<p>The aim of the study was to explore the socio-cultural influences in decision making involving sexual behaviour among adolescents in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Cultural beliefs associated with adolescents&rsquo / decision to become sexually active were explored, as well as the social norms influences involved in adolescents&rsquo / sexual behaviour. The theoretical framework used for the study was Bronfenbrenner&rsquo / s ecological systems theory of development. The results indicated that adolescent pregnancy was perceived as unacceptable behaviour although found widespread in communities. Social influences such as peer influence, low socioeconomic status, alcohol use and lack of parental supervision were found to play a role in adolescents&rsquo / risky sexual behaviour. Cultural beliefs, cultural myths and social norms were identified as socio-cultural influences that endorsed issues such as gender disparities, which made adolescent mothers vulnerable. Findings from this study suggest that female adolescents are faced with sexual behaviour complexities.</p>

This two years master’s thesis is a review and exploration of the Swedish debate concerning children’s literature from the 19th century to the present, as well as the evaluation and analysis of four adaptations of the tale Red Riding Hood. The aims are to identify how ideas and values regarding the role of children’s literature in society have developed over time and to contribute with a knowledge base for continued reflection and discussion on the subject of children’s reading and mediation of children’s literature in public libraries. The theory and method used in the thesis, is primarily based on the discourse analysis of Michel Foucault. I have identified four main discourses: the educational discourse, the liberation discourse, the politicized dis- course and the popular discourse. To explore the tension between contingency and permanence within the dis- cursive field I have revolved the analysis around key concepts such as ”pedagogy”, ”children” and ”childhood”. The four different adaptations of Red Riding Hood illustrate how beliefs about children and children’s reading have been revised over time. The study shows that the debate and the literature have evolved from a didactic and instrumental point of view to a more liberating and aesthetic approach. But the movement is not linear and uni- vocal. The current debates and the range of children’s literature today exhibit tendencies both of protective mo- rality, expressive and imaginative aesthetics and political awareness. The predominant view of children is still as human “becoming’s” rather than “beings”, and the value of reading literature is thus regarded as extrinsic and as a tool for language development. This continuous and ongoing educational discourse takes little interest in the children’s own ideas and opinions about books and reading. It is my conclusion that children’s libraries, as me- diators of children’s literature, have an enhanced role to play in today’s technologically based society; providing and encouraging book discussions and other literary activities where not only the literature is in focus, but the children’s own reading experiences as well.

This thesis consists of four independent papers. The first two papers use experimental methods to study pro-social behaviors. The other two use theoretical methods to investigate questions about belief formation. The first paper “Communication: Content or Relationship?” investigates the effect on communication on generosity in a dictator game. In the basic experiment (the control), subjects in one room are dictators and subjects in another room are recipients. The subjects are anonymous to each other throughout the whole experiment. Each dictator gets to allocate a sum of 100 SEK between herself and an unknown recipient in the other room. In the first treatment we allow each recipient to send a free-form message to his dictator counterpart, before the dictator makes her allocation decision. In order to separate the effect of the content of the communication, from the relationship-building effect of communication, we carry out a third treatment, where we take the messages from the previous treatment and give each of them to a dictator in this new treatment. The dictators are informed that the recipients who wrote the messages are not the recipients they will have the opportunity to send money to. We find that this still increases donation compared to the baseline but not as much as in the other treatment. This suggests that both the impersonal content of the communication and the relationship effect matters for donations. The second paper, “Limbic justice – Amygdala Drives Rejection in the Ultimatum Game”, is about the neurological basis for the tendency to punish norm violators in the Ultimatum Game. In the Ultimatum Game, a proposer proposes a way to divide a fixed sum of money. The responder accepts or rejects the proposal. If the proposal is accepted the proposed split is realized and if the proposal is rejected both subjects gets zero. Subjects were randomly allocated to receive either the benzodiazepine oxazepam or a placebo substance, and then played the Ultimatum Game in the responder role, while lying in and fMRI camera. Rejection rate is significantly lower in the treatment group than in the control group. Moreover a mygdala was relatively more activated in the placebo group than in the oxazepam group for unfair offers. This is mirrored by differences in activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and right ACC. Our findings suggest that the automatic and emotional response to unfairness, or norm violations, are driven by amygdala and that balancing of such automatic behavioral responses is associated with parts of the prefrontal cortex. The conflict of motives is monitored by the ACC. In order to decide what strategy to choose, a player needs to form beliefs about what other players will do. This requires the player to have a model of how other people form beliefs – what psychologists call a theory of mind. In the third paper “Evolution of Theories of Mind” I study the evolution of players’ models of how other players think. When people play a game for the first time, their behavior is often well predicted by the level-k, and related models. According to this model, people think in a limited number of steps, when they form beliefs about other peoples' behavior. Moreover, people differ with respect to how they form beliefs. The heterogeneity is represented by a set of cognitive types {0,1,2,...}, such that type 0 randomizes uniformly and type k&gt;0 plays a k times iterated best response to this. Empirically one finds that most experimental subjects behave as if they are of type 1 or 2, and individuals of type 3 and above are very rare. When people play the same game more than once, they may use their experience to predict how others will behave. Fictitious play is a prominent model of learning, according to which all individuals believe that the future will be like the past, and best respond to the average of past play. I define a model of heterogeneous fictitious play, according to which there is a hierarchy of types {1,2,...}, such that type k plays a k time iterated best response to the average of past play. The level-k and fictitious play models, implicitly assume that players lack specific information about the cognitive types of their opponents. I extend these models to allow for the possibility that types are partially observed. I study evolution of types in a number of games separately. In contrast to most of the literature on evolution and learning, I also study the evolution of types across different games. I show that an evolutionary process, based on payoffs earned in different games, both with and without partial observability, can lead to a polymorphic population where relatively unsophisticated types survive, often resulting in initial behavior that does not correspond to a Nash equilibrium. Two important mechanisms behind these results are the following: (i) There are games, such as the Hawk-Dove game, where there is an advantage of not thinking and behaving like others, since choosing the same action as the opponent yields an inefficient outcome. This mechanism is at work even if types are not observed. (ii) If types are partially observed then there are Social dilemmas where lower types may have a commitment advantage; lower types may be able to commit to strategies that result in more efficient payoffs. The importance of categorical reasoning in human cognition is well-established in psychology and cognitive science, and one of the most important functions of categorization is to facilitate prediction. Prediction on the basis of categorical reasoning is relevant when one has to predict the value of a variable on the basis of one's previous experience with similar situations, but where the past experience does not include any situation that was identical to the present situation in all relevant aspects. In such situations one can classify the situation as belonging to some category, and use the past experiences in that category to make a prediction about the current situation. In the fourth paper, “Optimal Categorization”, I provide a model of categorizations that are optimal in the sense that they minimize prediction error. From an evolutionary perspective we would expect humans to have developed categories that generate predictions which induce behavior that maximize fitness, and it seems reasonable to assume that fitness is generally increasing in how accurate the predictions are. In the model a subject starts out with a categorization that she has learnt or inherited early in life. The categorization divides the space of objects into categories. In the beginning of each period, the subject observes a two-dimensional object in one dimension, and wants to predict the object’s value in the other dimension. She has a data base of objects that were observed in both dimensions in the past. The subject determines what category the new object belongs to on the basis of observation of its first dimension. She predicts that its value in the second dimension will be equal to the average value among the past observations in the corresponding category. At the end of each period the second dimension is observed, and the observation is stored in the data base. The main result is that the optimal number of categories is determined by a trade-off between (a) decreasing the size of categories in order to enhance category homogeneity, and (b) increasing the size of categories in order to enhance category sample size. In other words, the advantage of fine grained categorizations is that objects in a category are similar to each other. The advantage of coarse categorizations is that a prediction about a category is based on a large number of observations, thereby reducing the risk of over-fitting. Comparative statics reveal how the optimal categorization depends on the number of observations as well as on the frequency of objects with different properties. The set-up does not presume the existence of an objectively true categorization “out there”. The optimal categorization is a framework we impose on our environment in order to predict it. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2010. Sammanfattning jämte 4 uppsatser.</p>

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Technology: Business Administration, Durban University of Technology, 2014. / This thesis integrates social capital and ‘reasoned action’ theory to construct a theoretical model for investigating the factors which predict an individual’s intention to share tacit knowledge in a University of Technology. It utilizes Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998: 243) definition and conception of social capital. They define social capital as “the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through, and derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit”. This study examined tacit knowledge sharing behaviour (i.e., knowledge that is shared between individuals) within the context of social capital. The specific type of tacit knowledge that is being studied relates to work experience ‘know-what’ and ‘know-how’. ‘Know-what’ refers to the basic mastery of a discipline that professionals achieve through education and training. ‘Know-how’ refers to procedural knowledge about a business process and the individual’s capability to perform an action with an understanding of why the action is appropriate in the particular context, (i.e., action skill or applied competence). Specifically, this study examines the relationship between the structural, relational and cognitive dimensions of social capital and the individual’s attitude towards the sharing of tacit knowledge. It further examines the relationship between the individual’s attitude towards tacit knowledge sharing, their perceived norms and perceived behavioural control over the sharing of tacit knowledge (mediating variables) and their intention to share tacit knowledge. It is a case study which consists of a mixed methods research design, incorporating nine research interviews and five hundred and fifty four self administered questionnaires. The theoretical model is examined using structural equation modeling (SEM) and as a result of the findings, the initial model is revised into a set of theoretical models, which are tested using SEM and found to be consistent with the data (i.e., a good fit). The direct, indirect and total effects of the identified predictor (social capital) and mediating variables (‘reasoned action’) on the individual’s intention to share tacit knowledge, in each model, is examined and the results are presented. Each dimension of social capital is found to be significant for predicting the criterion variable ‘attitude towards tacit knowledge sharing’. The individual’s attitude towards tacit knowledge sharing is found to be highly significant for predicting the individual’s intention to share tacit knowledge but the ‘reasoned action’ variables are found to be not as significant, particularly perceived behavioural control over the sharing of tacit knowledge. The results of this study enrich our collective understanding regarding social capital and tacit knowledge sharing behaviour.

The general aim of the project was to describe the situation of lesbians and gay men in a nursing environment by studying the attitudes of nursing staff and students, and the experiences of gay nursing staff in their work environment and of gay patients and partners in their encounters with nursing. The study for papers I and II had a descriptive, comparative design. Nurses, assistant nurses, and nursing students completed the Attitudes Toward Homosexuality Scale (ATHS), the Causes of Homosexuality Questionnaire (CHQ), and the Affect Adjective Checklist (AAC), along with the Nursing Behaviour Questionnaire (NBQ). In general, the participating nursing staff and students expressed positive attitudes, though some subjects reported very negative attitudes toward gay people. The participants also expressed a full spectrum of emotions from delight to anger. The studies for papers III and IV had a descriptive, explorative design. Here, the data collection was performed by semi-structured interviews. The informants were gay nursing staff, gay patients and partners of patients. The gay personnel reported fear and concern about heterosexuals' reactions when these informants 'come out', and were constantly assesing the risk being open about their sexual orientation among their workmates. Nearly all patients and partners described several situations where heteronormative assumptions were communicated by the nursing staff. Almost all informants offered recommendations for nursing staff to facilitate communication. According to the presented findings, probably only a small minority in Swedish nursing have negative attitudes toward lesbians and gay men. However, the informants told of heteronormative language and behaviour in nursing contexts that were percieved as insensitive, insulting and humaliating. Nursing staff need to learn how to communicate in a more natural way and to be aware of the norms they communicate through the language and behaviour they use.

We study the role of performance differences in a task requiring cognitive effort on in-group bias. We show that the in-group bias is strong in groups consisting of high-performing members, and it is weak in low-performing groups. This holds although high-performing subjects exhibit no in-group bias as members of minimal groups, whereas low-performing subjects strongly do. We also observe instances of low-performing subjects punishing the in-group favoritism of low-performing peers. The same does not occur in high-performing or minimal groups where subjects generally accept that decisions are in-group biased. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

This paper investigates the impact of social norms on the performance and valuation of “controversial stocks”- publicly traded companies involved in the production of Adult Entertainment, Alcohol, Gambling, Nuclear Energy, Tobacco, Uranium, and Weapons. Their performance and valuation is directly compared with compare non-controversial stocks. The paper consider an international sample of 941 controversial stocks. Employing a multi-factor performance measure, seven countries provide a significant outperformance of controversial stocks across all relevant control factors. The valuation analysis, however, provide mixed results on a country level, but on the global market-to-book ratio provide a significant overvaluation of controversial stocks compared to comparable non-controversial stocks, which contradicts the prediction of an undervaluation.JEL classification:

Text in Afrikaans / The actuality of the pedagogical question concerning the role of ideology, values and norms in the life of man in general and education specifically stimulated the interest of the author and prompted her to examine the past in this respect. The contemporary image of ideology, values, norms, personal and global philosophies are looked at in this study. Particular attention is paid to the ideologies that developed from the Renaissance e.g. Humanistic oriented Realism, Rationalism and Naturalism. Certain role players are briefly referred to. The Communist Educational System influenced more than half of the human race over a period of seventy years resulting in a thorough investigation into this system. The influence of People's Education in education in general was also scrutinized. Because so many South Africans are adherents of Calvinism it was important that attention was paid to: The philosophy of Calvinism; What it entails; How it originated and its impact on South African Education. Particular reference was made to the role of Christian National Education. It is fairly generally accepted that a new period in history of the West in relation to values, norms and education is being entered into. The period discussion is more concerned with spiritual development, culture knowledge and religion of the human race than political and military power, although, the latter is not excluded. It was also necessary to take note of the influence of the New Age movement on values and norms. The study is concluded with the evaluation of ideology, values, norms, personal and global philosophies. Some of the most important conclusions arrived at are that these aspects are interwoven and that education is pertinently influenced by the values, norms, culture, personal and global philosophies of the individual, community and government. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (Historiese Opvoedkunde)

L’objectif de cette thèse est d’interroger la controverse autour de l’élevage et d’en étudier sa dynamique pour analyser le processus par lequel elle aboutit à une transformation des normes sociales. Pour cela, la controverse est abordée par une analyse systémique permettant de rendre compte de la complexité des relations causales entre ses multiples dimensions et ses différentes échelles d’expression. Les techniques de collecte et d’analyse des données reposent sur des méthodes qualitatives et quantitatives pour cerner au plus près les processus sociaux étudiés. Une analyse sociohistorique permet d’ancrer le processus de transformation des normes dans le long terme et montre que, depuis le XIXème siècle, le système productiviste suscite des incertitudes quant à son application dans le domaine agricole, en particulier dans ses conséquences sur les animaux et l’environnement. La description des éléments de la controverse montre qu’elle se structure autour d’incertitudes scientifiques et éthiques auxquelles les parties prenantes de la controverse, que sont le monde de l’élevage et le monde associatif, doivent apporter des réponses. L’analyse de l’audience de la controverse auprès du public permet d’identifier une variété des manières de penser l’élevage, qui s’exprime au sein d’un forum hybride dans lequel une multitude d’acteurs contribuent à donner du sens à l’activité. Les rapports de force entre les acteurs déséquilibrent toutefois les capacités de chacun à influencer cette construction des normes. Globalement, c’est vers une prise de distance avec une forme d’élevage perçue comme industrielle et artificielle qu’évoluent les normes règlementaires, professionnelles et culturelles / The objective of this thesis is to question the controversy about livestock farming and to study its dynamic to then analyse the process by which this controversy results in a transformation of social norms. For that purpose, the controversy is addressed by a systemic analysis that enables to reflect the complexity of causal relations between its various aspects and its different scales of expression. Techniques of data collection and analysis lie on qualitative and quantitative methods in order to understand more precisely the social processes studied. A sociohistorical analysis enables to integrate the process of norms transformation in the long run and to show that, since the 19th century, the productiondriven system creates uncertainty regarding its application in the agricultural area, mainly in its consequences on animals and the environment. The description of the controversy elements shows that the controversy is structured around scientific and ethical uncertainties. Stakeholders of the controversy (the livestock sector and the associative sector) must come up with some answers to these scientific and ethical uncertainties. The analysis of the interest of the public for this controversy enables to identify a variety of ways of thinking the livestock farming that express among a hybrid forum in which a large number of actors contribute to make sense to this activity. However, power relations between the actors unbalance the capacities of each one to influence this norms construction. Globally, regulatory standards, professional and cultural norms are changing towards a distancing with a livestock farming form that is perceived as industrial and artificial.

In what has been described as “the age of migration” by Castles et al. (2014) the international transfers of remittances is an ever-growing phenomenon, which has generated an increased interest among both scholars and policy-makers. According to the World Bank (2016), the flow of remittances to developing countries is today exceeding the amount of official development aid by three times. The objective of this study is to contribute to a more nuanced view of the motivations for remittances by conducting a qualitative interview study with remittance senders in Sweden. The study uses data obtained from 18 interviews in order to receive an in-depth understanding of remittance attitudes. An analytical framework departing from Lucas and Stark’s hypotheses on motives to remit (1985) combined with the conjugal contract model (Whitehead, 1984) is constructed and used for the analysis of the findings. The paper argues that the relationship between household members can be seen as a social contract, and the findings suggest a correlation between social norms and gender roles within the family. The results of the interviews indicate that social norms do influence remittance behaviour, and the determinants of time and expectations from the household are also proven relevant to the topic. The findings thus show that the concept of social contracts between family members can be usefully employed in order to extend our understanding of remittance behaviour. In conclusion, this study shows that viewing remittances as part of a social contract within households can provide a useful tool for further research on the topic.