Childhood cancer has obvious impacts on the children themselves, but also has impacts on their families and siblings. While studies have been conducted on the impacts of cancer on children and their parents, there has been limited consideration of the impacts of cancer on healthy siblings. Some studies have suggested that siblings of children with cancer are the most emotionally disregarded and distressed of all family members as a result of their sibling having cancer. Exposure to stress has a negative impact on the immune system and places siblings at risk for health problems. Thus, finding mechanisms to ameliorate stress are critical. Early intervention and treatment may serve as protective factors against risky behavior and lead to more normative child development and well-being. One method of improving the psychosocial adjustment of siblings of children with cancer has been through interventions such as camp experiences that include opportunities for campers to experience social support. There is a need to better understand the efficacy of intervention programs designed to reduce stress across a variety of settings. The focus of this study was if campers experience social support (emotional, informational, and instrumental) at a three and one-half day residential camp, and the elements of camp campers’ identified as leading to social support. Participant observations of camp and semi-structured interviews with selected campers were used to help gain insights concerning the impact of the camp experience on siblings of children with cancer. Coding of responses was undertaken, which led to the identification of themes and subthemes. Findings provided a narrative description of how campers perceived social support. In addition, social comparison was identified as a critical mechanism for meeting camper’s biological, physiological and behavioral needs. Overarching perceptions of campers were that people at camp were nice and staff was instrumental in facilitating universality and a cycle of reciprocity. Implications of this study suggest intentionally designed camps have the ability to impact a broad range of attitudes and behaviors. The study also supports theory of how structures and processes of social relationships work in relation to good health; and can be applied to a camp setting.

This research is aimed to look into the relevance between job stress and job performance of Kaohsiung City Government employees, and to observe whether social support will have an effect on this. This research will serve as a reference for people in charge of making policies. Documents will serve as the basis for research, as well as some statistical methods such as conducting the poll through questionnaires, factor analysis, descriptive statistic, T test, ANOVA, correlation analysis, regression analysis and other relevant analyses. There are several discoveries based on these analyses and studies: 1. The job stress of the employees of Kaohsiung City Government comes from the nature of work and structural specialty. 2. The highest level within the various levels of the job performance of Kaohsiung City Government employees is the mission efficiency, which shows the same result as the opinion poll does. 3. Gender serves as an obvious difference when it comes to job stress, which shows that female feels more about that than male. 4. Schooling record also serves as an obvious difference when it comes to job stress. In the part of structural specialty, employees owning master or higher degree usually have a bigger job stress than those owning senior or vocational high school diploma or below. 5. Social support and job stress have statistically negative influence, which means that more social support will reduce the causes of job stress. This view is also concurred by many scholars. 6. Job stress and job performance have statistically negative influence. This is also concurred by many scholars such as Schuler. 7. Social support does not have an influential effect between job stress and job performance, which means that social support does not have the effect of stress buffer as some scholars III such as Fenlason & Beehr claim. 8. The condition of marriage has an influential effect between job stress and job performance. Those who are married tend to have the phenomenon that the more job stress they have, the less job performance they achieve. It is the first time that this report is aimed to study the job stress of Kaohsiung City Government employees, and it affirms that social support, especially the support from the senior officer, will have the effect of decreasing job stress. The result of this research may serve as a policy reference for Kaohsiung City Government to raise the job performance of its employees.

No description available.

Identity and power are important components of any relationship, especially one as intimate as the connection between marital partners. Social support is expected and elicited within these relationships, however most social support researchers have not incorporated sociological theoretical orientations that would provide insight into the structural components of the relationship and their impact. Using ideas derived from Identity Control Theory and Power Dependence Theory this research investigates the impact of these powerful social factors. Specifically, I hypothesize that marital partners who are similar in their identities will be better able to offer social support in conversations in which those identities are salient. I also hypothesize that partners who are similar in structural power will offer more support than those who are dissimilar.

Childhood cancer has obvious impacts on the children themselves, but also has impacts on their families and siblings. While studies have been conducted on the impacts of cancer on children and their parents, there has been limited consideration of the impacts of cancer on healthy siblings. Some studies have suggested that siblings of children with cancer are the most emotionally disregarded and distressed of all family members as a result of their sibling having cancer. Exposure to stress has a negative impact on the immune system and places siblings at risk for health problems. Thus, finding mechanisms to ameliorate stress are critical. Early intervention and treatment may serve as protective factors against risky behavior and lead to more normative child development and well-being. One method of improving the psychosocial adjustment of siblings of children with cancer has been through interventions such as camp experiences that include opportunities for campers to experience social support. There is a need to better understand the efficacy of intervention programs designed to reduce stress across a variety of settings. The focus of this study was if campers experience social support (emotional, informational, and instrumental) at a three and one-half day residential camp, and the elements of camp campers' identified as leading to social support. Participant observations of camp and semi-structured interviews with selected campers were used to help gain insights concerning the impact of the camp experience on siblings of children with cancer. Coding of responses was undertaken, which led to the identification of themes and subthemes. Findings provided a narrative description of how campers perceived social support. In addition, social comparison was identified as a critical mechanism for meeting camper's biological, physiological and behavioral needs. Overarching perceptions of campers were that people at camp were nice and staff was instrumental in facilitating universality and a cycle of reciprocity. Implications of this study suggest intentionally designed camps have the ability to impact a broad range of attitudes and behaviors. The study also supports theory of how structures and processes of social relationships work in relation to good health; and can be applied to a camp setting.

As refresher courses are getting popular in Taiwan, it is good news for those who want to continue their studies at the same time of working. However, an individual social role will be getting more complicated during this situation of inter-role conflicts. While a full-time worker also needs to act as a student after work, will he encounter the inter-role conflicts of learning and working? This study aims on students who are taking refresher courses at public or private two-year junior college, two-year college, and university in Kaohsiung. We try to discuss the relationship between inter-role conflicts, social support and learning burnout of students who are taking refresher courses. We indicate the relationship between inter-role conflicts, social support and learning burnout due to different background characteristics of respondents. The study result is supported by empirical data and provides some suggestions for those who want to take refresher courses and further researchers. We send out 800 questionnaires and get 602 returned ones. The final valid questionnaires are 589 and the return rate is 76.62%. The result is indicated as below: 1. Most of respondents in this study are female, single, and study in national two-year junior college right now. Their tenure in current company is 1-5 years. Most of them have strong motivation of self actualization even they all play different social roles now. The age of most respondents is between 31-40 and most of them work in manufacturing industries and would prefer to study at school in short distance. 2. The result indicates the inter-role conflicts that learning interferes working or learning and working interfere each other have strong impact on learning attitude. Besides, the inter-role conflicts that learning interferes working or learning and working interfere each other have strong impact on interpersonal relationship alienation. The three kinds of inter-role conflicts all have strong impact on low learning emotion. Furthermore, the inter-role conflicts which learning and working interfere each other have strong impact on emotion burnout. 3. The moderation effects of families¡¦ support, managers¡¦ support, colleagues¡¦ support and classmates¡¦ support are partially supported in this study.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-124).

As helpful as social support can be, the reality is that some attempts to offer support are more helpful than others. In trying to be supportive, we can make things better, but we can also make things worse (Brashers et al., 2004; Burleson & Samter, 1985; Goldsmith, Lindholm, & Bute, 2006; Goldsmith & Fitch, 1997). In everyday situations, simply bringing up a sensitive topic may cause negative emotions for a conversational partner or remind them of a topic that they are trying not to think about. In addition, it is possible to say something that makes a person feel worse about the way they are handling a delicate situation. This dissertation applies Burleson and Samter’s (1985) social support framework, a model of Verbal Person Centeredness (VPC), to the context of grief. This dissertation examines what types of grief support are most effective, and looks at whether, in some instances, more sophisticated message are not the most comforting. This dissertation will examine whether closeness operates as a moderator, making moderately sophisticated messages of support more effective than highly sophisticated ones in some situations, such as instances in which the person offering support is less close to the bereaved. It is hypothesized that this will happen due to threats to the bereaved’s sense of independence or autonomy (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Hence, in some instances, it may be more helpful for people offering support to use moderately sophisticated messages. Although experimental data from this dissertation did not support an interaction between closeness of target and helper and perceived effectiveness of support message, data from open-ended questions did suggest that individuals prefer moderately sophisticated messages from less close others (e.g., coworkers). Other themes from open-ended questions provide additional details about the type of support people in grief might desire.

Although about half of all rape victims are adolescents, the bulk of the research on sexual victimization is focused on college or community samples of adult women. As such, little is known about adolescent risk of sexual victimization. Adolescence is an important developmental phase in life, in which an individual undergoes major social and biological changes. These changes may make them more susceptible to environmental characteristics, such as family climate, compared to adults. Environmental factors may influence risk taking among adolescents, which may increase the risk of sexual victimization. The theory of social support can be useful in understanding why some young individuals are sexually victimized and others are not. Data for the analysis is derived from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The current study uses the in-home interviews from Wave I, Wave II, and Wave IV of Add Health. The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between social support, risky behavior, and sexual victimization. Specifically, whether risky behavior mediates the relationship between adolescent sexual victimization and social support will be examined.

No description available.