Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2003. / Thesis research directed by: Counseling and Personnel Services. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2004. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-72). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss &rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR11891

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Duquesne University, 2007. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-135) and index.

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The phenomenon whereby people suffering from an illness or disability seem to be unaware of their symptoms was termed anosognosia, by Joseph Babinksi in 1914 (Langer & Levine, 2014). Originally described as a specific inability to recognise or acknowledge left-sided hemiplegia after lesions to the right hemisphere of the brain, the term now incorporates unawareness of a range of post-stroke impairments, such as hemianopia (Bisiach, Vallar, Perani, Papagno & Berti, 1986), hemianaesthesia (Pia et al., 2014), aphasia (Cocchini, Gregg, Beschin, Dean & Della Sala, 2010) and unilateral neglect (Jehkonen, Ahonen, Dastidar, Laippala & Vilkki, 2000). Anosognosia has also been observed in association with several other disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease (Agnew & Morris, 1998) and traumatic brain injury (Prigatano, 2010a). While advances have been made in understanding anosognosia, there are still many contradictory findings in relation to the nature and expression of impaired self-awareness (Prigatano, 2010a), which are partly attributable to diverse methodological approaches. Furthermore, research into anosognosia frequently rests on the assumption that neurologically intact individuals have accurate insight into their own abilities, particularly in regard to motor skill. The experiments reported in this thesis highlight that this may be a false assumption. Through a series of interrelated studies, I demonstrate that the type of questions typically asked of anosognosic patients may be inappropriate to elicit the manifestations of chronic stage unawareness after a stroke, that underestimation may be just as prevalent as overestimation, and that healthy individuals are not always able to monitor whether their executed movements match their intended movements. Moreover, those with poorer motor skills are less able to judge movement successes and failures than their more skilled counterparts, suggesting a mechanism analogous to the anosognosia observed in clinical populations. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the main neuropsychological models that have been proposed to account for anosognosia for hemiplegia (AHP); unawareness in the context of other impairments is discussed in the introductions to individual chapters. Chapter 2 presents some background research investigating stroke clinicians’ knowledge of the lateralization of right hemisphere cognitive symptoms, and their judgements of the impact of selected symptoms on the lives of patients and caregivers. While the clinicians were equally able to identify cognitive symptoms associated with left or right brain damage, they were far more likely to misattribute symptoms to right brain damage, suggesting a lack of confidence in their knowledge of the cognitive functions of the right hemisphere. They also regarded anosognosia as having relatively low impact on the lives of patients and caregivers, in stark contrast with the highly negative impact reported in the literature (Jehkonen, Laihosalo & Kettunen, 2006a). Chapters 3 and 4 present two experimental studies investigating different facets of awareness in two groups of stroke patients. Chapter 3 reports the development and testing of a tool designed to measure chronic unawareness of functional difficulties, the Visual Analogue Test of Anosognosia for impairments in Activities of Daily Living (VATA-ADL), with preliminary data from a group of chronic stroke patients. Approximately one third of the patients exhibited mild or moderate levels of overestimation of their ability to carry out day-to-day activities. This contrasts with previous reports that anosognosia is rare in the chronic stages, a discrepancy that may be explained in part by the inappropriateness of the measures typically used to measure it. Overestimation was observed in both right-brain-damaged and left-brain-damaged patients, and was not associated with higher levels of cognitive impairment. The study reported in Chapter 4 examined whether acute stage stroke patients who under- or overestimated their motor skills, similarly under- or overestimated performance on cognitive tasks in the domains of language, memory and attention and executive function. Contrary to the many dissociations between unawareness of different impairment reported in the neuropsychological literature, this study found that patients classed as overestimators of motor ability were also overly optimistic about their cognitive abilities. Overestimators were more likely to have right hemisphere lesions, higher levels of general cognitive impairments, and specific deficits in attention and executive function. Furthermore, by including patients with a range of functional ability, this study revealed that participants were just as likely to underestimate as overestimate their abilities. This unique finding presents a challenge to anosognosia research, suggesting that there may be factors other than neurological damage that predispose stroke patients to over- or under-estimate their abilities and that a baseline of accurate self-insight among control populations cannot be assumed. Chapter 5 reports three different experiments conducted with younger and older, neurologically healthy adults. Using a target-directed reaching task, these experiments investigated whether the participants’ ability to monitor the success of their movements, on a trial by trial basis, depended upon their motor skill level, and whether participants with lower skill were inclined to overestimate their ability, in line with a famous observation from cognitive psychology that people who perform worst in a given task tend to be unaware of how poorly they are performing (Kruger and Dunning, 1999). Overall, the results demonstrated an association between higher accuracy levels and faster movement times, and better ability to monitor success and failure. To my knowledge, this represents that first evidence of a relationship between motor performance ability and self-monitoring ability in healthy individuals, highlighting that some of the mechanisms underpinning anosognosia may also be evident in neurologically intact populations. However, contrary to the findings from cognitive psychology, poor performance was not associated with a specific bias toward overestimation. A similar relationship between task performance and self-monitoring ability was also observed for a visual memory task. Chapter 6 discusses the implications of the results of the clinical and self-monitoring studies for neuropsychological models of anosognosia, particularly those based on motor planning and control, and considers potential ways forward for research in this field.

The initial research questions for this practice-based doctoral research project was to ask, "Is it possible to develop a more confident, self-conscious creative voice able to articulate one's identity more clearly through the making of handmade artefacts?"; this thesis applies the methodologies of autoethnography and pedagogy to consider an answer. My original contribution to knowledge through this enquiry is the identification of the ways in which the exploration of identity through autoethnographic, creative and pedagogic methods encourages an expanded field of self-knowledge, self-confidence and sense of creative self.

Because service failures are inevitable, marketing researchers have devoted considerable attention to the negative consequences of service failure and corresponding service recovery strategies. Previous research has overwhelmingly focused on customers' cognitive, coping, and behavioral reactions to failures. However, more recently, researchers have suggested that emotions may underlie the effects of customers' cognitive responses on their coping and behavioral responses. Despite the increased attention paid to the emotional dimension of customers' responses, the literature has not differentiated between different types of negative emotions. However, the appropriateness of service recovery strategies may rely on differentiating between similarly valenced emotions, because distinct emotions may require different recovery strategies. From a perspective of self-congruence theory, this dissertation contributes to the extant literature by investigating why customers experience distinct negative emotions - basic emotions (e.g., anger) and self-conscious emotions (e.g., shame) - in the context of service failure. Since emotions may influence coping and behavioral responses, distinct sets of coping responses (problem-solving vs. vindictive complaining and support-seeking vs. vindictive negative word of mouth) and behavioral intentions are also explored. Through two experiments, this dissertation provides support for the proposition that different forms of self-congruence evoke different sets of emotional and coping responses. Furthermore, drawing on self-awareness theory, this dissertation provides evidence for the proposition that the mechanisms underlying these observed patterns are distinct. Specifically, when service failures are involved, actual self-congruence and ideal self-congruence differentially trigger public self-awareness and private self-awareness and the different forms of self-awareness mediate the effect of self-congruence on customers' emotions.

Self-evaluation is mood state dependent. A transient decrease in positive self-evaluation bias may co-occur with sad mood. In clinical depression this decrease is lasting and exaggerated. The act of self-evaluation engages frontal lobe mechanisms of emotion regulation, but it remains unclear how these constraints on cognition become pathological in depression. The goal of the current research is to characterize the neural mechanisms of mood-cognition interaction in self-evaluative decision-making. In four studies, dense array electroencephalography (256 dEEG) was recorded as participants performed a self-appraisal task. Analysis of the event-related potential was closely aligned with psychometric methodology. Findings elaborate on network models of neural self-regulation and depression pathology. Characterization of frontal lobe mechanisms in this context provides insight into the neural basis of adaptive and dysfunctional social behavior.

Recent literature has challenged traditional views of women's development of self . Many scholars have suggested that the traditional concept of self-as-autonomous being does not reflect women's experiences. Further, it has been suggested that for women who are mothers the conceptualization of self-as-autonomous is particularly questionable. With no other apparent research existing to illuminate the nature and experience of self-definition for women who are mothers, this study addressed the question: "What is the experience of defining self for women who are mothers?". A human caring methodology which integrated elements of interpretive phenomenology and feminist inquiry was employed to explore this research question. Seven women who were actively engaged in motherhood participated in the study. Data gathering involved two individual interviews with each of the participants and concluded with the women participating in a focus group where the preliminary findings were discussed. The study revealed two interrelated aspects including, (a) a description of the nature of self, and (b) the ongoing process of defining self. The nature of self consisted of three themes. The themes which arose were: (a) self as a multiplicity of parts, (b) self as a relational process, and (c) self as a synthesis. The process of defining self consisted of three phases: (a) non-reflective doing, (b) living in the shadows, and (c) reclaiming and discovering self. Each of these phases were continually experienced with different ones dominating at varying times and in varying situations. Within each of the phases, a number of themes were described and illuminated. The study pointed to the definition and their experience of health in addressing the implications for practice, therefore, a framework for health promoting practice to support women's process of self–definition was developed. / Graduate

M.Phil. / People are continuously engaged in a striving towards meaning and purpose. This endeavor is one towards personal leadership and answering questions like "Who am I" and "Who can I become". The drive towards self-actualisation runs parallel with the striving to belong and to form close attachments with others. This essay will focus on the interpersonal dimension of personal leadership. The emphasis is on how being able to create effective relationships is important in order to move towards a life of purpose and fulfillment. During the course of the essayoit becomes clear that developing and maintaining caring and committed relationships is the most important aspect of life. It is primarily through the quality of relationships that people form with others that meaning is to be found. The essay provides insights into the type of relationships people should strive for and determines that close and open relationships are where most personal growth and fulfillment is experienced. People have the freedom of choice to decide on the quality of the relationships that they want to create. Implicit in this is that the ability to create meaningful interactions with others rests within each individual. People often define success in society through the accumulation of material wealth and status. The importance of relationships is often taken for granted. This essay explores how relationships contribute towards personal growth, quality of life and career success. Many people, in their striving towards meaning, develop the self in isolation to the development of their relationships. This leads to a self-focused, narcissistic existence with unfulfilling relationships. Conversely, people may form attachments with others without fully developing their own identity and sense of self. They then have less of their own potential to contribute towards their relationship. This essay sheds light on how individuals, through developing the self and enhancing their own potential, can bring their relationships to full potential. The emphasis is on how personal leadership and growth starts from the inside out. The essay aims to provide guidance on the personal leadership characteristics needed by the individual in order to experience relationships that enhance the development of both the self and others. People have the potential to create their own quality relationships. This is achieved through the endowments of selfawareness, imagination, independent will and integrity.