According to the Office of Educational Research and Improvement: A Project of the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research, graduation rates for Native Americans from both secondary and post secondary institutions are dismally low at 58% and 7%, respectively. Some research addresses cognitive preference and other ethnic identity, but research animating the cognitive preference---ethnic identity interplay for high school students is absent. These limitations in access to educational opportunities lead to abbreviated quality life experiences and a restriction in individual efficacy and collective agency. The following project assessed ethnic identity using Phinney's Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure and cognitive preference using Kolb's Learning Styles Inventory version 3.1. The research used both the aforementioned metrics to analyze cognitive preference and ethnic identity for 73 high school participants through the use of both categorical and continuous variables. Analytical procedures utilized descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis, bivariate correlation, and analysis of variance. This research confirmed that Anglos and Native Americans have statistically different cognitive preferences, and those preferences were correlated with their ethnic identity. It is recommended that education better meet the needs of the Native American student by emancipating them from an educational system founded and perpetuated on an orientation to the majority's cognitive preference by including multiple information acquisition and processing modalities. Including a range of cognitive preference pedagogies in the classroom will lead to a more equitable educational landscape where the Native American student has the opportunity to be a more successful student.

Alcohol-related partner aggression is a pervasive social problem throughout various life stages, including the transition to parenthood. Previous research shows that alcohol use is associated with partner aggression perpetration for both men and women; however, not all individuals who consume alcohol act aggressively. In this study, the moderating effects of general social support and partner-specific support on the association between alcohol use and both physical and psychological partner aggression were investigated using a community sample of 98 pregnant couples. For men, high levels of general social support increased alcohol-related physical and psychological aggression whereas partner-specific emotional support served as a buffer for physical aggression. For women, general social support was not a significant moderator, but high levels of partner-specific instrumental support increased alcohol-related physical aggression. These results can be applied to prevention and treatment programs for alcohol-related partner aggression.

This study investigated the subjectively constructed narratives of how veterans’ retrospective experiences of trying to balance career and parental roles. Narrative-oriented inquiry (NOI), which has not been used as a framework in previous research within the area of work-family balance in general and within research involving military families more specifically, was the primary orienting methodology in the current study. Five veterans, all male and who currently reside in the area of Victoria BC, participated in the process of co-constructing their individual 1st-person narratives with the primary researcher. The six stages of Arvay’s (2002) Collaborative Narrative Method were used as the guiding framework for the creation of these narratives. Implications that came out of these narratives in regards to future research and counselling practice are also discussed.

Der Forschungsbericht vermittelt einen Einblick in die vielfältige, leistungsfähige Forschungslandschaft am Institut für Arbeits-, Organisations- und Sozialpsychologie.

Die vorliegende Dissertation untersucht am Beispiel von Online-Rollenspielen, wie sich prosoziales Verhalten in virtuellen Umgebungen im Vergleich zu dem in realen Umgebungen unterscheidet. Ausgangspunkt für die Untersuchungen sind die Modelle zum und Einflussgrößen auf das prosoziale Verhalten, die als Ergebnisse der einschlägigen Forschung realer Hilfesituationen vorliegen. Unter Berücksichtigung der Charakteristika und Besonderheiten von Online-Rollenspielen werden verschiedene Variablen wie Attraktivität des Hilfeempfängers, Ähnlichkeit zwischen Helfer und Hilfeempfänger, die Schwere der Notsituation und Gruppenzugehörigkeit auf ihre Auswirkung auf das prosoziale Verhalten in virtuellen Szenarien getestet. Um ein maximales Maß an externer Validität zu gewährleisten, kommt dabei die Methode der In-situ-Untersuchung zum Einsatz, bei der das Verhalten der Probanden in natürlichen Spielsituationen erfasst wird. Die Ergebnisse zeigen bei weiblichen Avataren einen signifikanten Einfluss der Attraktivität bei männlichen Helfern, wohingegen es bei fehlender Verfügbarkeit von Attraktivitätsmerkmalen keine Geschlechtsunterschiede gibt. Kein Einfluss auf prosoziales Verhalten kann bei den Variablen Schwere der Notsituation und perzeptueller Ähnlichkeit nachgewiesen werden. Darüber hinaus wird mittels einer Fragebogenstudie der Einfluss dispositionaler Merkmale, die unter dem Begriff prosoziale Persönlichkeit zusammengefasst werden, auf prosoziales Verhalten untersucht. Dabei zeigt sich, dass die positiven Prädiktoren empathic concern, other-oriented moral reasoning und der negative Prädiktor personal distress einen signifikanten Einfluss auf das Auftreten prosozialen Verhaltens in realen und in virtuellen Szenarien haben. Allerdings unterscheidet sich die Höhe des Einflusses dieser Variablen in Abhängigkeit der Zielpersonen des prosozialen Verhaltens (Ingroup vs. Outgroup) sowie des Umgebung (real vs. virtuell).