.e., the basis of the proposed concept). The general approach involved four major phases: (1) the clustering of various variables and identification of underlying key factors purported to be related to psychological health based on the writer's clinical experience and review of the mental health literature, (2) the formulation of an ~ priori concept of psychological well-being based on the operational definition of those factors, (3) the construction of an inventory designed to examine the proposed concept, and (4) the interpretation of the results and their implications for the development of the overall concept based on the examination of the factorial structure, validity and reliability of the inventory. The"a posteriori concept" evolved out of this process. The results of the present study indicate that the most valid and reliable factorial components of psychological well-being are self regard,interpersonal relationship, independence, problem-solving, assertiveness,reality testing, stress tolerance, self-actualization and happiness; social responsibility and flexibility emerged as questionable components of the a posteriori concept. The inventory which was designed to study the concept was successful in significantly differentiating various levels of psychological health. This way of conceptualizing and assessing psychological well-being has potential applicability for mental health practitioners and researchers.

The principal claim of this thesis is that the mystical experience is a wide-ranging influence upon literature. It is a recurrent thematic concern of poets, novelists and playwrights; but even when mysticism is not an overt element in a text, analysis of its symbols can reveal references to emotions and experiences of a mystical character - as is frequently the case with fantasy. In a more essential way, certain widely-used techniques of poetry effectively reproduce the character of mystical events for the reader. Some theory does indeed imply that the mystical bearing is quite fundamental, at a certain level, to all creative literature. This thesis explores the link between mysticism and literature through widely differing examples, to show how it continues to be found in otherwise divergent texts and contexts. Indeed, no attempt is made to provide an exhaustive overview; rather, certain special areas of interest are represented by selected cases. Mystical elements in Modernism, for example (especially in T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf), are contrasted with Romantic attitudes to mysticism, which Wordsworth and Coleridge are taken to represent. A further goal is to analyse the character of literary mysticism, and to account for the connection between mysticism and literary practice. The view is adopted that the circumstances in which the infant first acquires language is of crucial importance in this regard, and that literary language often draws upon submerged recollections of these early circumstances. Literature, it is argued, can employ signs and patterns of symbolisation in ways that actually attempt to 'undo' many of the everyday functions of words. The ultimate ideal of such literary techniques is to 'reverse' the process by which language was acquired and to 'return' the reader to a state resembling pre-linguistic experience, a goal which has much in common with the ambitions of mystics. Jacques Lacan's theoretical writings touch at many points upon the early development of the child and the significance of its acquisition of language. This thesis consequently has recourse to Lacan's work and, where relevant, to related psychoanalytic writings by Sigmund Freud and Julia Kristeva. After an investigation of the main characteristics of mystical experience as such, the Introduction broadly outlines Lacan's theoretical position. Chapter 1 is concerned more specifically with Lacan's discussions of mysticism. Part Two (Chapters 2-4) deals principally with the links between mystical yearnings and the Romantic ideal of the 'sublime'. In Part Three (Chapters 5-7) the relation between mysticism and Modernist developments affecting both theme and artistic technique is examined in works by three writers: T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and Fernando Pessoa. Part Four discusses particular literary presentations of 'evil' and of 'good' as embodiments of mystical perceptions. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century 'supernatural' fiction is selected to represent the first case, and certain New Testament and early Christian texts the second.

Please read the abstract in the section 00front of this document / Thesis (DPhil (Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Psychology / unrestricted

Against the background of the broad-ranging and significant educational changes introduced in South Africa since 1994, school teachers are challenged to cope with and adapt to difficult working conditions, job stress and large classes. As a result, teaching is now experienced as a more demanding and challenging profession. However, education takes place within the context of a particular community. The role of the environment, as context for education, is therefore also important. As such, a deprived environment can exacerbate the challenges experienced in teaching by teachers. Such an environment is often characterised by high poverty levels, undesirable living conditions, escalating social and health problems, malnutrition, unemployment, parental illiteracy, parental absence or uninvolvement, child abuse, sexual harassment, teenage pregnancies, corruption, crime, conflict, violence, and high TB and HIV infection rates. In schools in a deprived environment, lack of resources and learning materials, overcrowded classes, children dropping out of school, an unattractive, an unsafe physical environment, a lack of electricity, as well as broken windows and leaking roofs, are often the order of the day. These factors increase the burden on the teachers who work in such an unsupportive context. How well teachers cope amidst the broad-ranging transformational changes introduced in post-Apartheid South African education, while teaching in a deprived environment, depends to a large extent on their emotional stability, personal skills and cognitive functioning. Their emotional strengths should enable them to be aware of their own emotions, and the emotions of their learners, as well as to guide those emotions appropriately and form healthy relationships. It should further enable teachers to make provision for the effective learning, development and well-being of the learners in their classrooms. Against this background, the aim of this study was to investigate the following research questions: Primary research question: What are the characteristics of emotional intelligence that teacher is working in a deprived environment display? Secondary research questions: • What is the relationship between the characteristics that the teachers display and the components of emotional intelligence? • What are the implications of the research findings for teacher education? • What guidelines can be provided from the research findings to teachers working in a deprived environment, to further promote their effective teaching? The focus of the study was on the two primary schools and one secondary school located in the Walmer Gqebera Township in Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa, which are in close proximity to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, being the University’s neighbouring township. Constructivism and interpretivism formed the philosophical foundation of the study, while critical theory and pragmatism also applied.

Globalisation has led to an increasing growth of world trade which has directed business all over the world to become increasingly international and increased the number and power of multinational companies. These expatriates are confronted with societal norms different from their home cultures. This study investigated which factors influence cross-cultural adjustment the most and which factors are perceived by the expatriates to influence cross-cultural adjustment. Based on the literature review four different categories of factors influencing cross-cultural adjustment were identified (Individual, organisational, work-related and non-work related factors) A self-administered online questionnaire, based on existing questionnaires (Black’s (1988) cross-cultural adjustment questionnaire) and literature research, was developed in order to detect a relationship between factors and one of the three adjustment types (general, interaction and work) and to reveal the perceived importance of the factors. In this study all identified factors were perceived to be important for cross-cultural adjustment. However, language skills and spousal adjustment were perceived to be the most important factors and had indeed the strongest correlation towards cross-cultural adjustment. Based on the findings of this research project, recommendations for organisations and expatriates have been provided.