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The current study followed the methodology used by Erchul and colleagues (eg., Erchul, Raven, & Ray, 2001, Getty & Erchul, 2008) to assess and compare the likelihood of use of social power bases reported by school psychologists and school counselors. Furthermore, because the Interpersonal Power Inventory (consultant usage form; IPI-Form CT-U) was used for the first time with the school counselors, the factor structure of the instrument was also examined using Principal Component Analysis. 2 components, harsh and soft power, were identified which were similar to the harsh and soft power sources identified in the previous studies using IPI. Similar to previous research with school psychologists, the results of the current study also demonstrated that IPI-Form CT-U is an internally consistent measure that can be used to assess the likelihood of use of soft and harsh power bases in school counselors. The current study emphasized the similarities and underscored the differences between the likelihood of use of social power bases among school counselors and school psychologists. Overall, both school psychologists and school counselors rated soft power bases higher than harsh power bases. Informational power, expert power, and legitimate power of dependence were the three highest rated power bases by school psychologists and school counselors. In comparison to school psychologists, school counselors reported a higher likelihood of using soft power when consulting with a teacher. A comparison between the individual social power ratings by school psychologists and counselors revealed that school counselors rated expert power, legitimate power of dependence, and impersonal coercion higher in terms of their likelihood of use, as compared to the school psychologists. The differences in the ratings by school counselors and school psychologists may be explained in the light of the differences in their training, the nature of their role and their placement in school settings.

This dissertation extends the media effects literature into the realm of social media. Scholars have long known that partisan news contributes to political polarization, but claim that such effects are often limited to those who tune into politics. Social media, however, can filter political information to those typically uninterested in politics. Because social media feature entertainment and political news in the same space, entertainment-seekers may inadvertently see political news that they normally avoid in traditional media contexts. Through a combination of observational research, survey experiments, and field experiments, I demonstrate that social media facilitate personal influence, drawing new audiences to political news. This increased exposure to partisan media contributes to political polarization, regardless of the ideological congruence between source and receiver, or of news- or entertainment-seeking habits of the audience. But the most important contributions of this dissertation are how it demonstrates the need for scholars to use innovative methods that incorporate personal influence into social media studies, and that it draws scholarly attention to inadvertent media effects for entertainment-seeking audiences. Social media bring political news to new audiences numbering in the millions. Political communication scholars would be remiss not to investigate their influence. / Political Science

“A strange girl” In this thesis, we study selected dialogue scenes from the movies “På rymmen med Pippi Långstrump” and “Pippi på de sju haven”. The purpose of the study is to investigate how the character Pippi Longstocking is portrayed as a leader of a social group through her interactions. Based on the social interaction between Pippi, Tommy and Annika we are able to analyze behavior patterns, social categorization and attributes. We use the method of interaction analysis to make it possible to study leadership in social contexts. The result of the study indicates that Pippi Longstocking practices leadership but also that she is attributed to leadership through Tommy and Annika’s behaviors and actions in situations. Furthermore, it is discussed how the friends show an unreasonable trust in Pippi and choose to follow her at any costs.

Ett nytt kapitel i livet ska helt plötsligt börja när det nyfödda barnet kommer till världen. När man som kvinna precis har fått barn kan det kännas överväldigande och man kan ha svårt att veta om de känslorna kommer från en själv eller andra, då många kommer med egna åsikter. Hur man väljer att ge sitt barn mat kan ske på olika sätt, och detta kan skapa blandade känslor hos kvinnan. I samhället kan man uppleva en minskning av amning då substitut, som exempelvis ersättning, finns lättillgängliga som är innehållsrika. Syftet med denna kvalitativa intervjustudie var att förstå kvinnors resonemang kring amning och hur detta påverkas av samhälleliga sociala faktorer. Med en socialpsykologisk ansats studerades detta genom teorier som genusteori och symbolisk interaktionism. I studien genomfördes tio stycken semistrukturerade intervjuer på kvinnor som fått barn de senaste tre åren och bott i Sverige i minst tio år. Resultatet visar att respondenternas sociala omgivning har stor påverkan på deras resonemang om amning via bröstet. Vi kan i resultatet även läsa hur respondenterna upplever tvetydiga åsikter och signaler från deras sociala omgivning. Den del av omgivningen som anses ha störst påverkan anses vara respondenternas signifikanta andra. / A completely new chapter in life will suddenly begin when the newborn baby comes into the world. When you become a “mother”, it can feel overwhelming and it can be difficult to know whether those feelings come from yourself or others, as many may come with their own opinions. How you choose to feed your baby can happen indifferent ways, and this can create mixed feelings for the women. In society, you can experience a reduction in breastfeeding because substitutes, such as formula, are and rich in content. The purpose of this qualitative interview study was to understand the mothers' reasoning regarding breastfeeding and how this is affected by societal social factors. With a social psychological approach, this was studied through theories such as gender theory and symbolic interactionism. In the study, ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with women who had children in the last three years and lived in Sweden for at least ten years. The results show that the respondents' social environment has a great influence on their reasoning of breastfeeding via the breast. In the results, we can also read how the respondents experience ambiguous opinions and signals from their social environment. The part of the environment that is considered to have the greatest impact is considered to be the respondents' significant other.

Risky decision-making and social influence are associated with many health-risk behaviors. However, more work is necessary to understand risky decision-making and social influence. Additionally, to begin identifying ways to change individuals' engagement in health-risk behaviors, more work is necessary to understand whether and how risky decision-making and social influence can be modulated. Using computational modeling in conjunction with other techniques, this dissertation 1) explores mechanisms underlying risky decision-making under social influence (Study 1) and 2) examines how individuals could modulate risky decision-making and social influence (Studies 2 and 3). Study 1 identifies a novel social heuristic decision-making process whereby individuals who are more uncertain about risky decisions follow others and proposes dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) as a 'controller' of this heuristic. Study 2 finds that giving individuals agency in viewing social information increases the utility of that information. Study 3 finds that some individuals can modulate brain patterns associated with risky decision-making using a real-time fMRI (rt-fMRI) neurofeedback paradigm, and preliminarily shows that this leads to behavior change in risky decision-making. In sum, these studies expand on previous work elucidating mechanisms of risky decision-making under social influence and suggest two possible avenues (agency and real-time fMRI neurofeedback) by which individuals can be taught to change their behavior when making risky decisions under social influence. / Doctor of Philosophy / Risky decision-making and social influence are associated with many health-risk behaviors such as smoking and alcohol use. However, more work is necessary to understand risky decision-making and social influence. Additionally, to identify ways to change individuals' engagement in health-risk behaviors, more work is necessary to understand how risky decision-making and social influence can be changed. Here, computational modeling, a way to quantify individual's behavior, is used in a series of studies to 1) understand how individuals make risky decisions under social influence (Study 1) and 2) test ways in which individuals can be guided to change the way they respond to social influence (Study 2) and make risky decisions (Study 3). Study 1 shows that individuals who do not have strong preferences respond to social information in a different way than those who do and utilizes neuroimaging to identify a particular brain region which may be responsible for this process. Study 2 shows that individuals are more influenced by others when they ask to see their choices, as compared to passively viewing others' choices. Study 3 shows that a brain–computer interface can be used to guide individuals to change their brain activity related to risky decision-making and preliminarily demonstrates that following this training individuals change their risky decisions. Together, these studies further the field's understanding of how individuals make risky decisions under social influence and suggest avenues for behavior change in risky decision-making under social influence.