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The dissociative anesthetic ketamine has been subject to growing abuse worldwide, particularly in adolescents. This project compared the effects of ketamine in conditioned place preference and intravenous self-administration in adolescent (PND 28-50) and adult (>PND70) Sprague-Dawley rats. Cocaine served as a positive control. In CPP, adolescents demonstrated preferences for ketamine, while adults developed an aversion. In the self-administration procedure, adults acquired the behavior more rapidly, but there was no difference in the percentage of subjects reaching acquisition nor in responding under a progressive ratio schedule for either drug. The CPP results suggest that adolescents have a greater sensitivity to the rewarding and tolerance to the aversive effects of ketamine. The divergent results for ketamine in the adults may reflect differences in the two procedures. However, because cocaine produced only hedonic effects in both age groups, it also suggests unique characteristics of ketamine and differences in its effects based on age.

Introduktion: Sveriges befolkning är idag otillräckligt fysiskt aktiva enligt rekommendationerna som finns på minst 150 minuters fysisk aktivitet varje vecka. Detta trots att det finns många kända hälsofördelar med att vara fysiskt aktiv. Brist på motivation är en faktor som påvisats vara bidragande till att personer rör på sig för lite. Syftet med studien var därför att jämföra skillnader i typ av motivation och fysisk aktivitetsnivå och om det finns skillnader beroende på kön och ålder. Metod: Data samlades in via en onlineundersökning, där 251 deltagare mellan 18-64 år svarade på Behavioral Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire-2 (BREQ-2) och The Godin-Shephard Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire (GLTEQ). Resultat: ANOVA visade signifikanta skillnader mellan motivationstyper och aktivitetsnivå, där personer som klassades som högaktiva hade mest motivation till fysisk aktivitet. Kvinnor hade mer introjicerad reglering och män mer identifierad reglering. Personer 18-24 år visade signifikant mer yttre reglering. Konklusion: Utifrån resultaten är det svårt att fastställa vilken motivationstyp som är mest bidragande till att personer är fysisk aktiva, däremot finns det indikationer på att all typ av motivation krävs för att vara fysiskt aktiv. Framtida forskning skulle kunna göra mer omfattande undersökningar på en bredare population för att få en mer fördjupad förståelse. / Introduction: The Swedish population does not meet the recommendations for 150 minutes physical activity per week, even though the health benefits from being physically active is well known. Lack of motivation is a variable that contributes to this problem and results in insufficiently physical activity. This study aimed to explore differences in types of motivation and physical activity level, and also see if there is any differences between gender and age. Methods: Participants (n = 251) between 18-64 years of age completed an online survey, based on Behavioral Regulation in Exercise Questionnaire-2 (BREQ-2) and The Godin-Shephard Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire (GLTEQ). Results: ANOVA showed significant differences between type of motivation and activity level. The high-active group had more motivation to physical activity than less active groups. Women had more introjected regulation than men, while men had more identified regulation than women. People between 18-24 showed significant more extrinsic regulation. Conclusion: Based on the findings, it is difficult to define which motivation type that main contributes to physical activity, but there are indications that all types of motivation is important for being physically active. Future research could do a more extended investigation on a wider population to get a deeper insight.

The purpose of this study was to build upon recent research dealing with the ways children of primary school age operate when composing original music. Through examining the musical and structural content of the musical products, and linking these features to working procedures in the composition process, the aim was to explore the interaction between process and product, and to identify any effects attributable to gender, age, or computer use. Control of the circumstances in which the compositions were generated made possible the examination of the activity of the subjects during the working period, providing data which was linked to features of the compositional products for possible "cause and effect". Compositions were collected from 60 primary school children aged 7, 9 and 11 years. Half of the students in each age-group used the computer to help them work out their music. There was equal gender representation in each subgroup. The working session of ten minutes for each child was recorded, and later analysed, to discover the pattern of activities taking place during the composition process. A second procedure was then undertaken which involved analysis of the final versions of the compositions of each subject. The pieces were evaluated by a panel of six judges who identified levels of achievement on a range of musical and structural items. The process and product data were analysed to ascertain the influence of gender, age and computer use. Any significant interactions between process variables and product variables were also noted. The research design proved to be useful and functional in providing empirical data that allowed detailed statistical analysis. The major significant results related to the process were: 1. Age was a significant factor in subjects' use of the compositional activities (i.e. exploration, development and repetition [implying closure] of musical ideas). 2. Computer-users developed their musical ideas more quickly during the compositional process than non-computer users. 3. There were significant 2-way interactions between age and computer use. The judges' evaluations of the product generated data that supported previous research that found a developmental sequence of stages in musical composition. Age was shown to be a significant influence in all factors derived from the developmental model. The significant period was between seven and nine years in all cases. Although significant differences attributable to gender were not revealed overall, females were predominant in the high scoring groups on some product variables. The influence of the computer emerged most clearly in profiles of subjects who received high/low scores from all judges in each of the main product variables. In the high scoring groups, computer users outnumbered non-computer users in every case. Little is known of the effects of the use of the computer by young children for composition. Further research is indicated in order to understand the impact of the computer on the creative and cognitive processes in music. There is a need for greater understanding of its role in this area of music education.

Following up on research suggesting an age-related reduction in the rightward extent of the perceptual span during reading (Rayner, Castelhano, & Yang, 2009), we compared old and young adults in an N+2-boundary paradigm in which a nonword preview of word N+2 or word N+2 itself is replaced by the target word once the eyes cross an invisible boundary located after word N. The intermediate word N+1 was always three letters long. Gaze durations on word N+2 were significantly shorter for identical than nonword N+2 preview both for young and for old adults with no significant difference in this preview benefit. Young adults, however, did modulate their gaze duration on word N more strongly than old adults in response to the difficulty of the parafoveal word N+1. Taken together, the results suggest a dissociation of preview benefit and parafoveal-on-foveal effect. Results are discussed in terms of age-related decline in resilience towards distributed processing while simultaneously preserving the ability to integrate parafoveal information into foveal processing. As such, the present results relate to proposals of regulatory compensation strategies older adults use to secure an overall reading speed very similar to that of young adults.

Around the year 2007, several news segments appeared in the Swedish media with focus on the social website Facebook. At the time, an increasing number of people in Sweden started to join the social platform and accepted the terms of contract to get access of the website, without further consideration of what they were agreeing to. This resulted in some private individuals felt violated when it turned out that major points of the contract entail that user’s private information, photos, videos and other publications that was shared on the website, were considered property of Facebook cooperation. Even though this incident made users more aware of what they should, and should not publish on the website, the episode did not result in users closing there accounts on Facebook. On the contrary, today the social platform has more users opening private accounts then before, and it is even attracting older age groups. It seems as if the general public are aware of the importance of being online and a part of the culture surrounding the Internet. It appears as if most people are ready to accept and sign different electronic contracts without considering the possible consequences that may follow, as long as it means that they can be part of today’s digital and information society. Very few read the contract before signing it, and we want to know why that is. Is it really that simple that the public is being too lazy to read through longer texts? We do not believe it is that straightforward. We therefore wish to find out why people tend to not read the contracts on Facebook, and research if there may be a sociological reason behind it. We would also like to see if there is a difference in how younger and older Facebook-users are handling the contract. To find out the answers to our question formulation we used a qualitative method where we carried out two focus groups and six personal interviews to obtain field data that we later compared with Anthony Gidden’s theories on the modern society. Four thematical questions were the basis of the analysis. The four thematical questions that were used are the following; Habits and behaviour patterns, inclusion and exclusion, the self and trust, and age differences. Our final results showed us that the reason of why people tend to not read the terms of use can be explained through the modern society that has changed the normative global communication, to the extent that the private individual no longer reflexes over the short comings of not reading electronic agreements. In conclusion, our research has shown that the general public does not read the Facebook agreement since they simply do not care about it. The risks of modern society have convinced us that terms of agreements and contracts in general should not be bothered with. The excessive need of swapping and gaining information and belonging to a group is more important than critically handling agreements. / Runt år 2007 rapporterade flera nyhetsreportage inom den svenska median om den sociala medieplattformen Facebook. Vid tillfället, började ett stigande antal personer i Sverige bli medlem inom den sociala plattformen och accepterade hemsidans användarvillkor utan större övervägande om vad de gav sitt medtycke till. Detta resulterade i att några privatpersoner kände sig kränkta när det visade sig att några av de främsta villkoren inom kontraktet innebar att privat information, foton, videos och andra publiceringar som delades på hemsidan ansågs tillhöra företaget Facebook. Trots att denna händelse gjorde användare mer uppmärksamma kring vad det borde, och inte borde, dela med sig på hemsidan, resulterade inte episoden i att användare stängde ned sina konton. Tvärtom fick den sociala plattformen fler användare som öppnade privata konton nu än tidigare. Det verkar som om allmänheten är medvetna om vikten att vara online och en del av Internetkulturen. Av denna anledning verkar det som om många är villiga att acceptera och skriva på olika elektroniska kontrakt utan att överväga de potentiella konsekvenserna de kan medföra att vara en del av dagens digitala och informativa samhälle. Väldigt få läser kontrakten innan de skriver under det, och vi vill veta varför det är så. Är det verkligen så enkelt att allt handlar om att allmänheten är för lata för att läsa igenom långa texter. Vi tror inte att det är så entydigt. Vi önskar därför att förstå varför folk tenderar att inte läsa kontrakten på Facebook, och undersöka om det finns en sociologisk anledning bakom det hela. Vi skulle också vilja se om det finns skillnader i hur unga och äldre Facebook-användare behandlar kontraktet. För att få fram svar till vår frågeställning använder vi en kvalitativ metod där vi har utfört två fokusgrupper och sex forskningsintervjuer för att erhålla fältdata som vi senare kan jämföra med Anthony Giddens teorier om det moderna samhället. Fyra tematiska frågor var basen till vår analys. De fyra tematiska frågorna som användes var följande; vanor och beteendemönster, inkludering och exkludering, självet & tillit, och åldersskillnader. Att vi inte läser avtal, förklaras således genom att moderniteten helt enkelt har förändrat den normativa globala kommunikationen i den mån att den enskilda individen inte ens längre reflekterar över bristerna kring att inte utläsa ett enskilt avtal som ett påtagligt problem. Resultatet från denna undersökning är att vi inte läser avtal, för att vi inte bryr oss om det. Modernitetens riskpaket har övertygat oss, om att avtalshanteringen inte är något som vi bör engagera energi och kritiska tankegångar åt. Och behovet utav informationsutbyte och grupptillhörighet blir viktigare frågor än kritisk avtalshantering.

Empathie wird als ein multidimensionales Konstrukt verstanden, welches kognitive Aspekte wie empathische Akkuratheit (die Fähigkeit, die Emotionen einer anderen Person akkurat zu erken-nen) als auch affektive Aspekte wie Emotionskongruenz (die Fähigkeit, die Emotionen anderer zu teilen) und Mitgefühl (die Fähigkeit, ein Gefühl von Sorge für diese Person zu erleben) umfasst (z.B. Davis, 1994; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1990). Ziel der Dissertation war es zu einem umfassenden Verständnis altersbezogener Unterschiede in diesen drei Empathiefacetten beizutragen. Ausgehend von der Überlegung, dass empathische Akkuratheit wesentlich von alterssensitiven kognitiven Prozessen determiniert wird (z.B. Adolphs, 2002), während affektive Empathiefacetten vor allem altersfreundliche emotionsregulatorische Voraussetzungen haben (z.B. Eisenberg, 2000), wurde vermutet, dass empathische Akkuratheit Altersdefizite aufweist, während Gefühlskongruenz und Mitgefühl altersbezogene Zugewinne zeigen. Da Evidenz dafür vorliegt, dass altersbezogene Defizite in unterschiedlichen kognitiven und emotionalen Leistungsbereichen reduziert werden, wenn die Aufgabe eine besondere Bedeutung für Ältere hat (z.B. Hess, Rosenberg & Waters, 2001; Kunzmann & Grühn, 2005), lag ein weiteres Ziel der Studie darin, zu überprüfen, ob Altersunterschiede in der Empathie durch die Altersrelevanz der Aufgabe moderiert werden. Grund für diese Annahme liefert das Modell der selektiven Optimierung mit Kompensation (z.B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990) sowie die Selective Engagement Theorie (Hess, 2006), die übereinstimmend po-stulieren, dass Personen mit zunehmendem Alter dazu tendieren mit den ihnen zur Verfügung stehenden Ressourcen sparsam umzugehen und diese primär in Bereichen einsetzen, die sie für relevant halten. Basierend auf diesen Überlegungen wurde vermutet, dass Altersdefizite in empathischer Akkuratheit weniger wahrscheinlich sind, wenn die Aufgabe von hoher Relevanz für Ältere ist; in der Emotionskongruenz sollten sich die Altersgewinne in den für Ältere relevanten Aufgaben sogar vergrößern. Da erste Evidenz dafür vorliegt, dass Altersunterschiede im Mitgefühl nicht durch die Altersrelevanz moderiert werden, wurde vermutet, dass Ältere ein höheres Ausmaß an Mitgefühl berichten – unabhängig von der Relevanz der Aufgabe. Zur Überprüfung der Hypothesen wurden 101 jungen und 101 älteren Erwachsenen Filmausschnitte präsentiert, in denen eine junge oder eine ältere Person ein autobiografisches, für ihre Altersgruppe relevantes oder altersneutrales Erlebnis schilderte, und dabei echte Emotionen wiedererlebte. Zur Erfassung empathischer Fähigkeiten sollten die Teilnehmer mithilfe einer Emotionsadjektivliste angeben, in welchem Ausmaß die gezeigte Person sowie sie selbst jedes dieser Gefühle erlebt haben. Erwar-tungsgemäß zeigten sich für die Filme ohne besondere Altersrelevanz negative Altersunterschiede in empathischer Akkuratheit, während Gefühlskongruenz und Mitgefühl Altersgewinne aufwiesen. Wie angenommen wurden Altersdefizite in empathischer Akkuratheit durch die Altersrelevanz der Aufgabe moderiert; Ältere erzielten die gleiche Leistung wie Jüngere, wenn das geschilderte Thema von hoher Relevanz für sie war. Hingegen zeigte sich keine Moderation der Altersunterschiede für Emotionskongruenz. Wie erwartet erlebten Ältere mehr Mitgefühl als Jüngere – unabhängig von der Aufgabenrelevanz. Zusammengenommen sprechen die Befunde dafür, dass Altersunterschiede in der Empathie multidirektional und kontextabhängig verlaufen.

This study aimed primarily at investigating if the role of age was important regarding password management and password habits of different users. Despite extensive research in password management, the problem remains that users create insecure passwords, leaving personal information and systems vulnerable to attackers. In order to examine users’ different password habits in different age categories, a multi-strategy study was conducted, which consisted of two methods, with both a questionnaire and interviews. The areas discussed in the study were whether the age was important on the user's password habits and the knowledge different users had about attacker's different methods. The study also discusses how the user thought about the creation of passwords in comparison with recommendations from existing studies of how a secure password is created and how the user remembered their password. The results of the surveys show no correlation between the user's age and password habits. However, a possible solution to the problem is finally discussed, as both previous studies and this study proves users today lack knowledge of secure passwords and lack of password habits.

The labor force is aging globally. It is projected that the number of older workers will increase in the workforce in the near future. At the same time, it is estimated that workplaces will grow more age-diverse, where younger and older workers will work side-by-side more often than they used to. These demographic shifts in the workforce necessitate a further understanding of the differences between the values, needs and motivation, and work outcomes of employees of different ages. To this end, few studies to date have investigated whether job-related resources are differentially useful for the work and non-work outcomes of younger and older workers. Guided by Conservation of Resources (COR) theory and two lifespan development theories (Selection-Optimization-Compensation, SOC; Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory, SST), this dissertation suggests that the utility of resources is age-dependent. Specifically, this dissertation includes three studies that expand our knowledge of age-based differences in the usefulness of job-specific, social, and personal resources, and how they relate to various job attitudes, different forms of job performance, and employee well-being. Study 1, which was published in the Journal of Vocational Behavior, examines the moderating role of age in the relationship between baseline resources (skill discretion, leader-member exchange, and procedural fairness) and perceived stress after one year in a sample of U.S. construction workers (N = 243). As hypothesized, the findings of this study showed that these autonomy and support resources were more important for older workers: When resources were high in the workplace, all employees reported lower levels of stress. However, when resources were low, older workers experienced greater stress compared to their younger colleagues. In Study 2, multi-source data from Turkish manufacturing employees (N = 156) are utilized to investigate the age-based differences in the link between social support resources (leader-member exchange, perceived organizational support) and supervisory ratings of in-role performance and organizational citizenship behaviors in a cultural context other than the U.S. It was hypothesized that these social support resources would be more important for older workers' performance. However, the findings showed that both leader-member exchange and perceived organizational support were considered as equally important by older and younger workers to perform well at work. Finally, Study 3 explores whether resource from job (decision-making autonomy) and personal resources (optimism, perceived work ability) differentially relate to work attitudes (job satisfaction, work engagement) and well-being (perceived stress, emotional exhaustion) of older and younger nurses (N = 111) working in the Pacific Northwest, U.S. The findings of this study supported that the usefulness of decision-making autonomy and optimism were more pronounced for older workers. Overall, the results suggested that, when these resources were low, all employees had lower job satisfaction and work engagement, and greater emotional exhaustion and perceived stress independent of their ages. However, under high resource conditions, older employees shined at work and in life: When resourceful, they enjoyed their job more and felt strong and vigorous at work, and they perceived an overall sense of control over life as well as had an ease of mind at and outside of their work environments. Taken together, the findings of these three studies suggest several implications for theory and practice, particularly those pertaining to the key role that age may play in understanding different workers' needs for job-related resources and how this may affect their work attitudes, behavior, and well-being. Theoretical implications suggest that COR theory can be integrated with lifespan development theories to address the age-related differences in the resource utility. In addition, the findings of this dissertation highlight the need to examine employee age as a main study variable to explore the boundary conditions of various resources -- work and non-work outcomes. Implications for practice include recommendations such as facilitating job crafting and job redesigns for older workers, developing managerial trainings on relationship building with subordinates, creating a fair work environment through transparent organizational policies and practices, and improving personal capacities through stress management interventions. Avenues for future research are discussed as well, including identifying additional resources (e.g., overqualification, support from coworkers and family), and work and well-being outcomes (e.g., objective health measures such as sleep, sick days, and injuries) that may show age-based differences based on lifespan development theories. Finally, this dissertation highlights the need to replicate these study findings across industries, job types, gender, and culture as the usefulness of resources may be context-specific.