Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Adolescence, a critical developmental period, requires a certain level of adjustment and may negatively impact youth psychosocial development. Unsurprisingly, adolescent substance use continues to be a major public global health concern. Additionally, some adolescents are immersed in various interpersonal relationships and exposed to various stressors daily, which may affect their psychological well-being and developmental trajectories. This research aimed to explore the experiences of interpersonal relationships, stress and coping, and determine substance use patterns, symptoms of two common mental disorders (depression and generalized anxiety) amongst adolescents who report using substances (legal and illegal) in low-income communities in South Africa by employing Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological theory and the person-process-context-time model as a theoretical lens.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which measures of ego strength, as conceived by Erikson (1963a) and operationalized by Markstrom, Sabino, Turner and Berman (1997), contribute to the prediction of academic achievement of high school students. At issue was whether the ego strength variables enhance prediction beyond that provided by selected demographic variables and two measures of religiosity: faith participation and faith importance. Participants included 121 Black and 131 White students of Virginia. They were in the ninth through twelfth grades and were attending a single high school in the Tidewater area of Virginia. They were administered a questionnaire that included several demographic questions, two questions regarding religion in their lives, and five subscales from the Psychosocial Inventory of Ego Strength (PIES) developed by Markstrom et al. (1997). These variables were used in a series of hierarchical regression analyses to predict grade-point-average (GPA) which was obtained from the permanent school records of each student. Significant relationships were found between and among the five psychosocial ego strengths. Several relationships were found between students’ psychosocial ego strength attributes and parents’ educational levels. A positive significant relationship was found between the total ego strength and academic achievement. Some differences were found between race and the Hope subscale, faith participation, and faith importance. Race was also found to be a significant influence on the predictive relationships between psychosocial total ego strength and academic achievement. Total ego strength was found to be a significant predictor of academic achievement. The essential finding of the study was that ego strength measures explained approximately 10% of the variance in GPA above that already accounted for by the demographic variables and the two religiosity variables. The items measuring the importance of faith and participation in faith activities did not contribute to the prediction of GPA, except for faith participation among Black students. / Ph. D.

Thesis advisor: Karen Arnold / Colleges and universities in the United States are currently in the midst of a debate on how to integrate students' academic and social lives in a manner similar to the centuries old model of Oxford and Cambridge. One of the major initiatives by colleges and universities is the re-establishment of residentially-based learning communities whose use has ebbed and flowed throughout the history of American higher education. The fundamental purpose of these communities is to facilitate intentional interactions with faculty and peers within the residence halls. The purpose of this study was to determine quantitatively if first year honors students at Boston College who participated in a residentially-based learning community exhibited greater psychosocial development versus first year honors students who reside in traditional residence halls. The Student Developmental Task and Lifestyle Assessment (SDTLA), based on Chickering's theory of development, was employed to measure the psychosocial growth of the students. The experimental group consisted of 32 first year honors students who resided in the Honors House and the control group was comprised of 64 first year honors students who resided in the traditional residence halls. Results of the study revealed that residing in a residentially based learning community was not the sole contributing factor affecting the participants' psychosocial development. Male and female honors students who resided in the Honors House and the traditional halls experienced similar patterns of developmental growth over the course of their fall semester. It was also found that the mean scores of the participants in this study were consistently higher than the normative data on all tasks, subtasks and scales of the SDTLA. Despite the small sample size, the results appear to indicate that multiple factors, including the intentionality of Boston Colleges' Honors program and institutional value for student formation, contributed to the participant's psychosocial development. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

Partindo da compreensão de que os seres humanos nascem e se desenvolvem no tecido cultural, que atravessa processos singulares de subjetivação bem como disponibiliza campos estruturados de ação, nosso primeiro objetivo neste trabalho foi sistematizar algumas proposições geradas no âmbito das pesquisas do construtivismo semiótico cultural em psicologia, a respeito das relações eu outro. Em segundo lugar, levando em conta essas proposições, buscamos articulá-las em torno da noção de perspectiva. A noção de perspectiva, aqui em foco, envolve os posicionamentos pessoais na experiência vivida, viabilizando determinada visão dos outros e das coisas, em detrimento de outras visões. Pautados pelo dialogismo teórico-metodológico em psicologia, buscamos promover um diálogo confrontador entre construtivismo semiótico cultural em psicologia e o perspectivismo ameríndio em antropologia, sobre suas respectivas noções de perspectiva. No construtivismo semiótico cultural a noção de perspectiva toca questões como: a multiplicidade de posicionamentos pessoais em face de objetos culturais (Marková, 2003/2006); a alteridade do outro (Lévinas, 1964/1991), que tem uma trajetória de vida singular, internalizando referências significativas no processo de construção de conhecimento; o cruzamento de olhares entre eu e outro a partir de e para suas corporeidades; a noção de ação simbólica de Boesch (1991); a articulação entre os planos intersubjetivo e intrassubjetivo da experiência humana. Na abordagem do perspectivismo ameríndio, por sua vez, a questão da fabricação do corpo, no seio do convívio social, é central para o entendimento do processo de construção de identidades e alteridades. Como resultado do diálogo confrontador, encontramos algumas divergências entre as duas noções de perspectiva postas em foco, especialmente no que se refere à questão da multiplicidade de entendimentos pessoais em relação a um objeto presente na abordagem psicológica e à questão do estatuto da realidade (ao invés de entendimentos sobre a realidade), que tem um papel importante na abordagem antropológica. Com o objetivo de continuar a pesquisa na interface entre essas duas áreas, sobre a qual a presente pesquisa pode ser considerada uma empreitada inicial, buscaremos aprofundar distinções conceituais em ambas as áreas de construção de conhecimento. Essa exploração mais acurada deve incluir nítidas distinções conceituais quanto às noções de sujeito, pessoa e indivíduo em ambos os campos de saber aqui confrontados. No entanto, uma primeira tentativa nessa direção já foi elaborada neste trabalho ao se discutir o artigo de Lima (1996), pautado pela noção de indeterminação restringida (Valsiner, 1998). O resultado dessa tentativa foi a elaboração de um modelo instrumental de multiplicação dialógica referido a objetos do campo de representações sociais. Mantendo o objetivo de explorar o potencial dos resultados obtidos para pesquisas futuras, procuramos discutir um caso clínico relatado e analisado por Boesch (1991) de acordo com nosso modelo instrumental. Consideramos que os resultados apontam para a relevância de se continuar na direção do percurso iniciado para o entendimento de diferenças no interior e entre pessoas e sociedades, a respeito de seus universos semióticoculturais. Esperamos também que este tipo de pesquisa possa gerar sistematizações teóricoepistemológicas úteis para profissionais e pesquisadores em suas reflexões e decisões diante de fenômenos psicossociais / Departing from the understanding that human beings are born and develop themselves in their cultural fabric, passing through singular processes of subjectivation, as well as allowing structured fields of action, our first aim in this work was to systematize some propositions generated in the bulk of semiotic-cultural research in Psychology concerning I other relationships. Second, taking into account those propositions, we have tried to articulate them around the notion of perspective. The notion of perspective here in focus concerns with persons positioning from her lived experience, allowing some views about other and things in the world, while preventing other alternative views. Framed by the theoretical-methodological dialogism in Psychology, we then tried to promote a confronting dialogue between the semiotic cultural constructivism in Psychology and the Amerindian perspectivism in Anthropology respecting their respective notions of perspective. In the semiotic cultural constructivism, the notion of perspective touches issues like the multiple personal positioning facing cultural objects (Marková, 2003/2006); the alterity of the other, who has his singular life trajectory, internalizing meaningful references in his process of meaning construction (Lévinas, 1964/1991); the crossing of the selfs and the others sights from and towards their corporeality; Boeschs (1991) notion of symbolic action; the articulations between intersubjective and intrasubjective levels of human experience. In the framework of Amerindian perspectivism, by its side, the issue of body manufacturing in the core of communitarian conviviality is central for understanding the process of construction of identities and alterities. As a result of the confronting dialogue installed by this research, we found out some divergences between the two notions of perspective here put in focus, especially concerning the issue of the multiplicity of personal understandings of an object present in the psychological approach and the issue of the statute of reality (instead of understanding of reality), that plays an important role in the anthropological approach. Aiming to continue the research in the interface of these two areas, where the present research can be considered a starting enterprise, we will try to explore more deeply some conceptual distinctions in both frames of knowledge. This more accurate exploration should include a sharply conceptual distinction concerning the notions of subject, person and individual in both fields of knowledge here confronted. Nevertheless, already made in the present research, a first tentative in this direction, discussing Limas (1996) paper under the notion of bounded indeterminacy (Valsiner, 1998). The result of this tentative was an instrumental model of dialogical multiplication, referred to the objects of a social representation field. Keeping the aim of exploring the potential of our present results for further research, we try to discuss a clinical case - reported and analyzed by Boesch (1991) - according our instrumental model. We consider that our results point to the relevance of continuing our investigations in the directions we here begun especially for the understanding differences inside and amongst persons and societies respect their semiotic cultural universes. We also expect that this kind of research can generate theoretical epistemological systematization useful for professionals and researchers in their reflections and decisions facing psychosocial phenomena

Partindo da compreensão de que os seres humanos nascem e se desenvolvem no tecido cultural, que atravessa processos singulares de subjetivação bem como disponibiliza campos estruturados de ação, nosso primeiro objetivo neste trabalho foi sistematizar algumas proposições geradas no âmbito das pesquisas do construtivismo semiótico cultural em psicologia, a respeito das relações eu outro. Em segundo lugar, levando em conta essas proposições, buscamos articulá-las em torno da noção de perspectiva. A noção de perspectiva, aqui em foco, envolve os posicionamentos pessoais na experiência vivida, viabilizando determinada visão dos outros e das coisas, em detrimento de outras visões. Pautados pelo dialogismo teórico-metodológico em psicologia, buscamos promover um diálogo confrontador entre construtivismo semiótico cultural em psicologia e o perspectivismo ameríndio em antropologia, sobre suas respectivas noções de perspectiva. No construtivismo semiótico cultural a noção de perspectiva toca questões como: a multiplicidade de posicionamentos pessoais em face de objetos culturais (Marková, 2003/2006); a alteridade do outro (Lévinas, 1964/1991), que tem uma trajetória de vida singular, internalizando referências significativas no processo de construção de conhecimento; o cruzamento de olhares entre eu e outro a partir de e para suas corporeidades; a noção de ação simbólica de Boesch (1991); a articulação entre os planos intersubjetivo e intrassubjetivo da experiência humana. Na abordagem do perspectivismo ameríndio, por sua vez, a questão da fabricação do corpo, no seio do convívio social, é central para o entendimento do processo de construção de identidades e alteridades. Como resultado do diálogo confrontador, encontramos algumas divergências entre as duas noções de perspectiva postas em foco, especialmente no que se refere à questão da multiplicidade de entendimentos pessoais em relação a um objeto presente na abordagem psicológica e à questão do estatuto da realidade (ao invés de entendimentos sobre a realidade), que tem um papel importante na abordagem antropológica. Com o objetivo de continuar a pesquisa na interface entre essas duas áreas, sobre a qual a presente pesquisa pode ser considerada uma empreitada inicial, buscaremos aprofundar distinções conceituais em ambas as áreas de construção de conhecimento. Essa exploração mais acurada deve incluir nítidas distinções conceituais quanto às noções de sujeito, pessoa e indivíduo em ambos os campos de saber aqui confrontados. No entanto, uma primeira tentativa nessa direção já foi elaborada neste trabalho ao se discutir o artigo de Lima (1996), pautado pela noção de indeterminação restringida (Valsiner, 1998). O resultado dessa tentativa foi a elaboração de um modelo instrumental de multiplicação dialógica referido a objetos do campo de representações sociais. Mantendo o objetivo de explorar o potencial dos resultados obtidos para pesquisas futuras, procuramos discutir um caso clínico relatado e analisado por Boesch (1991) de acordo com nosso modelo instrumental. Consideramos que os resultados apontam para a relevância de se continuar na direção do percurso iniciado para o entendimento de diferenças no interior e entre pessoas e sociedades, a respeito de seus universos semióticoculturais. Esperamos também que este tipo de pesquisa possa gerar sistematizações teóricoepistemológicas úteis para profissionais e pesquisadores em suas reflexões e decisões diante de fenômenos psicossociais / Departing from the understanding that human beings are born and develop themselves in their cultural fabric, passing through singular processes of subjectivation, as well as allowing structured fields of action, our first aim in this work was to systematize some propositions generated in the bulk of semiotic-cultural research in Psychology concerning I other relationships. Second, taking into account those propositions, we have tried to articulate them around the notion of perspective. The notion of perspective here in focus concerns with persons positioning from her lived experience, allowing some views about other and things in the world, while preventing other alternative views. Framed by the theoretical-methodological dialogism in Psychology, we then tried to promote a confronting dialogue between the semiotic cultural constructivism in Psychology and the Amerindian perspectivism in Anthropology respecting their respective notions of perspective. In the semiotic cultural constructivism, the notion of perspective touches issues like the multiple personal positioning facing cultural objects (Marková, 2003/2006); the alterity of the other, who has his singular life trajectory, internalizing meaningful references in his process of meaning construction (Lévinas, 1964/1991); the crossing of the selfs and the others sights from and towards their corporeality; Boeschs (1991) notion of symbolic action; the articulations between intersubjective and intrasubjective levels of human experience. In the framework of Amerindian perspectivism, by its side, the issue of body manufacturing in the core of communitarian conviviality is central for understanding the process of construction of identities and alterities. As a result of the confronting dialogue installed by this research, we found out some divergences between the two notions of perspective here put in focus, especially concerning the issue of the multiplicity of personal understandings of an object present in the psychological approach and the issue of the statute of reality (instead of understanding of reality), that plays an important role in the anthropological approach. Aiming to continue the research in the interface of these two areas, where the present research can be considered a starting enterprise, we will try to explore more deeply some conceptual distinctions in both frames of knowledge. This more accurate exploration should include a sharply conceptual distinction concerning the notions of subject, person and individual in both fields of knowledge here confronted. Nevertheless, already made in the present research, a first tentative in this direction, discussing Limas (1996) paper under the notion of bounded indeterminacy (Valsiner, 1998). The result of this tentative was an instrumental model of dialogical multiplication, referred to the objects of a social representation field. Keeping the aim of exploring the potential of our present results for further research, we try to discuss a clinical case - reported and analyzed by Boesch (1991) - according our instrumental model. We consider that our results point to the relevance of continuing our investigations in the directions we here begun especially for the understanding differences inside and amongst persons and societies respect their semiotic cultural universes. We also expect that this kind of research can generate theoretical epistemological systematization useful for professionals and researchers in their reflections and decisions facing psychosocial phenomena

This thesis summarizes a study conducted to explore the effect of an educational intervention on cognitive autonomy, identity, hope, and educational aspirations. The primary goal of this study was to investigate (1) the impact of awareness and readiness educational intervention on low-income adolescents’ cognitive autonomy, identity, hope, and educational intentions, and (2) how the low-income adolescents receiving the awareness readiness educational intervention compared to adolescents who did not receive the intervention. The Cognitive Autonomy and Self-Evaluation (CASE) inventory, the Modified Extended Version of the Object Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOMEIS), The Children’s Hope Scale, and a self-report of educational aspirations were used to measure the four variables in this study. Subjects included 38 adolescents, ages 13 to 17, from lower socioeconomic status (SES), located in the two different school districts who participate in the GEAR UP intervention, and a comparison sample included 47 adolescents, ages 14 to 17, from various classes at a local high school. Findings reveal that changes from time 1 to time 2 (four months) for adolescents participating in the educational intervention were not significant in three of the four areas. The educational aspirations results were statistically significant. The adolescents in the educational intervention group and from the comparison sample found to be similar on all measures, thus establishing a form or social validation. Results may be contingent on the type of sample obtained and testing procedures. The results of this study indicate there may need to be further research in this area.

The purpose of the present investigation was to determine the relationship between worldview, student academic confidence, and satisfaction with advising. More specifically, this study examines the relationship among level of advising satisfaction, worldviews of students, and the student's perceived style of advising received. The findings of this study indicate that a positive relationship exists between developmental advising and advising satisfaction. The results suggest that overall student characteristics such as gender and self-confidence are not as relevant to advising satisfaction as the style of advising used by the faculty or advisor. Furthermore, this study supports findings by Coll and Zalaquett (in press) and Coll and Draves (in press) who suggest that overall student worldviews are not a function of gender or age but may be more closely related to individual experiences.

Thesis (M.A. (Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether young black adults who participate in sport differ in psychological well-being and psychosocial development from those who do not participate actively in sport. An availability sample of 293 students between 20 and 35 years old from three tertiary institutions in South Africa completed self-report measures of psychological well-being and psychosocial development. Reliability and validity of instruments were acceptable for use in this particular group. Students who participate actively in sport had significantly lower levels of negative affect, somatic symptoms, symptoms of depression and pessimistic life orientation, and significantly higher levels of positive affect, sense of coherence and self-efficacy beliefs. They also manifested higher levels of purpose and autonomy. Educational and policy implications of findings are indicated. Key words: Sport participation, physical activity, psychological well-being, psychosocial development, students, and young black adults / Thesis (M.A. (Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether young black adults who participate in sport differ in psychological well-being and psychosocial development from those who do not participate actively in sport. An availability sample of 293 students between 20 and 35 years old from three tertiary institutions in South Africa completed self-report measures of psychological well-being and psychosocial development. Reliability and validity of instruments were acceptable for use in this particular group. Students who participate actively in sport had significantly lower levels of negative affect, somatic symptoms, symptoms of depression and pessimistic life orientation, and significantly higher levels of positive affect, sense of coherence and self-efficacy beliefs. They also manifested higher levels of purpose and autonomy. Educational and policy implications of findings are indicated. Key words: Sport participation, physical activity, psychological well-being, psychosocial development, students, and young black adults / Thesis (M.A. (Psychology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.