Thesis (M.A.)--Ball State University, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Sept. 09, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. [65]-73).

Thesis (M.A.)--York University, 2007. Graduate Programme in Psychology. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 60-70). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR32020

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2003. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (Doctoral)--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität zu München, 1935.

Thesis (Doctoral)--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität zu München, 1935.

This dissertation deals with the impact of alcohol advertising, which associates drinking alcohol with many desires and values psychologically appealing to young people. As traditional research on alcohol advertising's impact focused on a direct link between exposure and alcohol consumption, this study breaks the link into several mediating stages. Under the theoretical framework of the Message Interpretation Process (MIP) model, this study involves how college students interpret alcohol advertising, how their desire, wishful thinking and expectancies toward drinking may account for both the impact of exposure to alcohol advertising and reasons for drinking. Specifically, the purpose of the study is to (1) assess the MIP model and (2) explore the impact of anti-alcohol messages on college students' interpretation of alcohol advertising. An experiment was conducted with 94 college students. In the experiment, participants were grouped into three treatment groups: the first was exposed to logic-based anti-alcohol messages followed by alcohol advertisements, the second was exposed to emotion-based anti-alcohol messages followed by alcohol advertisements; and the third group was exposed to alcohol advertising only, as the control group. Results showed support for the MIP model in general. As posited by the model, realism and desirability are both related to identification with characters seen in alcohol advertising, which in turn is related to expectancies toward drinking, which is in turn related to intention to drink. The only two exceptions were the lack of significance for the social norm-identification link and relationships with negative expectancies. Compared with exposure, realism and desirability were better predictors for alcohol advertising's impact. The results also showed impact of logic-based anti-alcohol messages on identification and expectancies as well as impact of emotion-based anti-alcohol messages on desirability and identification. There was no significant difference between the two anti-alcohol groups. This study provides insights on how viewers draw from alcohol advertising to make sense of their own lives. Implications for anti-alcohol campaign are provided. Because negative expectancies toward drinking did not influence the intention to drink, the association between negative outcomes and drinking might not very well. Another association between positive outcomes and non-drinking may work better. Recommendations for future research as well as limitations of this study are discussed.

Thesis (M.A. (Clinical Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2017. / Identity is considered one of the variables useful in explaining the reasons for health risk behaviours such as alcohol consumption among adolescents. In this study, 441 Black African high school students, aged 15 to 24 years, were participants. They were administered the identity style inventory and the student alcohol questionnaire within the framework of a cross-sectional design. Preliminary results found that there was no interaction effect of gender and age, and no main effect of age on informational, normative and diffuse/avoidant identity processing styles. Nevertheless, there was a sex main effect on the informational and the diffuse/avoidant identity styles, with the normative-orientation identity style’s results being marginally significant. Mean scores of females on the information-orientation and the normative-orientation identity processing styles were larger, and males mean scores tended to be larger on the diffuse/avoidant identity processing style. Classification of leaners into categorical identity processing styles shows that more females are classified as normative-orientation, whereas many males were classified as diffuse/avoidant. Main analysis found that sex and identity processing styles could not differentiate between drinking and non-drinking learners, and both variables could not predict the frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption, and the binge drinking. Key words: Adolescents, alcohol consumption, binge drinking, identity processing style, identity status,

No description available.

The parietal lobe has been shown to be one of the regions most affected by prenatal alcohol exposure. Functional domains dependent on intact parietal functioning, including mathematical and visuospatial ability, have been consistently implicated in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. This thesis examines, in children, using blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the effect of prenatal alcohol exposure on brain activation during symbolic and nonsymbolic number processing, and place learning in a virtual environment. These functional domains were investigated using tasks of proximity judgment and exact addition to assess neural correlates of symbolic number processing in 65 children (mean age ± SD = 9.45 ± 0.42 years), nonsymbolic number comparison at varying difficulties in 34 children (11.55 ± 1.15 years), and place learning in a virtual reality computer generated (CG) arena in 57 children (9.44 ± 0.42 years; 29 boys). In the symbolic number processing tasks greater prenatal alcohol exposure was related to less activation in the right horizontal intraparietal sulcus known to mediate mental representation and manipulation of quantity. Children with fetal alcohol syndrome and partial fetal alcohol syndrome appeared to compensate for this deficit by increased activation of the left angular gyrus during the proximity judgment task. Syndromal children with fetal alcohol syndrome or partial fetal alcohol syndrome also demonstrated poor recruitment of the right horizontal intraparietal sulcus during nonsymbolic number comparison, indicating that mental representation and manipulation of quantity are impaired in children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure, irrespective of the representation format used. This impairment was compensated for by the left angular gyrus, with only exposed children needing to recruit the left angular gyrus to a greater extent as number comparison task difficulty increased. Further, reduced activation of the right posterior superior parietal lobule in children with increasing prenatal alcohol exposure suggests that exposed children may be less able to employ the attentional systems associated with number processing. Notably, activation of nonsyndromal heavily exposed children was impaired in the right posterior superior parietal lobule, but spared in the right horizontal intraparietal sulcus. In boys only, prenatal alcohol exposure was associated with poorer place learning and reduced activation during place learning in the precuneus and posterior cingulate, as well as parahippocampal gyrus, frontal and temporal lobes, caudate, insula, claustrum, lentiform nucleus and thalamus. In girls, prenatal alcohol exposure was not associated with place learning performance or activation during place learning in any regions. These results confirm that boys and girls use different navigation strategies that rely on different brain regions and suggest that the regions used by boys are more susceptible to alcohol damage, while the regions used by girls are relatively spared. In conclusion, all the tasks investigated showed prenatal alcohol exposure related alterations in parietal function, with the impairments being widespread throughout the parietal lobe bilaterally. Notably, activation of the bilateral precuneus was affected by prenatal alcohol exposure in both the spatial navigation and nonsymbolic number comparison tasks. It is possible that this is a key region linking the deficits in number processing and visuospatial skills in children with prenatal alcohol exposure.

Alcohol is a major public health problem globally. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) report, alcohol accounts for 2.5 million deaths (4% of total) and 69.4 million (4.5% of total) of Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), (WHO, 2002, 2011). In South Africa, alcohol was found to be the third highest contributor to death and disability (Parry, 2007/8). Among the many far-reaching consequences of alcohol use in South Africa, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) in certain regions in the country, rates among the highest in the world (May et al., 2007). Despite higher comparative levels of FAS in rural areas, almost one third of the population in urban sites (Gauteng) demonstrates that FAS is not exclusively a problem of South African rural areas. This study hypothesized that higher knowledge levels about the effects of alcohol on pregnancy may deter use among women. Employing secondary data analysis from a 2006 cross-sectional household survey, this study explored the prevalence of alcohol use among urban women (18-44 years) in the Tshwane Municipality, in general and in pregnancy. It also examined the relationship between knowledge of alcohol effects on pregnancy and alcohol use. A significant association was found between employment status, pregnancy outcome and general alcohol use among women. An almost significant association was found between knowledge of alcohol effects on pregnancy and past month alcohol use, knowledge levels and alcohol use during pregnancy. Findings partially support the hypothesis. However, knowledge of alcohol effects on pregnancy alone cannot deter women from using alcohol. Multiple influencing factors should be considered in planning prevention programmes for urban women’s alcohol use. Further research with larger sample sizes of pregnant women is suggested to explore the associations conclusively.