This study contributes to a growing body of knowledge about diet and about exercise behaviors of young adults. This information is needed if we are to plan public health campaigns designed to reduce the risk of chronic disease through more healthful eating habits and a more active lifestyle. A questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 18-24 year old Oregonians. It included questions about factors influencing food choices, exercise behavior questions, and a food frequency questionnaire. The final sample of 57 exercisers and 70 non-exercisers was examined for differences in opinion about the healthfulness of specific foods, relatedness between opinions and consumption of these foods, and general adequacy of dietary intake. Factor analysis demonstrated a relationship between the constructs "not fattening/fattening" and "good for my health/not good for my health", which we called the "healthfulness" factor and examined further. Opinion about the healthfulness of 20 foods was evaluated. Exercisers were similar to non-exercisers, and in general did not have stronger opinions about the healthfulness of certain foods than the non-exercisers. There were more differences among exercisers stratified by those exercising more frequently, and those exercising less frequently. Consumption of most foods was not related to opinions about the healthfulness of the food for exercisers or nonexercisers. It may be that opinions about the healthfulness of a food, influence a young adult's consumption of that food, but only for foods not considered very tasty. Neither exercisers nor non-exercisers had dietary intakes which compared well with Food Guide Pyramid minimum recommendations, although exercisers did come closer to eating 2 fruits per day than did non-exercisers. For other food groups the trend was for more exercisers to meet the minimum recommendations than non-exercisers, and more males to meet the minimum intakes than females. Overall, consumption of the meat/meat alternate group was closest to recommendations, followed by fruits, grains, dairy, and vegetables. Both groups rated highly the importance of eating nutritious foods, while exercisers felt more confident in their ability to read nutrition labels. Young adults perceive time to be their scarcest resource in matters of food consumption. / Graduation date: 1996

Implementation intentions have been shown to improve prospective memory performance among a variety of populations. In two studies, the effectiveness of implementation intentions was examined among young and older adults. In Experiment 1 64 young adults were placed into one of four instructional conditions (Read-Only, Imagery, Implementation Intention, Combined) before completing a laboratory-based prospective memory task. Results reveal that prospective memory performance improves under each of the three experimental conditions, but that there is no additional benefit of combining imagery with implementation intentions. In a novel finding, imagery alone produced improvements comparable to implementation intentions. Experiment 2 investigated the effect of implementation intentions among 32 older adults, who were characterized as possessing high- or low-frontal function based on neuropsychological test performance. Implementation intentions improved prospective memory among both groups, regardless of frontal function. The results of these studies suggest that implementation intentions can improve prospective memory among both young and older adults. Importantly, these findings reveal that imagery alone may be an effective means of improving prospective memory. Additionally, that implementation intentions improved prospective memory among older adults, regardless of frontal function, raises important questions about potential mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of implementation intentions.

It is well established that older adults show a deficit in episodic memory. The associative deficit hypothesis (ADH) (Naveh-Benjamin, 2000) suggests that an age-related reduced ability to create links between units of information is a major contributor to the episodic deficit. It has been a robust finding that older adults show a disproportionate decline in associative memory relative to item memory when compared to young adults. Previous researchers have investigated the role of the frontal lobes (FL) by studying the effect of reduced attentional resources in the associative deficit. However, they have not found that divided attention in young adults produces the disproportionate associative decline seen in aging and it is thought that some cognitive process other than the allocation of attentional resources may contribute to the associative deficit. The present study intended to use a divided attention (DA) task that also engages medial temporal brain regions (MTL) in order to tax additional parts of the network involved in creating associations and provide indirect support for the role of the MTL in the associative deficit. However, the associative memory deficit in older adults was not replicated due to unique poor associative memory performance of some young adults in the study. Analyses excluding these participants show support for the role of the MTL in the associative deficit. However, the young poor performers may provide support for the role of FL function in the associative deficit and show that poor associative memory may not be limited to the older adult cohort.

Divorce has long been described as one of the most stressful experiences that any human being can ever experience. The process of divorce implies numerous sudden and highly stressful changes to any individual affected by it, including children. The literature review of the present study revealed valuable insight regarding the effects of divorce, in particular on children. The studies among them which were found to have identified some of the more detrimental implications of divorce for children in particular, included the studies by Jonsson, Njardvik, Olafsdottir and Gretarsson (2000); Eldar-Avidan, Haj-Yahia and Greenbaum (2009); and Yu, Pettit, Lansford, Dodge and Bates (2010). Despite numerous research studies having been done on the phenomena of divorce both in South Africa and globally, it appears that the majority of these studies mostly focused on its detrimental implications for both children and adults. Few of these studies were found to have focused on possible optimal implications or on effective coping with divorce. Some studies that were found to have touched on the potential optimal effects of parental divorce included the studies by Mullis, Mullis, Schwartz, Pease and Shriner (2007); Graff-Reed (N.D.); and Spalding and Pretorius (2001). One particularly influential study that was, however, identified to have been done on the phenomena of coping with parental divorce, was conducted by Roux (2007) who focused specifically on children’s coping with parental divorce. This study focused exclusively on children and involved interviews with children themselves at the time of their parents’ divorce. No research could be identified on how young adults in South Africa had attempted to cope with their parents’ divorce during their childhood and/or adolescent years. This determination led to an attempt to fill this apparent void in the literature and expand on the study that had been conducted by Roux (2007) by completing the present study. The focus of the present study subsequently fell on how young adults had coped with the divorce of their parents during their childhood and/or adolescent years. The aims of the present study were: * To investigate and obtain a clearer understanding of young adults’ coping with divorce during their childhood and/or adolescent years. * To determine if there were factors that played a role in coping with parental divorce. * To determine what recommendations could be made to the parents of children undergoing divorce. * To determine what recommendations could be made to children while undergoing parental divorce. The research questions that were included in the present study for the aforementioned purpose included the following: * How did young adults cope with the divorce of their parents during their childhood and/or adolescent years? * Were there factors that played a role in their coping and if so what were the factors? * What would they recommend to the parents of children during and after divorce? * What would they recommend to children during and after parental divorce? Semi-structured retrospective interviews were conducted with 15 participants in the completion of the present study. Each of these interviews where transcribed and the relevant data were analysed from these transcriptions by firstly reading of the protocols, followed by dividing them into natural meaning units (NMUs), performing linguistic transformation, integrating the NMUs with related themes, synthesising the data and developing a general description before it was finally documented and published. Selection of the participants was made by means of snowball sampling, as young adults nominated acquaintances whom they believed may also be willing to participate in the research (Whitley, 2002). The value of the present study was that it expanded the knowledge base regarding young adults’ coping with parental divorce during their childhood and/or adolescent years. It also culminated in the creation of a set of recommendations for both children and adults that would promote effective coping among them with parental divorce. It is hoped that these insights and recommendations will enable psychologists, social workers, counsellors, health care practitioners and/or any other individual/s involved with assisting families during divorce, to cope more effectively with this event. It is also hoped that further future research and follow-up studies into this particularly relevant and far reaching phenomenon will continue to be conducted by other researchers both in South Africa and abroad. / PhD (Psychology), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

Abstract Background: Networks with closed structures may lead to a scarcity of diversified norms which may leave an individual with only negative norms to be influenced by. Trust, relationship quality and social support are also examples of characteristics which may affect the adoption of health behaviors.                                                                                           Aims: To study whether there are any associations between network closure as well as relationship content (trust, relationship quality, social support) and the use of cannabis as well as the frequency of binge drinking, and how these associations are interacted by other factors.  Method: Logistic regression analyses were carried out to calculate the crude and adjusted odds ratios for 19-years old young adults in Sweden (n=2,942). Interaction analyses were also performed.                                                                                                                          Results: Individuals in high closure networks had a higher tendency to binge drink frequently. Individuals that in general are unhealthy, have many smoking friends and who are males had a higher propensity to both use cannabis and to binge drink when included in high closure networks.                                                                                                                      Conclusion: Individuals may be affected negatively by being included in networks with closed structures – some more than other − which is possibly mediated by the types of norms that are available.

Aims: The purpose of this thesis is to describe peer educators’ experiences from the training given to them by The Leadership South Programme. The aim is also to describe the participants’ perceived self-empowerment and perceptions about their own learning and experiences of being a peer educator. The study also aims to explore how peer educators share their skills with others. Methods: Grounded Theory is the method used for the research presented in this thesis. The data collection was done by open-ended questionnaires followed by qualitative interviews. Results: The results show that the peer educators who participated in our study show increased self-esteem and motivation. The training has also given them increased knowledge in communicating, listening and facilitating others. Furthermore peer educators experienced increased self-awareness and learned how to motivate and support their peers and share information. / Mål: Denna uppsats syftar till att undersöka hur ungdomar, som har genomgått Leadership South’s program, upplever utbildningen. Syftet är också att analysera deltagarnas upplevda känsla av egenmakt, så kallad empowerment, och uppfattningar om deras eget lärande och erfarenheter av att vara en fadder (peer educator). Slutligen vill vi också undersöka hur respondenterna agerar för att dela med sig av sina erfarenheter. Metod: Grundad teori är den metod som använts i forskningen som presenteras i denna uppsats. Datainsamlingen genomfördes med hjälp av en enkät med öppna frågor följd av en kvalitativ intervju. Resultat: Resultatet visar att de ungdomar som deltagit i vår undersökning har stärkts genom ökad självkänsla och ökad motivation. Utbildningen har också gett dem ökade kunskaper i kommunikation, att lyssna och att facilitera andra. Vidare har ungdomarna, genom ökad självkännedom, lärt sig att motivera och stötta sina kamrater och tillsammans dela och sprida information.

<strong>Background. </strong> Post-secondary institutions account for more smokers than any other occupational setting in Canada (Hammond, 2005). Unfortunately, little is known about tobacco use among this distinct population of students. The purpose of this study was to identify the prevalence of smoking and patterns of cigarette use among undergraduates at the University of Waterloo. The current study also sought to investigate the role of school connectedness in predicting students? smoking behaviours, and to explore the relation of student smoking status as determined by a behavoural measure and self-reported smoking status. <br /><br /> <strong>Methods. </strong> A secondary analysis of data collected using the University of Waterloo Tobacco Use Survey (2004) was employed for this research. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequencies, means, and percentages), non-parametric statistics (chi-square and Cohen?s kappa), principle components factor analysis and logistic regression in order to serve the exploratory purposes of the study. <br /><br /> <strong>Results. </strong> Overall, 17. 55% of the respondents reported current cigarette use (3. 37% daily; 14. 18% non-daily). Although most (85. 5%) students? self-perceptions remained as ?nonsmokers who never smoke? from university entrance to the study date, a greater proportion of students made a negative change in their self-perceived smoking status over this time period than a positive change (10. 13% vs. 4. 38%, respectively). Among students who perceived themselves as ?nonsmokers who never smoke? or ?ex-smokers? at university entrance, being more academically engaged predicted making a negative change in ones? self-perceived smoking status (OR= 1. 924, CI₉₅= 1. 064-3. 480). Finally, the proportion of non-daily smokers differed between the two measures of smoking status. Many students classified as ?occasional smokers? using the behavioural measure actually perceived themselves as ?nonsmokers who smoke sometimes?. <br /><br /> <strong>Discussion. </strong> The results of this study provide valuable new insights into smoking among Canadian university students. Students who are more academically engaged may be at risk of initiating smoking, perhaps as a means of stress reduction. Furthermore, the adult measure of occasional smoking typically used in tobacco research may be insufficient to inform tobacco control efforts for this population as it results in different proportions of non-daily smokers when compared against students? self-perceived smoking status. The findings of this exploratory research await replication with larger samples and different measures. Implications of the results for practice and further research are discussed. <br /><br /> <strong>Conclusions. </strong> This strategy of assessing connectedness to school shows promise in predicting post-secondary students? cigarette smoking behaviours. The results also provide support for continued investigation into the best ways to measure and assess current cigarette use in this unique population.

Young people who are in the process of establishing their independent lives or families in Uzbekistan find it almost impossible obtain housing. The issue has become acute after the country became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991 and is worst in the capital, Tashkent. This thesis focuses on a sample of young people belonging to middle-income category who are seeking for affordable and suitable housing in the capital. It maps out the issues involved with housing in Tashkent, and investigates how young people, from both the city and other provinces, find accommodation in Tashkent. The study finds that these young and educated, middle-class citizens are not “passive recipients” of the status quo, and they find their own ways to mitigate the affordable housing deprivation within their means. In addition to the Soviet-built housing stock, they make use of culture and social capital in creative ways. In this, they have contributed to the building of a new informal housing market, which. / Establishment of Tashkent as a regional center and its housing -- Literature review, analytical framework, research methods and limitations -- Stories of ordinary people housing by themselves in Tashkent -- The implications of people's housing journeys in Tashkent. / Department of Urban Planning

The aim of this thesis was to explore the efficacy of the rational choice model in the electoral decision making of young people. The initial view was that this was too narrow a concept to apply to a real world situation. Therefore, consumer behaviour theory was reviewed in order to find out how marketers understand consumer decision making and explore if this could add anything to electoral decision making. Using an ideographic approach, this research revealed a number of different groups that did not conform to the rational choice model. Moreover, it was interesting to discover that many voter and non-voter groups exhibit what can be described as irrational behaviour. Using education as a key variable and the Elaboration Likelihood Model as an analytical framework, it was possible to identify the different ways in which the groups built up their political knowledge and what effect this had upon the extent of their engagement with the electoral process. Two models were developed that described the various groups and their electoral behaviour. The thesis concludes by suggesting that engagement is limited to a small number of groups and the level of engagement is determined by a complex mix of education, life stage and the notion of risk.

This thesis reports a five year longitudinal study of 300 Scottish school leavers. The research used quantitative and qualitative techniques to intensively investigate the relationship between personality type and achievement and explore the transition from adolescence to adulthood. The researcher devoted considerable effort to ensuring that participants and schools could benefit from involvement in the study. The thesis includes the researcher's reflection on the role of her own subjectivity within the research process. The distribution of personality types was ascertained using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) based on Carl Jung's Theory of Types. The MBTI was administered to 298 4th year pupils and 72 teachers from two schools. The research findings indicate that extraverted participants were more likely to leave school earlier and with poorer qualifications than those who were introverted. Sensates were also more likely than intuitives to leave school at the end of their period of compulsory education with poorer qualifications. Thus the educationally most vulnerable group consisted of the young people who were both extraverted and sensing. A subgroup at particular risk was subjected to closer scrutiny and a case study provided. No type group was more likely than any other to become employed or unemployed. Participants were occupationally oriented even at the age of 14 with the young people in general fearing unemployment but still aspiring to a work identity. However, stable employment or unemployment were seldom reported after leaving school. Rather young people tended to report moving frequently between jobs, training and unemployment. 80 depth interviews conducted at 18 years indicated that the majority still did not regard themselves as adults, which was seen as characterised by assumption of responsibilities and the end of &quot;fun&quot;. The thesis ends with recommendations for enhancement of the educational process.