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Homophobic attitudes, irrational fears and negative attitudes against gay men and lesbians exist on the college campus (Lance, 2002; Rankin, 2003). Educators wishing to change these attitudes need to know what types of intervention would be effective. This investigation empirically assessed the degree of homophobia in a group of college students, and changes in the degree of homophobia following two levels of educational intervention that were rooted in educational theories and social contact theory. A 25-item scale developed by Hudson and Ricketts to measure the degree of negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians was used in English classes at a southeastern university. This study examined the relationship between different demographic groups and the degree of change obtained as a result of the interventions. Findings did not suggest that either interaction with gay men and lesbians in the form of a speaker panel or viewing a “coming out” episode of the Ellen show reduced homophobia to a significant extent. Results did demonstrate the Caribbeans and right wing authoritarians tend to be more homophobic. Post hoc analysis investigated factors that may have contaminated the interventions. Speaker Identification was a significant predictor of change in degree of homophobia.

Bakgrund: Att bli äldre kan innebära flytt till särskilt boende. Faktorer som kan bidra till trivsel är bland annat social kontakt samt den fysiska miljön. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka om äldre i särskilda boenden med ett eget kök/pentry i större utsträckning har social kontakt och högre skattad trivsel än de utan eget kök/pentry. Design: Tvärsnittsstudie med kvantitativ ansats. Metod: Data från 4469 enkäter insamlade mellan november 2013 och september 2014 analyserades i SPSS. Resultat: Samband mellan kök och social kontakt gick inte påvisa men däremot fann vi en statistisk signifikant skillnad i skattad trivsel hos de med eget kök/pentry och social kontakt i jämförelse med dem utan. Konklusion: Inget samband återfanns mellan eget kök och social kontakt, däremot ser trivsel hos äldre ut att påverkas om man har eget kök eller inte. Ytterligare studier efterfrågas, speciellt om kökets innebörd för den äldre. Nyckelord: Kök, pentry, social kontakt, trivsel, äldre, särskilt boende / Background: Getting older could lead to moving to a special housing. Factors that can contribute to thriving are social contact and physical environment among others. Aim: The aim of this study was to explore if elderly within special housings who had access to their own kitchen were inclined to have more social contact and a higher level of thriving than those without. Design: Cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach. Method: Data from 4469 surveys were collected between November 2013 and September 2014 and then analysed with SPSS Results: Connection between having an own kitchen and social contact was not found in this study. However, we did find a link between thriving and having a kitchen as well as having social contact. Conclusion: No association was found between having an own kitchen and social contact, however, thriving does seem to be affected if you have a kitchen or not. Further studies is needed that investigate the kitchens role more close. Keywords: Kitchen, kitchenette, social contact, thriving, elderly, special housing

This thesis aims to investigate how, and under what circumstances, intimacy in grandparent-grandchild relationships is enabled, enacted and sustained in the early years of grandchildren. Previous work on emotional closeness of grandparent-grandchild relationships suggests that grandmothers and maternal grandparents are more likely to feel stronger bonds with their grandchildren, and that grandparents with a good quality of relationship with parents and living geographically close to grandchildren have greater opportunities to develop a strong emotional tie. The majority of previous research involves data on perceptions of closeness of grandparents focusing on one of their grandchildren or by young adult grandchildren reporting on closeness with a specific grandparent. In addition, qualitative research with grandparents indicates the diversity of ways they exercise agency, and involvement in the life of grandchildren, as well as gendered changes in grandfatherhood. However, there has been limited scholarly attention given to practices of intimacy, emotions and masculinities in grandparent-grandchild relationships, and the ways grandparents interpret and negotiate intimate relationships with their grandchildren amid changes in individual, familial and relational aspects over time. This study uses quantitative data to examines the extent to which individual, family and socio-structural factors influence the mothers' perception of emotional closeness of the relationship of an infant child with four types of grandparents. This is supplemented by qualitative data on grandparents' views of closeness with all their grandchildren. There is a limited scholarly literature on the relation of grandparents' lived experiences, and shared normative understandings, and a sense of being close and special to their grandchildren. The 'practices of intimacy' approach highlights the significance of practices of everyday life enacted by individuals in relation to others in building the quality of being close, and the processes through which individuals attach meaning to such practices. This approach is adopted to understand the diversity of ways grandparents interpret and do intimacy with their grandchildren. The thesis aims were achieved through a mixed methods research process combining secondary data analysis of the Growing Up in Scotland (GUS) study and in-depth interviews with 24 cases of grandparents (12 solo, either with a grandmother or grandfather, and 12 with couple). GUS maps the emotional closeness of grandchild-grandparent relationships through the grandchild's mother's perception. Analysis revealed that perceived emotional closeness was more likely if the grandparent had social contact with the mother, lived geographically close, and looked after and engaged in outings more regularly with the infant child. In general, social contact and propinquity impacted less on grandmothers, particularly maternal grandmothers, and more on paternal grandfathers. Also, looking after grandchildren on a regular basis was distinctly salient for grandmothers, whereas going more frequently on outings was more salient for grandfathers than grandmothers. As regards practices of intimacy, grandparents emphasised the importance of communication through verbal, bodily and relational forms enacted through a large variety of activities in the daily living related to forms of caring, playing and spending time together, which construct a sense of emotional closeness. The study suggests that intimate grandparent-grandchild relationships are intersected by moral understandings of 'good grandparenting', which are challenged or find contradictions in lived experiences of grandparenting that produce asymmetrical emotionalities among grandchildren, and ambivalences in relation to children and grandchildren. The study suggests that grandparents reflect on their emotionality, and enact embodied emotions, depending on relational and family circumstances, and throughout changes in the relationship with their grandchildren as they get older. The study shows that grandfathers engage in emotional forms of caring, which may challenge hegemonic masculinities, and that the relation between masculinities and practices of intimacy are troubled, particularly in the event of parental divorce.

The aim of the current thesis was to investigate the relationship between Alevis and Sunnis through the lenses of Social Identity Theory, Social Dominance Theory, and Contact Hypothesis to understand whether they see the current situation stable and legitimate, and perceive discrimination. It was expected that Alevis and Sunnis will differ in ingroup identifications, social dominance orientations, quantity, and quality of intergroup contact, perception of legitimacy and stability, and perceived discrimination against their ingroup. Moreover, the relationship between the dimensions of religious group identification, social dominance orientation, social contact and legitimacy, stability, and perceived discrimination is expected to differ between groups. The sample was consisted of 157 Sunni and 172 Alevi participants living in Amasya, Turkey. Participants completed a questionnaire package including the measures of religious identification, social dominance orientation, social contact, legitimacy, stability, and perceived discrimination. Results revealed that there were significant differences between Alevis and Sunnis in public religious identity, alienated religious identity, opposition to equality, contact quality, perceived legitimacy of the group status, and perception of discrimination directed against ingroup and outgroup. Moreover, religious group identification and social dominance orientation significantly predicted the perception of legitimacy and stability in both Alevi and Sunni groups. Examination of the associations among the major variables revealed that the relationship between perceived discrimination and ingroup identification was slightly stronger for Alevi group compared to Sunni group. The power of group based dominance was stronger than opposition to equality in predicting the perception of discrimination, especially for the Sunni group. Finally, intergroup contact, especially the quality of contact, had a positive effect on intergroup relations. Considering that this thesis is the first attempt to empirically examine the fundamental social psychological processes underlying the Alevi issue in Turkey, findings were discussed on basis of sociological and political aspects as well as previous work in Western cultures.

The Muslim headscarf conceals the hair and other external features of a face. For this reason it may have implications for the recognition of such faces. The experiments reported in this thesis aimed to investigate anecdotal reports, which suggested that headscarf wearing females are more difficult to recognise. This was done by employing a series of experiments which involved a yes/no recognition task. The stimuli that were used were images of South Asian females who were photographed wearing a Muslim headscarf (HS), with their own hair visible (H), and a third set of stimuli were produced in which their external features were cropped (CR). Most importantly, participants either took part in the condition in which the state of the external features remained the same between the learning and test stage (Same) or the condition in which they were switched between the two stages (Switch). In one experiment participants completed a Social Contact Questionnaire. Surprisingly, in the Same condition, there was no difference in the recognition rates of faces that were presented with hair, with headscarf, or cropped faces. However, participants in the Switch condition performed significantly worse than those in the Same condition. It was also found that there was no difference in the % of fixations to the external features between the Same and Switch condition, which implied that the drop in performance between the two conditions was not mediated by eye-movements. These results suggest that the internal and external features of a face are processed interactively and, although the external features were not fixated on, a manipulation to them caused a drop in performance. This was confirmed in a separate experiment in which participants were unable to ignore the external features when they were asked to judge the similarity of the internal features of pairs of faces. Pairs of headscarf faces were rated as being more similar compared to pairs of faces with hair. Finally, for one group of participants it was found that contact with headscarf-wearing females was positively correlated with the recognition of headscarf-wearing faces. It was concluded that the headscarf per se did not impair face recognition and that there is enough information in the internal features of a face for optimal recognition, however, performance was disrupted when the presence or absence of the headscarf was manipulated.

This research advances the literature on interracial marriage by using variables that align with the social contact hypothesis. The purpose of this project is to accurately gauge the exact social predictors influencing current attitudes towards Black and White interracial marriage. Multiple regression models containing social contact predictors are analyzed using data from the 2018 General Social Survey. The conclusive review of the literature summarizes age, region, and education as essential social contact predictors of attitudes towards interracial marriage. Therefore, the formulated hypotheses and multiple regression models measure this specific relationship controlling for other predictors such as sex and income. For Whites, the two most significant factors are age and living in the south vs. the west. Interestingly, a college education is not significant. For Blacks, the key contact variable that seems to matter is age. Baby boomers are less likely to favor interracial marriage. Overall, results show areas of convergence. Therefore, one's age is significant predictor for White and Black acceptance. However, it also shows divergence-region appears to only matter for Whites. Accordingly, younger Blacks and Whites were more likely to favor close relatives marrying individuals of the opposite race. Older Blacks and Whites were less likely to support interracial marriage. This analysis displays some of the critical gaps in using the social contact hypothesis to measure beliefs in Black and White conformity. Thus, there is a need to develop more logical variables to help solidify the exact social forces effecting attitudes towards interracial relationships.

In this interview, the outstanding Italian professors tell us their perspective on the main points of patrimonial civil law. In this way, the speakers explain matters related to the transfer of property system, breach of contract, tort, among others subjects; making brief comments, the authors also refer to the legislative options received in the Peruvian law. / En la presente entrevista, los destacados profesores italianos nos comentan su perspectiva en torno a puntos clave del derecho civil patrimonial. De esta forma, los ponentes tratan temas referidos a los sistema de transferencia de propiedad, incumplimiento del contrato, responsabilidad extracontractual, entre otros temas. Realizando breves comentarios, los autores también se refieren a las opciones legislativas acogidas en el ordenamiento peruano.

Les interactions entre individus sont un socle vital pour l’organisation des colonies d’abeilles, en particulier lors du recrutement pour le butinage. Outre la communication de la localisation d’une source de nourriture par la fameuse danse, les abeilles recrutées apprennent les caractéristiques de l’odeur des fleurs butinées au cours de transferts de nectar (trophallaxie). Les mécanismes de cet apprentissage ne sont pas encore éclaircis car il est parfois effectif sans aucun transfert de nectar, suggérant que d’autres mécanismes, comme par exemple d’apprentissage social, sont impliqués. Nous avons reproduit cette interaction en laboratoire, suivant un protocole basé sur le conditionnement olfactif appétitif de la réponse d’extension du proboscis (REP). Ici, un composé odorant initialement neutre (Stimulus conditionnel) était associé à un contact avec une congénère (Stimulus Inconditionnel social), sans récompense sucrée. Nos expériences montrent que ce simple contact social entre congénères peut constituer un renforcement pour les abeilles. A la suite de cette association, celles-ci montrent donc des REP à l’odeur préalablement associée au contact social. Nos expériences montrent de plus que des contacts antennaires entre les abeilles sont indispensables à l’efficacité de cet apprentissage social, représentant un indice social tactile. Nous avons alors développé un dispositif permettant d’enregistrer les mouvements des antennes de manière précise et à haute vitesse (90 hz) et étudié les différents facteurs modulant les mouvements antennaires des abeilles. Les abeilles montrent des réponses contrastées et reproductibles à des odeurs de valeurs biologiques différentes. De plus, le couplage de ces enregistrements à des expériences de conditionnement associatif montre que ces réponses antennaires sont plastiques et modifiées par l’expérience des individus. Ce travail a permis de mettre en lumière un nouveau type d’apprentissage social chez les insectes et d’approfondir l’étude des mouvements antennaires comme indicateurs de l’état motivationnel, attentionnel et physiologique des abeilles ainsi que de la valence des stimuli perçus. / In honeybees, interactions between individuals are cornerstones for the organization of the colony, especially during recruitment for foraging. Besides learning the location of a food source thanks to the well-known dance, the recruited bees learn the characteristics of odors of foraged flowers through nectar transfer (trophallaxis). The underlying mechanisms are still unclear because this learning can occur without any nectar transfer, suggesting that other, probably social, learning mechanisms are involved. We reproduced this interaction in the lab, using a protocol based on the appetitive olfactory conditioning of the proboscis extension response (PER). Here, an initially neutral odorant (conditioned stimulus) was associated with a contact with a nestmate (social unconditioned stimulus), without any sugar reward. Our experiments show that this simple social contact between workers can act as a reinforcement for bees. As a result, they show PER to the odor previously associated with a social contact. We further demonstrate that antenna contacts are essential for the effectiveness of this social learning, representing a tactile social cue. We thus developed a system allowing to record bees’ antennal movements accurately and at high frequency (90 hz). We then determined the factors modulating bees’ antennal movements. First, we show that bees display contrasted and reproducible responses to odors of different biological values. Second, the coupling of these recordings with associative conditioning experiments shows that these antennal responses are plastic and modified by individual experience. This work has shed light on a new type of social learning in insects and has furthered our understanding of antennal movements as indicators of the motivational, attentional and physiological state of bees and of the valence of perceived stimuli.

The Muslim headscarf conceals the hair and other external features of a face. For this reason it may have implications for the recognition of such faces. The experiments reported in this thesis aimed to investigate anecdotal reports, which suggested that headscarf wearing females are more difficult to recognise. This was done by employing a series of experiments which involved a yes/no recognition task. The stimuli that were used were images of South Asian females who were photographed wearing a Muslim headscarf (HS), with their own hair visible (H), and a third set of stimuli were produced in which their external features were cropped (CR). Most importantly, participants either took part in the condition in which the state of the external features remained the same between the learning and test stage (Same) or the condition in which they were switched between the two stages (Switch). In one experiment participants completed a Social Contact Questionnaire. Surprisingly, in the Same condition, there was no difference in the recognition rates of faces that were presented with hair, with headscarf, or cropped faces. However, participants in the Switch condition performed significantly worse than those in the Same condition. It was also found that there was no difference in the % of fixations to the external features between the Same and Switch condition, which implied that the drop in performance between the two conditions was not mediated by eye-movements. These results suggest that the internal and external features of a face are processed interactively and, although the external features were not fixated on, a manipulation to them caused a drop in performance. This was confirmed in a separate experiment in which participants were unable to ignore the external features when they were asked to judge the similarity of the internal features of pairs of faces. Pairs of headscarf faces were rated as being more similar compared to pairs of faces with hair. Finally, for one group of participants it was found that contact with headscarf-wearing females was positively correlated with the recognition of headscarf-wearing faces. It was concluded that the headscarf per se did not impair face recognition and that there is enough information in the internal features of a face for optimal recognition, however, performance was disrupted when the presence or absence of the headscarf was manipulated.