Though research has shown that social context influences behavior, research on product placement is yet to incorporate such effects. This is a very significant research gap since product placements are often consumed as part of a shared viewing experience. To address this gap, this dissertation examines social contextual influences on consumer behavior associated with the coviewing of product placements. Two aspects of social context were examined in a 2 (group composition: friends versus strangers) x 2 (coviewing context: interactive versus passive) experimental design. Data were collected during a laboratory experiment in which participants in dyads first viewed a 22-minute Seinfeld sitcom episode and then completed an online survey, designed to collect data on the variables in this study. Since the data were hierarchical in nature, i.e., individuals nested in groups, multilevel modeling was used to analyze the data. Results showed that friends recalled significantly more placed brands than did strangers. Friends also held significantly stronger, more positive attitudes toward the audiovisual, very prominently placed brand, Gore-Tex. However, there was no significant difference between interactive and passive coviewers on recall of and attitudes toward placed brands. Results suggest that the impact of individual-level variables on brand recall and on attitude toward placed brands did not significantly depend on social context. The exceptions were for the effects of: (1) brand familiarity on attitude toward Gore-Tex, which was stronger for strangers than friends, and (2) parasocial attachment on attitude toward the visual only, very subtly placed brand, Coca-Cola, which was stronger for interactive than passive coviewers. The results hold implications for marketing theory, methodology, and practice. Results suggest that to the extent marketers can create, encourage, and maintain social contexts that favor friendship effects, they stand to benefit with desired outcomes. Results also suggest that interaction during coviewing may not cause a significant enhancement in or decrement to recall of and attitude toward placed brands. This study is the stepping stone for research on social contextual influences in product placement research. There is still much to be done on research in this area, particularly since social contextual influences are expected to play a major role in the future of marketing.

The purpose of this study was to investigate some motivational factors that enhancepupils’ written homework performance as well as the obstacles that make writtenhomework a difficult task. The method applied in this thesis is qualitative. Theinvestigation was carried out with the help of semi-structured interviews. The results ofthis study indicate that the pupils have different attitudes to their written homework. Themost interesting result is that not all successful pupils are highly externally motivated.The research shows that external motivational factors can enhance the pupils’ writtenperformance well enough but they can also lead to stress and anxiety and complicate thewriting process for less successful pupils. Another finding of this dissertation is thatdeadlines related to assessment can be treated as a negative form of external motivation.

This dissertation traces debates about youth crime and justice in Canada. On a substantive level, I ask how the social problem of youth crime and justice is constructed, focusing specifically on debates over the culpability of young offenders. I also examine debates over the degree and severity of youth crime and connect the divergent positions on this question to how young offenders are conceptualized. Related to these debates, I examine the search for solutions to youth crime. I argue that positions regarding how to address youth crime are rendered ambiguous given the creation of a hybridized youth justice context which combines various competing goals. On a theoretical level, I explore the relationship between how formulations of "deviant identities" (in this case "young offenders") are related to other areas of advocacy over a social problem. I explore the dynamics of a social problem debate which persists without resolution over an extended period of time. I also address the ways in which social context impacts upon claims made over a social problem. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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<p>Variations in the rate of use of health care services (a.k.a. medical practice variations) have been described in the literature for over eighty years. The literature suggests three general sources of variation: patients, physicians, and environment. The relative influence of these sources and the specific mechanisms that produce observed variations are not well understood. This thesis presents four studies that identify and examine methodological issues that preclude our ability to understand the variation phenomenon.</p> <p>It is commonly believed that the physician is in part responsible for observed variation in health care services use. However, determining the influence of the physician in this regard is problematic, as it is difficult to isolate the effect of the physician from that of the patient and environment (including available resources). The first study presented in this thesis suggests there is meaningful variation in treatment recommendations between physicians working in a common environment, even after controlling for important patient clinical characteristics. Next, I present an experiment that suggests that factors related to the patient’s unique social context might influence how the physician intends to manage a patient’s care. As variations studies do not measure or adjust for social context, this might indicate an important methodological limitation of those studies if indeed context is an important (and justifiable) determinant of what care the patient will receive.</p> <p>Not all variation is necessarily bad. The third study I present explores how previous researchers discriminate between warranted and unwarranted variation. This study indicates that few researchers explicitly do so, and that a clear, consistent, and functional definition of unwarranted variation is lacking – a feature that potentially limits the interpretation of study results. The final study argues that traditional methods for examining regional variations are inadequate for informing health care managers because they examine variation in health care service use rather than needs.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Kvinnors föreställningar om den egna kroppen är ett välstuderat område medan motsvaradestudier om manliga uppfattningar är mindre vanliga. Utifrån denna iakttagelse väcktes intressetför studien. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att utifrån ett sociokulturellt perspektiv belysa hurunga män talar om den manliga kroppen samt uppmärksamma normer, vad som underdiskussionerna framstår som sanningar i de unga männens verklighet. Teoretisk referensram: Studien har sin teoretiska utgångspunkt i sociokulturellt perspektiv. Det vill säga att individerformas och får kunskap utifrån den kultur de befinner sig i. Metod: Den kvalitativa empiriinsamlingen genomfördes med stöd utifrån diskursanalys och avsåg att uppmärksamma desanningar, diskurser som framträder under diskussion med unga män kring den manliga kroppen. Resultat: Av studien framkommer det att den manliga normen innefattar att vara kroppsmässigtstor och utstråla självsäkerhet, en norm de unga männen menar att få når upp till. Var föreställningar och normer om den manliga kroppen uppstår visar sig främst vara via media.Vidare visar resultatet att diskurser för hur en man bör se ut och vara varierar beroende på socialkontext. Det framträder även att det inom en specifik kontext kan finnas flera diskurser samt attvad de unga männen ansett som det “normala” inom specifika kontexter ändrats med åren. / Women's perceptions of their own body is an well-studied area. On the contrary, similar studieson men are not as common. This interesting observation laid a foundation for this study.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to illustrate how young men talk about the male body froma socio-cultural perspective, with attention to the standards that appear as truths in the youngmen's reality during discussions. Theoretical framework: The study is based upon a sociocultural perspective, meaning that individuals are shaped and learn from their culturalsurroundings. Method: By discourse analysis, quality based empirical data was collected. Theprimary purpose was to observe and learn about how young men see and talk about men's bodies. Result: The study reveals, by looking at the perception among young men, that a man shouldhave a big, muscular body and act with a great self confidence. A standard few men live up to, participants of the focus groups think. The expectations and perceptions are created mainlythrough media. Furthermore, the study shows that it also depends on the men's social context. Itis also evident that within a specific context, several different discourses can exist about whatshould be seen as "normal" and that it can change as the years pass by.

The subject is life in rural areas and the purpose of the essay is to explore and understand,why a group of women brought up in Storuman, after a while living elsewhere, choose to move back and settle down. The urbanization process where people leave the countryside and move to cities affects the rural everyday life as societies in the countryside are dismantled.The terms of living in the countryside are perceived unequal compared to living in cities. This is a qualitative study written and inspired by ethnography based on the following theories. Habitus and field by Bourdieu, push and pull by Ravenstein and the theory of socialcontext in rural areas. The conclusions are that social relations and positive connections to the place are essential to women's choice of choosing life i Storuman. Behaviour and lifestyle have been passed over to next generation. The nature in Storuman, being an area of leisure, togetherness and recreation, plays an important part in the lifestyle these women have chosen. The word safety connected to women's experience and feeling towards Storuman is strong and pulls them back. So does also their experience of living elsewhere.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-22T17:26:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ida 1.pdf: 61293 bytes, checksum: 0554ade9fc6c9e47beed4127ad4c78a0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-07-28 / This study aimed to verify the origins of children s motivations to learn a foreign language at school. The investigated subjects were children beginners in English at a rural school and children beginners in Spanish at an urban school. The data for this study were colleted through different instruments getting information from children, their families and from their school context. The results indicate that the motivations showed by children come from social constructions developed in the process of interaction: subject/social context, in the case of this study, from children s interaction with the family and their school contexts. / Este estudo teve por objetivo identificar as origens das motivações das crianças para a aprendizagem de uma língua estrangeira (LE) na escola. Os sujeitos investigados foram crianças, aprendizes iniciantes do inglês de uma escola da zona rural e crianças aprendizes iniciantes do espanhol de uma escola urbana. Para a coleta dos dados foram utilizados diferentes instrumentos que colheram informações das crianças, de suas famílias e do contexto escolar. Assim, foi possível verificar que as motivações são um produto de construções sociais desenvolvidas no processo de interação - sujeito/meio social, no caso deste estudo, nas formas de interação das crianças com os ambientes escolar e familiar.

Este trabalho é uma reflexão sobre a produção artística em artemídia em que o contexto em suas diversas esferas social, público, tecnológico ou econômico é parte fundamental de sua proposta. Interessa-nos investigar em quais circunstâncias a arte tecnológica poderá atuar em questionamentos do cotidiano e da própria tecnologia. Para tanto, este percurso apóia-se inicialmente na teoria da Estética Relacional de Nicolas Bourriaud, aproximandose de diversas estratégias artísticas de intervenção ou desvio contra o uso homogêneo dos meios. A pesquisa contempla também a análise de diversos trabalhos artísticos de autores nacionais e estrangeiros, dentro do escopo assinalado, e resultou igualmente na elaboração de dois projetos poéticos em desenvolvimento conjunto com o artista Edgar Franco, o site Freakpedia e o Projeto Vislumbres Pós-humanos. / This work is a reflection about a new media art production which the context in different forms social, public, technological or economic is elemental part proposition. Interest us to explore what situations the technological art will act in quotidian questions and technology. Therefore, this way is supported initially in Nicolas Bourriauds theory Relational Aesthetics and also, in second moment, in several artistic strategies of intervention or transgression against homogeneous media use. The research contemplate analysis of national and foreign artworks, inside of scope marked, and resulted also in elaboration of two practical projects in development with the artist Edgar Franco, the web site Freakpedia e o Project Vislumbres Pós-humanos.