The last few decades have seen a growing body of research on narcissism, however few studies have examined the relationship between subclinical narcissism and future orientation. The proposed study will examine how grandiose and vulnerable types of narcissism influence future orientation, and whether anxiety, depression, impulsivity and sense of control play mediating roles in this relationship. It is also hypothesized that anxiety will play a mediating role between future orientation and vulnerable narcissism, but not between grandiose narcissism and future orientation. Finally, it is hypothesized that grandiose and vulnerable narcissism will be correlated within individuals. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) will be used to test the hypotheses, and the a priori model is expected to have a good fit to the data. This study will further our understanding about how narcissists view their futures, and whether this is influenced by mediating factors.

Recent and current socio-cultural trends are significant factors impacting on how business is conduced and correspondingly, on how work environments are designed. New communication technology is helping to break physical boundaries and change the way and speed of conducting business. One of the main characteristics of these new workplaces is non-permanency wherein the individual employee has no dedicated personally assigned office, work station, or desk. In this non-territorial, nomadic situation, employees undertake their work tasks in a wide variety of work settings inside and outside the office building. Such environments are understood to be must suitable where there is the need for high interaction with others as well as a high level of concentrated, independent work. This thesis reports on a project designed to develop a deeper understanding of the relationships between people (P) and their built environment (E) in the context of everyday work practice in a nomadic and non-territorial work environment. To achieve this, the study focuses on the experiences of employees as they understand them in relation to their work and the designed/ physical work environment. In this sense, the study is qualitative and grounded in nature. It does not assume any previously established theory nor test any presenting hypothesis. Instead it interviews the participants about their situations at work in their workplace, interprets natural interaction and creates a foundation for the development of theory informing workplace design, particularly theory that recognises the human nature of work and the need, as highlighted by several seminal researchers, for a greater understanding of how people manage and adapt in dynamic work environments.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in New Zealand men and the second highest cause of male deaths. This Heideggerian study explores the experience of six men, with prostate cancer: five of whom were approximately five months post a robotic prostatectomy and one man post brachytherapy. The purpose of the study is to understand and describe the meaning men attach to the disease using a hermeneutic existential phenomenological approach to research. Four themes emerged from the interviews: 1) Disappointment, 2) Being-a-man, 3) Sense of Control, and 4) Life-Threatening Disease. The findings of the study suggest men's identities changed due to the side effects of treatments, the need of a sense of control to deal with the disease, and the importance of understanding prostate cancer as a potentially life-threatening disease within the Heideggerian concept of "being-towards-death". Using this concept future research was also identified. The outcomes of the study suggest implications for health professionals in promoting existential care to the men by listening and taking into account their concerns.

In an effort to extend the literature (e.g., Landry & Mercurio, 2009; Moradi & Hasan, 2004) on the effects of discrimination on personal sense of control, this current study aims to examine how African American women's sense of personal control is affected by their beliefs about discrimination and how their beliefs about justice and fairness in their own lives further explain the relationship. A total of 173 African American or Black identified women were recruited through professional contacts, an undergraduate psychology course, and social media networking sites. Participants' awareness of discrimination was experimentally manipulated by random assignment to one of four conditions suggesting varying likelihoods of personally experiencing discrimination. Participants responded to self-report instruments of Personal Beliefs in a Just World (Dalbert, 1999) before the manipulation and Environmental Mastery (Ryff, 1989; measure of personal control) as the dependent variable after the manipulation. It was predicted that a significant interaction term between experimental condition and just world beliefs on personal control would supersede any main effects. Yet only a significant main effect was found between personal beliefs in a just world and personal control, with no significant interaction effects.

The researchers predict a future, where people’s interaction with things is decreased and things become more autonomous, requiring less control from people, aiming to make life easier. However, the question is if we really are ready to let go of the control over such systems in order to have easier life. This is what this research through design project is aiming to find out through a research question How the different user interaction modalities with IoT devices at home influence the sense of control for users? and sub-question How the sense of control over IoT devices would influence how people trust them? With the help of prototype, questionnaire and online sessions, two lists of guidelines were created, consisting of points to consider while designing for such systems from control and trust perspective.The angle was narrowed down to a morning routine and interaction with the alarm clock connected to a coffeemaker.

Underbyggd av ett teoretiskt ramverk inom livsloppssociologin undersöker föreliggande studie effekterna av Sense of Control (SoC) och framtidsutsikter på den teoretiska relationen mellan psykiskt välbefinnande och arbetsmarknadsposition (LMP) hos unga studenter på högskolenivån. Materialet består av enkätsvar från totalt 155 studenter, i åldrarna 19-30, boende på olika platser i Sverige. En multipel regressionsanalys genomfördes där välbefinnande, LMP, framtidsutsikter och Sense of Control (SoC) ingick. Tvärtemot hypotesen förmådde LMP inte predicera välbefinnande. SoC, däremot, förmådde måttligt predicera välbefinnande (β = .237). Multivariat analys visade även på ett måttligt samband mellan LMP och SoC (r = 0.226, p = 0.005), samt mellan SoC och framtidsutsikter (r = 0.275, p < .001). / Underpinned by a theoretical framework within life course sociology, this study examines the effects of Sense of Control (SoC) and future expectations on the theoretical relationship between psychological well-being and labour market position (LMP) among young students within the academia. The data consists of survey responses from a total of 155 students, aged 19-30, living in various parts of Sweden. A multiple regression analysis was conducted in which well-being, LMP, future expectations and Sense of Control (SoC) were featured. Contrary to the hypothesis, LMP was unsuccessful at predicting well-being. SoC, on the other hand, was found to modestly predict well-being (β = .237). Multivariate analysis also showed a modest relationship between LMP and SoC (r = 0.226, p = 0.005), as well as between SoC and future expectations (r = 0.275, p < .001).

The main research problem in this thesis is how unemployed individuals experience and handle the situation of unemployment and how their actions are related to their action possibilities. These are determined by factors like level of education, vocational training, age, citizenship, handicap and level of unemployment on the local labour market. A common assumption is that search behaviour of unemployed individuals strongly affects their possibility to find a job. A central question in this thesis is if individuals’ behaviour has been overemphasised at the expense of real employment opportunities. The empirical part of this thesis is based on longitudinal data collected during a period of high unemployment. The sample is a national random sample existing of 3 500 Swedes interviewed by telephone in the beginning of 1996 and in the end of 1997. The results show that the expectations of the unemployed to find a job as well as their actual search behaviour are shaped by the situation they are in. The unemployed have job expectations that co-vary with their action possibilities, but as many as 31.3 per cent overestimate their chances and 10.5 per cent underestimate them. This result is based on questions about expectations to obtain a job related to the actual employment situation nearly two years later. Unemployed individuals’ job expectations co-vary with their experiences of the unemployment situation. Those who believe that their job chances are bad have a low mental sense of well-being, while the opposite is found among those who believe that their job chances are good. The sense of having control over the situation is important for an individual’s mental sense of well-being. Both strategies of activity and adaptation occur among the unemployed. Strategies that are meant to change the situation in an objective are most common, only a minority of the unemployed seem to have adapted to the situation of unemployment.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal