Magister Artium (Child and Family Studies) - MA(CFS) / In South Africa when learners are in Grade 11 near the end of their school life, the new, but also difficult, transition into adult life now begins. This critical period of development brings forth an array of new challenges: exercising free will, being independent, an increased focus of self, and the decision on what path is to be taken after school. With these challenges comes the act of motivation to acquire the particular goals and aspirations of Grade 11 learners. The question posed was therefore what exactly motivates the South African Grade 11 learner, and why are they motivated to set and aspire to certain goals? The study investigated the basic psychological needs of Grade 11 learners at secondary schools in the Western Cape, along with its relation to the identification of the goals and aspirations of these learners. The study was quantitative in nature. Grade 11 learners currently enrolled for the 2012 academic year, attending secondary schools in the Metro North Western Cape Education District, were invited to participate in the study. This study investigated the influence of basic psychological needs on goals and aspiration pursuits. The sample consisted of 264 Grade 11 learners and data was collected through the administration of a questionnaire compiled through the combination of two scales: The Aspiration Index, and the Basic Measure of Psychological Needs Scale. The data was analyzed through regression analysis. The results of the study suggest that the satisfaction of needs was found to be a significant predictor of both intrinsic as well as extrinsic goal pursuits. The findings further provide an understanding of how basic psychological needs influence the identification of goals and aspirations of Grade 11 Learners. Recommendations are provided for further research in the field of adolescent basic psychological needs and its influences on the identification of goals and aspirations.

The importance of psychological needs for optimal mental and physical well-being has been well documented within the literature. However, there remains little consensus on the definition of basic psychological needs, on which needs are most important or fundamental, and on how to best assess basic needs in individuals. The purpose of this dissertation was to develop and validate a comprehensive measure of fundamental psychological needs and to examine its predictive utility for both mental and physical health. To fulfil these objectives, measure construction and validation studies were conducted in 2 separate undergraduate student samples (N = 226; N = 283). Participants completed online self-report measures of emotional and psychological symptoms, negative life events, personality characteristics, and psychological needs. Factor Analyses of the Psychological Needs Questionnaire (PNQ) revealed that needs can be classified in a three-level multi-factorial confirmatory model and that self-worth and relationship types of psychological needs can be further divided into several, second-level factors. Results also indicated that the PNQ is reliable and possesses good construct validity as well as predictive utility for numerous psychological and physical problems. In addition, psychological needs moderated the relationship between depressive personality characteristics and mood. Future studies should examine the proposed needs-based model in a longitudinal fashion, both in community and clinical samples. In addition to functioning as a global introduction and providing an overview of the relevant literature, Chapter 1 proposes a new model of psychological needs. Chapter 2 describes in further detail the importance of each need identified by the new model, with a particular emphasis on the consequences associated with having each need unfulfilled. Chapter 3, 4, and 5 represent three academic journal articles resulting from the data collected in the current project. Finally, chapter 6 provides a global discussion of the entire dissertation.

<p>This research examines the relationships between the satisfaction of psychological needs (belongingness and distinctiveness) on affective and cognitive attitudes (job satisfaction and commitment) with an emphasis on identifying key differential and moderating effects. This study hypothesizes the direct effects of need satisfaction and moderating effects of the source (individual & group) and domain (work & non-work) of need satisfaction. Hypotheses were tested with a cross-sectional survey of alumni from a regional college in the mid-Atlantic United States. Results indicated that satisfying the needs for belongingness and distinctiveness whether through source (individual vs. group) or by domain (work vs. non-work) have a positive impact on job attitudes. However, the results for the moderating and differential effects along with post-hoc analyses provides additional insights. Overall, this study found that the satisfaction of psychological needs have important direct effects on affective and cognitive job attitudes. Results indicated that the source of need satisfaction (individual and group) and the domain in which a need is satisfied do moderate the relationship between psychological need satisfaction and specific cognitive and affective job attitudes. In many circumstances, the moderating effect was not as expected. Additionally, the context of virtuality had a significant impact on only a few relationships. Post-hoc analyses showed that the relationship among the variables in this study are more complex than hypothesized and should be evaluated more fully. </p>

Student Number : 0301924V - MA dissertation - School of Psychology - Faculty of Humanities / In the field of mentoring the psychological needs of mentors have been given little attention in previous research. The aim of this study is to analyse mentors’ psychological needs within a corporate environment. The research approach is exploratory and was conducted within a qualitative framework. A sample of 5 mentors within the corporate environment was drawn and semi-structured interviews were used to collect the data. Thematic content analysis was applied to report and summarise the data and Covey’s (1989) four dimensions of human functioning (mental, social-emotional, physical and spiritual) was used to categorise mentor needs. The key findings of the study from a mental perspective indicate that mentors identified continuous and experiential learning as a method for continual mental growth. Further mentor training was recommended by the mentors to assist in addressing their mental needs and help them to improve their time-management skills. Mentors’ social-emotional needs focused around the need for a supportive social network from significant others to maintain a state of well-being. The ability to be understanding, to be good listeners and the ability to set appropriate boundaries within the mentoring relationship were identified by mentors as emotional skills (needs) that they would like to improve. From a physical needs perspective, all the mentors revealed an awareness of the need to stay healthy in various ways. Every mentor stated that he/she was affected by stress and that it manifested in different ways, however, the mentors were satisfied with the resources provided by their organisation for their health and well-being. From a spiritual perspective, mentors experienced satisfaction from assisting in others’ growth, suggesting a need for engaging with and learning from others.

The theme of this thesis is "The Perception of Safety in Nursing Practice". While most of literaure of focused on the psyhisal aspects of safety, this thesis is focused on the psychological ones. This thesis has two goals altogether. Its firt goal is to find out the possibilities of securing patient´s and nurse´s feeling of safety from nurse´s outlook. The second goal is to find out nurses´s perception of their own feeling of safety while at work. The research questions are 1) How do patients perceive their safety during nursing care? 2) What does patient´s safety mean to nurses? 3) How does the personnel perceive their own safety during nursing care? The theoretical part describes safety, needs, communicaton, trust and the possibilities of securing psyhical and psychological safety of patients and nurses alike. The practical part consists of nurses and patient interviews about safety and factors, that may influence it. The data were collected by semi-structured interviews with nurses and patients located in hospitals of south and west Bohemia. The research involved 20 respondents, 10 nurses and 10 patients, of deliberate choosing and by the form of snowball sampling. The data were collected since May through to July 2019 and the collection was concluded at the moment of theoretical saturation. The interviews covered themes like safety, communication, trust, quality of care, EBN, teamwork and what do nurses find lacking while ensuring safety of their patients and their own. The results show that each person perceives their safety differently and it is necessary to fit the care to patient´s specific needs. The respondents agree on the importance of proper communication, of trust between patient and nurse and between personnel alike, and of informedness. Most of the nurses also responded that they miss more time to spend with their patients to build mutual trust and to develop their feeling of safety. Usually the blame lies on their ward being understaffed. This thesis mapped out the perception of safety of nurses and patients including some of the shortcomings involved in the current nursing practice. It can serve as a reference material for studying.

The importance of psychological needs for optimal mental and physical well-being has been well documented within the literature. However, there remains little consensus on the definition of basic psychological needs, on which needs are most important or fundamental, and on how to best assess basic needs in individuals. The purpose of this dissertation was to develop and validate a comprehensive measure of fundamental psychological needs and to examine its predictive utility for both mental and physical health. To fulfil these objectives, measure construction and validation studies were conducted in 2 separate undergraduate student samples (N = 226; N = 283). Participants completed online self-report measures of emotional and psychological symptoms, negative life events, personality characteristics, and psychological needs. Factor Analyses of the Psychological Needs Questionnaire (PNQ) revealed that needs can be classified in a three-level multi-factorial confirmatory model and that self-worth and relationship types of psychological needs can be further divided into several, second-level factors. Results also indicated that the PNQ is reliable and possesses good construct validity as well as predictive utility for numerous psychological and physical problems. In addition, psychological needs moderated the relationship between depressive personality characteristics and mood. Future studies should examine the proposed needs-based model in a longitudinal fashion, both in community and clinical samples. In addition to functioning as a global introduction and providing an overview of the relevant literature, Chapter 1 proposes a new model of psychological needs. Chapter 2 describes in further detail the importance of each need identified by the new model, with a particular emphasis on the consequences associated with having each need unfulfilled. Chapter 3, 4, and 5 represent three academic journal articles resulting from the data collected in the current project. Finally, chapter 6 provides a global discussion of the entire dissertation.

Lack of motivation is a substantial productivity cost for organisations and business in generally work under the assumption that pay predicts performance. Satisfaction of the basic psychological needs has in research demonstrated a positive relationship with a better performance (i.e. Baard et al., 2004). If this is the case in the complex nature of sales work, with its primary focus on goals set (sales target) is yet to be decided. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between the basic psychological needs, health and sales performance. The results emanating from this study on 252 sales people goes against previous research on performance as no significant relationships were found between the basic psychological needs and sales performance. However the study provides a strong empirical confirmation of the proposition that the basic psychological needs play an important role for health. Overall the results suggest that goal-setting (i.e. sales target) has significant consequences in shaping salespeople's cognitive aspect of motivation, putting the basic psychological needs behind and may result in impaired health.

The policy of National Unity and Reconciliation in Rwanda has been the subject of much heated debate in recent years, prompted by the uncovering of repressive techniques of the current government. As the policy is designed to enhance the legitimacy of this government, the national rhetoric must be compared to its actions where reconciliation is concerned. Instead of promoting national unity and reconciliation, this thesis will show that the government actively obstructs Rwandan interpersonal reconciliation through the denial of acceptance and empowerment. The analysis is informed by the psychological needs-based model of reconciliation, bringing in aspects of psychological theory into a field largely dominated by law and political science.

The importance of psychological needs for optimal mental and physical well-being has been well documented within the literature. However, there remains little consensus on the definition of basic psychological needs, on which needs are most important or fundamental, and on how to best assess basic needs in individuals. The purpose of this dissertation was to develop and validate a comprehensive measure of fundamental psychological needs and to examine its predictive utility for both mental and physical health. To fulfil these objectives, measure construction and validation studies were conducted in 2 separate undergraduate student samples (N = 226; N = 283). Participants completed online self-report measures of emotional and psychological symptoms, negative life events, personality characteristics, and psychological needs. Factor Analyses of the Psychological Needs Questionnaire (PNQ) revealed that needs can be classified in a three-level multi-factorial confirmatory model and that self-worth and relationship types of psychological needs can be further divided into several, second-level factors. Results also indicated that the PNQ is reliable and possesses good construct validity as well as predictive utility for numerous psychological and physical problems. In addition, psychological needs moderated the relationship between depressive personality characteristics and mood. Future studies should examine the proposed needs-based model in a longitudinal fashion, both in community and clinical samples. In addition to functioning as a global introduction and providing an overview of the relevant literature, Chapter 1 proposes a new model of psychological needs. Chapter 2 describes in further detail the importance of each need identified by the new model, with a particular emphasis on the consequences associated with having each need unfulfilled. Chapter 3, 4, and 5 represent three academic journal articles resulting from the data collected in the current project. Finally, chapter 6 provides a global discussion of the entire dissertation.

Recently, the skill to play games has led to the professionalization of the activity in the form of “eSports” (electronic sports). Despite the popularity of eSports, little is known about its professional players from a psychological perspective. Given the importance of the coach-created environment in the athletes’ motivational processes, this study aimed to investigate the key psychological dimensions of the coach-created climate in 75 Brazilian professional players of League of Legends (LoL) considering the Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Achievement Goal Theory (AGT). Fourteen hypotheses were tested, of which seven were confirmed. The empowering climate was a predictor of basic psychological-needs satisfaction and indirectly influenced autonomous motivation. The need satisfaction had a significant impact on both autonomous motivation and on lack of motivation, which, in turn, explained 56% of the variance in well-being and the intention to keep playing eSports. The disempowering climate was a predictor of psychological-needs thwarting but had no significant impact on autonomous motivation or lack of motivation. The results obtained support SDT and AGT in the context of eSports and were similar to those conducted with athletes from traditional sports, indicating that the empower-ing-and-disempowering-coaching-climates conceptualization applies not only to traditional sports athletes but also to professional eSports players. / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior