Includes bibliographical references. / This study drew on South African criminal case reports containing judicial pronouncements on psychopathy between 1947 and 1999 to explore the historical relationship between psychology and the law. In criminal law, where mental illness is alleged, the issue of responsibility arises. During the period of the study, there were important legal developments in the criminal law relating to criminal responsibility, including the formulation of a statutory test for capacity in 1977 that did away with the M’Naghten Rules and irresistible impulse principle, ... Diminished responsibility was also entrenched in the criminal law in the same Act. Psychopathy provided an interesting case study as, in terms of legal thinking, a diagnosis may indicate pathology but is not of a degree that it necessarily follows that it would be unreasonable to assign blame in law.

Includes bibliographical references. / This study explored resilience factors within the life narratives of adolescents who live in a low-socioeconomic, high-violence community and have become long-standing members of a community youth development programme. Twenty youth were interviewed, ten girls and ten boys. A thematic analysis was conducted which revealed eight resilience characteristics common to the majority of the participants. These were: intelligence and academic achievement; insight; personal agency; determination and self-discipline; empathy; hope; future orientation; and religious faith. A second category of themes concerned the social support received by participants, from their mothers, teachers, adult mentors and friends. Forms of social support included material support; interest and encouragement; high expectations of success; guidance and boundary setting; role models for determination, strength and agency; and counselling. The motivational factors which influenced the participants to join the programme were also explored, as well as the factors which sustained their long-term involvement. An interpretation of the process of resilience in the participants’ lives is offered, highlighting the relationship between the presence of strong maternal attachment bonds and positive adult role models which influence the development of the resilience factors, which, in turn, lead to confidence, optimism for the future and a strong sense of personal agency, all of which contribute to the formation of a community activist identity for the participants. Some recommendations for policy regarding community youth programmes and for future research are discussed.

Bibliography: leaves 199-209. / This study is an exploratory one of growth monitoring in a rural African village, Thornhill. Growth monitoring is a primary health care approach to prevent child malnutrition in under-developed areas promoted by a variety of development agencies, particularly UNICEF, as a part of the "child survival revolution." It involves weighing children regularly and plotting their weights on a growth chart retained by the child's mother. Growth charts provide a visual display of a child's growth to allow health workers and mothers to identify early signs of growth faltering in order to facilitate ameliorative action (usually food supplementation or nutrition education) to prevent malnutrition. It also aims to facilitate the active participation of mothers in ensuring their child's continual good growth. The history of growth monitoring and its use in the South African context is discussed. The underlying rationale and component processes needed to implement it effectively are identified in a review of process evaluation studies of growth monitoring. Thornhill is an impoverished African rural area in the Ciskei in which malnutrition is a serious health problem and growth monitoring has been systematically implemented. However, although the health service had a demonstrated capacity for successful health interventions it had been unable to improve nutritional status. Background information and previous research in the area is presented. The study aimed to explore why growth monitoring had failed to improve nutritional status in Thornhill by investigating the way in which the component objectives of growth monitoring in terms of making growth visible, facilitating nutrition intervention and facilitating mothers' participation in their children's care were perceived by mothers and health workers.

Bibliography: leaves 72-85. / Elite (n=37), sub-elite (n=37) or non-elite (n=24) sport persons participating in any one of eight individual Olympic recognized sports (archery, fencing, gymnastics, ice skating, swimming, track and field, weightlifting and wrestling) took part in the study. Age and sex of subjects were not controlled. Subjects were given the 'How Healthy a Life do you Lead?', the 'Profile of Mood States' and a general questionnaire to complete. Descriptive analysis portrayed similar lifestyle and mood profiles across the three levels of sport performance while discriminant analysis revealed that lifestyle as well as mood variables could not predict level of sport performance (p < 0.05). The research hypotheses that healthier lifestyle and mood profiles are related to better sport performance were therefore not supported. Other results however revealed that the structure of the lifestyles was related to level of sport performance. Considerations for future research in this area are discussed.

Bibliography: leaves 151-161. / There is substantial evidence to indicate that South Africa is facing the prospect of a large number of children, now and in the future, who will be orphaned as a result of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In all likelihood, these children would have experienced psychological trauma through the illness and death of people close to them, and the social isolation that accompanies HIV-infection and AIDS-related illness and death. The ideal would be for as many of these children as possible to experience some type of family life in which to grow and mature into responsible adults. The aim of the present study was to explore a range of factors that might influence prospective carers' decisions to care for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS. These include features of prospective carers; features of the orphaned child; and forms of assistance that may be required. By means of a postal survey, the present study explored existing adoptive and foster parents' (N=17S) willingness to care for an HIV/AIDS orphan. Results show that close to 69% of respondents indicated a willingness to care for an HIV/AIDS orphan. Although some differences were noted depending on the HIV status of the child and whether the respondent was an adoptive or foster parent, on the whole they also indicated a preferred willingness to care for an HIV-negative female child, up to the age of 6 years old, of the same culture and from the same family as themselves, and without surviving relatives or siblings. Free medical care and schooling for the child were the suggested forms of assistance required. The Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), explored in the present study, did predict intentions to care for either an HIV-negative or HIV-positive orphan. However, certain components of the models did not have good predictive ability calling into question the usefulness of the model as a means to explain and predict intention to care for an HIV/AIDS orphan. Implications of the study provide recommendations for persons involved with children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.

Bibliography: leaves 134-148. / An exploratory investigation into the capabilities of hypertext as an educational medium was conducted. To this purpose, a model was advanced in an attempt to provide a theoretical foundation for the explication of hypertext navigation and disorientation in terms of relevant user characteristics. 75 2nd year psychology students from the University of Cape Town participated in a study in order to investigate the claim that the motivational theory of goal orientation has the greatest utility in accounting for the exploitation of links within a hypertext, a necessary precondition for the development of mental models which incorporate both the conceptual and structural elements required for effective learning from, and the reduction of disorientation within, this medium. The results obtained, although compromised, provide some support for this argument. The paper concludes with a discussion of the methodological limitations of the study, as well as possible directions for future research.

Bibliography: leaves 136-145. / This study examined the relationship between stress and coping in a sample of women simultaneously occupying the roles of wife, mother and paid employee. The sample comprised 95 subjects recruited through medical practices. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected by means of self report questionnaires. Quantitative measures included the recent version of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (Levenstein, Prantera, Varvo, Scribano, Berta, Luzi & Andreoli, 1992), the Reward and Concern Scales developed by Baruch & Barnett ( 1986) as a measure of role quality, the Coping Orientation to Problems Experienced (Carver, Scheier & Weintraub, 1989) and the Mastery Scale (Pearlin & Schooler, 1978). A measure of social support was developed for this study. Qualitative data was collected via 7 open ended questions. Responses were analysed for frequency of reference to emergent themes. · Stress ·constituted the dependant variable and role quality, coping, control and social - support the ~ndependent variables. Correlational and Anova analyses were performed to test for relationships between stress and the demographic variables. No significant relationships were found. Subjects who had complained of stress or been diagnosed as stressed by their doctors were classified as highly stressed, whereas those who had neither complained nor been so diagnosed were classified as low stressed. A t-test analysis revealed significant differences between the two groups. However, 42% of those women who had neither complained nor been diagnosed as stressed recorded stress levels above the mean. The most usual manifestations of stress revealed a cluster of factors related to time pressure and overload. Further t-test analyses were conducted to test for differences in stress levels between subjects scoring low in role quality, coping abilities, control and social support, compared with those scoring high on these variables. Poor role quality was .associated with a significantly higher stress level.

Bibliography: leaves 186-199. / The idea for this dissertation emerged out of my interest in the identity of South Mrican women. A specific area of interest was which part of South Mrican women's identity was more salient- race or gender. Another specific area of interest, based on the proposition of social identity theory that different aspects of identity could be salient within different contexts, was which contexts, if any, would make gender identity more salient than race identity. (The was of interest particularly with regard to black women.) In an attempt to further explore the identity of South Mrican women, with particular reference to the above questions, Study 1 was conducted. Based on the literature (e.g. Davis, 1981; hooks, 1981, 1984 ), one expectation was that while gender might be more salient than race for white women, for black women, race would always be more salient than gender irrespective of context. A content-analysis of the focus group transcripts for Study 1 did not support this expectation. Both black and white women cited the issue of 'sexual violence against women', specifically rape, as the one factor that made the 'woman' aspect of their identity salient, and engendered a feeling of 'us' (women) versus ‘them' (men). In order to further investigate this result, a second study was conducted. In Study 2, a pretest post-test experimental control group design was used to examine the effect of the issue of 'sexual violence against women' on the gender identity of black, white and coloured women. Forty black women, 40 white women and 40 coloured women from the Western Cape participated in the study. Gender and race identity were explored using multidimensional scales, a social distance scale, a personality atttibutions measure, and an identity checklist. These measures were administered at both the pretest and the posttest. ‘Sexual violence against women' was operationalised as an article about rape which was presented to women in the experimental group while women in the control group received a neutral intervention. The hypothesis was that at the pretest, women (in particular black women) would perceive themselves as 'closer' to other members of their own race (including men) than to other women of different races. Thus race would be a more salient aspect of identity than gender. Based on the results of Study 1, it was further hypothesised that at the posttest women in the experimental group would perceive themselves as 'closer' to women of other races than to men of their own race.

Bibliography: leaves 124-177. / It has been suggested that globally, psychiatric disorders are not only highly prevalent and associated with significant morbidity, but that they are often not detected by clinicians working in primary health care. Despite this, few studies have investigated the level of mental health literacy among nurses and their attitudes to the mentally ill in South Africa.

This thesis explores 'Hegemonic Masculinity and Aggression in South Africa'. It incorporates three separate, but sequential research parts, each building on the findings of the previous part in order to realise general research aims.