Abstract not available.

Des recherches récentes ont démontré que des stéréotypes négatifs relatifs aux habiletés des membres de certains groupes dans des domaines précis peuvent interférer avec leur performance par induction d'un sentiment de menace (voir Steele, 1997). Cette thèse a pour but de démontrer que le stéréotype concernant les habiletés des femmes en mathématiques interfère avec leur performance. De plus, cette thèse vise à verifier si l'infirmation de ce stéréotype peut être responsable d'une contre-performance des hommes. Un total de 132 participants ont été assignés soit à une condition neutre, de confirmation ou d'infirmation du stéréotype et ont été soumis à une tâche de vérification d'opérations arithmétiques. Les résultats démontrent qu'en condition de confirmation du stéréotype, la performance des femmes est affectée négativement, alors que celle de hommes se détériore lorsque le stéréotype est infirme. La discussion porte sur les implications de ces résultats dans l'identification des mécanismes enjeu en situation de menace du stéréotype.

The present study was designed to examine relations among parent ratings of child-related disagreement frequency, parent ratings of verbal aggression and of positive problem-solving frequency and parent ratings of child adjustment. One hundred and twelve couples volunteered for the study in response to advertisements published in newspapers or in community organizations/agencies (e.g., daycare centres, community centres, pediatric offices, etc.). Mothers (n = 112) and fathers (n = 108) with an eldest child who was a toddler or preschool-aged child independently responded to questionnaires. Their ratings of child behaviour problems and their ratings of satisfaction with the couple relationship were similar to those found in previous research with community samples. Compared to published data, couples in the present study reported a lower frequency of child-related disagreement and of verbal aggression strategies, and a higher frequency of positive problem-solving. Overall, they were a well-functioning sample of families with children who were perceived by parents as well-adjusted. Mothers reported more frequent use of verbal aggression strategies than did fathers. Mothers of boys reported more frequent child-related disagreement and more frequent use of verbal aggression than did mothers of girls. Fathers perceived more externalizing problems among boys than among girls. Parent ratings of child-related disagreement were related to their ratings of child adjustment. Although parent ratings of conflict resolution strategies were less consistently associated with child behaviour problems, when examined in interaction with parent ratings of child-related disagreement, verbal aggression strategies moderated the relation between child-related disagreement and child adjustment among fathers of boys. Parent ratings of conflict resolution strategies did not mediate the relation. The findings of the present study emphasize the importance of examining relations separately for boys and girls as well as for mothers and fathers and indicate that patterns of relations found among families characterized by high disagreement, high intensity conflict may not generalize to samples of well-functioning, low disagreement families.

Language has been seen as a central pillar to ethnic identity. When languages are at risk, therefore, the relationship between language and ethnic identity can become particularly salient (Edwards, 1991). Heritage languages, in particular, often face what has been called a language shift, where the heritage language is replaced by the dominant language. When the heritage language is threatened, what happens to the heritage identity? In an attempt to answer this question, this study investigated the relationship between language and ethnic identity among 75 Gaelic learners living in eastern Nova Scotia. In order to identify the specific processes of heritage language use, the Gaelic learners were compared to non-learners of Gaelic and French learners living in the same milieu. Path analyses indicated that, among Gaelic learners, there is an initial separation of language and ethnic identity, but that, over time, ethnic identity is a direct outcome of language use. This finding was unique to the heritage language learners. Further, desired language vitality was a direct precursor to contact, language confidence, Gaelic and Anglophone identity and willingness to communicate among Gaelic learners. Actual language vitality played no role in the language use process among Gaelic learners, suggesting that vitality perceptions that are egocentric are better predictors of language use than those that are exocentric. The implications of these findings are discussed not only in relation to the future of Gaelic in Nova Scotia, but also to the survival of heritage languages in general.

This study was designed to investigate aspects of the coparenting relationship between employed mothers and fathers within the same family. Similarities and dissimilarities in parenting goals between married or cohabiting couples with toddler or preschool-aged children were the main focus. One hundred thirty couples were recruited via advertisements posted in community agencies and also through published advertisements in parent-oriented magazines. Parents who each worked (or attended school) twenty-five hours per week or more and who had an eldest child between 24 and 60 months of age participated independently in an interview about their parenting goals and also responded to questionnaires about family well-being. Overall, the participants were a well-adjusted sample of parents, representing the demographics of the Canadian city from which the majority of the sample was taken. A contextually-based vignette-style interview of parenting goals revealed moderate agreement between parents within the same family on parenting goals. Mothers and fathers reported parenting goals that were flexible and based on the behaviour displayed by the child. In particular, in responding to children's internalizing behaviour, parents attached greater importance to child-centred and relationship-centred goals than to parent-centred goals. In response to vignettes depicting externalizing child behaviour, parents endorsed greater importance for parent-centred goals than for either child-centred or relationship-centred goals. Similarity in parenting goals was higher for parents of toddlers than for parents of preschool-age children. Also, the greater the similarity in parenting goals between mothers and fathers the more satisfied mothers were with their parenting and their life in general. For fathers, greater similarity in parenting goals was related to greater satisfaction with their parenting only. Interestingly, although the degree of similarity in parenting goals was not related to marital satisfaction, the relation between similarity in parenting goals and mothers' ratings of marital satisfaction was different depending on the support for parenting mothers received from their partners. The findings of the present study emphasize that not all differences between parents on child-related issues are harmful to family well-being and that it is important to consider both mothers' and fathers' perspectives within the area of coparenting. Clinical and research implications are discussed.

The present study was designed to examine the links between father-daughter attachment, paternal acceptance and rejection, emotional availability (EA), adolescents' affective perception of parents, and the quality of father-daughter communication in adolescents with and without depression, taking into consideration paternal general psychopathology and maternal mood disorder. Fifty-one adolescent girls diagnosed with a depressive disorder (CDA) and 65 never-depressed girls (NDA), ages 13 to 19, and their fathers, completed semi-structured diagnostic interviews and measures of parent-adolescent attachment and communication. Mothers completed a diagnostic interview for mood disorders. In the first manuscript, we found that girls in the CDA group were more likely than those in the NDA group to have fathers with psychopathology and mothers with mood disorders. Girls in the CDA group reported more negative attachment with fathers, less perceived warmth, more overall rejection, more negative affect about their fathers, lower EA, and more negative communication than did girls in the NDA group. After controlling for marital status, depressed adolescents' scores of perceived maternal EA and negative affect towards mothers were comparable across the two groups. Fathers from the CDA and NDA groups did not differ in their ratings of warmth and rejection, but did report more negative communication with their adolescents compared to fathers of girls in the NDA group. Adolescents with depressed mothers reported more negative relationships with their fathers than adolescents with nondepressed mothers, indicating an important relationship between maternal depression and the father-adolescent relationship. In manuscript 2, investigation of the combined sample of depressed and nondepressed adolescents revealed that girls' perceptions of paternal EA and undifferentiated rejection predicted girls' depressive symptomatology above and beyond the presence of paternal psychopathology and maternal mood disorder. By adopting a multirater design, including extensive data on fathers and data on mothers, including clinical and nonclinical samples within one study, accounting for Axis I disorders together with depressive symptomatology, and including a balance of intact and single-parent families, this study addressed some of the gaps in the previous research. The findings of this thesis support taking an interpersonal and familial approach to treating depression in adolescents, addressing adolescents' perceptions of their relationships with both fathers and mothers.

Abstract not available.

Recent research suggests that people vary in the extent to which their self-regulation of prejudice is self-determined. Furthermore, differences in self-determined prejudice regulation have been shown to predict levels of self-reported prejudice, such that self-determined prejudice regulators display less prejudice than nonself-determined prejudice regulators. Despite this initial evidence, however, the automatic social-cognitive processes involved in the association between motivation to regulate prejudice and prejudice have not yet been examined. Thus, a deeper understanding of the reasons why self-determined prejudice regulation is more effective than nonself-determined prejudice regulation is necessary. To this end, the objective of the present set of studies was twofold. Firstly, differences in the automatization of prejudice regulation among those high and low in self-determined motivation to be nonprejudiced were investigated using two different experimental paradigms (Studies 1, 2, & 3). Secondly, the framework of motivation to be nonprejudiced was expanded by examining the interplay of motivation to regulate prejudice and perceived intergroup threat . In other words, the role of perceived intergroup threat in predicting prejudice was assessed among self-determined and nonself-determined prejudice regulators (Studies 4 & 5). Study 1 (N=62), assessed the basic association between motivation to regulate prejudice and prejudice. In line with hypotheses, self-determined prejudice regulators demonstrated less prejudice than nonself-determined prejudice regulators on both explicit and implicit measures of prejudice. In order to determine whether self-determined prejudice regulation yields less prejudice than nonself-determined prejudice regulation due to automatized self-regulatory processing, the role of motivation to regulate prejudice in the automatic activation and application of stereotypes was examined in Study 2 (N=84). Results revealed that, although both self-determined and nonself-determined prejudice regulators displayed similar levels of stereotype activation, only self-determined prejudice regulators were able to automatically inhibit the application of stereotypes when evaluating a target. To further examine the hypothesis that self-determined prejudice regulation operates implicitly in inhibiting prejudice, Study 3 (N=135) experimentally assessed the extent to which the different forms of prejudice regulation were affected by self-regulatory depletion. As anticipated, for the self-determined regulators, prejudice regulation did not vary between depleted and non-depleted individuals. However, when nonself-determined prejudice regulators were depleted, prejudice increased, relative to non-depleted controls. It was concluded that the lower levels of prejudice among highly self-determined prejudice regulators is not merely the result of an absence of automatic racial bias, but rather the presence of a superior, automatic prejudice regulating mechanism. In studies 4 and 5, it was hypothesized that nonself-determined motivation to control prejudice would exacerbate the effect of perceived intergroup threat on prejudice. Conversely, self-determined motivation to regulate prejudice was expected to reduce the impact of intergroup threat on prejudice. Study 4 ( N=122) provided experimental support for this hypothesis by manipulating realistic and symbolic intergroup threat and measuring their impact on various outgroup attitudes. Study 5 (N=255) generalized these findings in a cross-sectional model. Results of both studies supported the hypothesized interaction between motivation and intergroup threat in predicting prejudice. Overall, the present thesis offers promising evidence for the role of self-determined motivation to be nonprejudiced in minimizing prejudice, stereotyping, and the effects of intergroup threat. More fundamentally, results present new insight into the automatization of self-determination, offering promising implications for the reduction of prejudice.

This dissertation studies the generic construct of critical consciousness, defined as the kind of awareness characterized by the independent and interdependent investigation of truth and meaning, both internally and in one's social environment, which allows an individual to disembed from it, engage in a critical moral dialogue with it, and become a moral and caring agent for positive change in his/her social world. The study subjects the broad phenomenon of CC to a rigorous empirical and developmental exegesis through descriptive accounts of the levels of its evolution in the life-span of interview subjects and secondary life histories from different cultural and historic contexts. It brings together Neo-Piagetian and Vygotskian understanding into an integrated model of the ontogeny of CC as an alterative, optimal developmental pathway of the evolving of adult social consciousness on the boundary of public and private. This study has established three levels in the CC pathway: Pre-CC, Conventional CC, and Postconventional CC. Each level is described in terms of a different range of tasks, concerns, and capabilities in their cross-cultural and socio-contextual variation. Converging theoretical and empirical evidence supports the empirical claim that the centrality of authentic moral concerns in the formation of consciousness is independent of the level of operant structural development, although the moral motivational dimensions are continuously elaborated throughout development. Hence, the ontogeny of CC is described as the synergistic outcome of the on-going interplay between moral motivation and the composite structural development of consciousness. The composite structural developmental component includes social-cognitive and ego development. Moral motivation is analyzed in terms of the interaction of four dimensions in the formation of personhood. They are: (1) the formation of a moral sense of identity and moral imperative; (2) the negotiation of external moral authority progressively internalized as moral responsibility and agency; (3) the formation of empathic and permeable relationships, and concerns with justice and not hurting, which grow into social consciousness; (4) the search for greater meaning in life than the individual self, which serves as a vantage point for self-reflection and critical examination of reality.

An individual's social identity development in pluralistic societies going through an integration process has been little understood. A study was conducted on the Lebanese individual's social identity development. Based on a study of the theories of the psychology of social identity development, four Lebanese Identity development stages were proposed where an individual's social identity progresses from an unintegrated Lebanese, sectarian group identity, towards a more integrated Lebanese Identity. To test the validity of these stages, two research studies, a qualitative and a quantitative study, were conducted to explore the Lebanese social identity. In the qualitative study, open ended interviews of a number of Lebanese community leaders were conducted and analyzed. While the four proposed identity stages were reflected in the subjects' views, the majority of their views reflected a higher stage of identity development where the emphasis was on a civic society and the satisfaction of the individual's rights and needs as a basis of the integrated Lebanese social identity. These results were in agreement with the proposed Lebanese Identity development stages. Moreover, a quantitative research study examined the relationship between an individual's various socio-economic factors and their level of identity development. The results revealed that there is a strong relationship between an individual's level of identity development and the following socio-economic variables: Sectarian identity, profession, level of education, source of data collection, and nature of dual Lebanese nationality. In general, it was concluded that individuals had higher levels of Lebanese Identity development when they enjoyed a more secure life, had higher levels of communication and exposure to others in society as well as higher levels of education.