Using the appraisal theory of emotion, I hypothesized a process model that depicts the effects of four negative emotions – boredom, anger, sadness, and anxiety – on two types of deviant behavior, rule-breaking and interpersonal aggression. I predicted that anger and anxiety would increase deviance in comparison to boredom, while sadness would decrease it. In addition, I argued that these effects would be mediated by physiological arousal, sensemaking, and attentional focus. I tested my model across three experiments (total N = 430), each of which used a different emotion induction. Overall, there was general support for the findings that anger and anxiety increase, while sadness decreases, deviant behavior. In addition, I found support for the hypothesized effects of emotion on arousal and sensemaking. However, there was no support for predictions regarding attentional focus or any indirect effects. Thus, the most significant finding was that sadness decreased deviant behavior, which emphasizes the importance of differentiating among different negative emotions when examining deviant behavior. Further implications are discussed.

M.P.H., Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / Background: This study seeks to determine knowledge and attitudes of operational supervisors on the performance management system, at Mopani district hospitals in Limpopo Province. This is owing to the fact that literature indicates that poor management of performance is still found among experienced managers. Employees‟ perception is that managers/supervisors lack proper understanding with regard to implementation of management performance system, due to lack of training and use of predefined ratings. Material and Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out in the district hospitals of Mopani district for a period of two months (March to April 2010). The study targets operational supervisors because they directly supervise many employees (5 to 8) and are at the front line of service delivery, interacting daily with community members. Results: A response rate of 54% (88/162) was achieved. Operational supervisors with less than ten years of experience scored higher in both positive attitude and knowledge on performance management system, as compared to supervisors with more than ten years of experience. There is no statistical significance difference with all questions relating to perceptions. Conclusion: The finding of this study has led to the following recommendations being made: a) The provision of regular in-service training on implementation of the performance management system with special attention being given to operational supervisors, to assist in adherence to some form of quality control. b) Setting up of a task team to conduct regular audits on the implementation of performance management system in all departmental institutions hospitals to ensure that quality service delivery is provided to clients.

A key issue for sustainability planning is how to integrate economic, social and environmental concerns in the process of evaluating possible management actions. This thesis is particularly concerned with evaluating natural resource management actions. Integrated evaluation tools may assist in weighing up multi-dimensional pros and cons of each management action. These tools aid decision making in two main ways; helping a decision maker to clarify his or her thoughts and suggesting preferable management options. Many integrated evaluation tools produce a ranking of options, from most to least preferred, in order to guide the choice of a management option. They achieve this by integrating impact assessment data, on how well management options perform economically, socially and environmentally, with a decision maker’s value judgements. Multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods for example, often ask the user to specify what weight of importance each impact category should have in the appraisal of management options. If the impact data is in time series, a decision maker may be asked to consider how important future impacts are in comparison to short term impacts. The economic method of discounting future impacts is regularly utilised to aggregate a time-series of impact data. This thesis looks beyond weighting and discounting, and explores tools which may better formalise value judgements about: balancing economic, social and environmental outcomes and; intergenerational equity. Such tools may be more effective in helping a decision maker to clarify his or her thoughts and in suggesting appropriate courses of action. A water resource case study is utilised to illustrate some of the alternatives identified. A major contribution of this thesis is a new integrated evaluation method referred to as Target Ordering. The Target Ordering method was developed in order to better identify which performance outcomes are most important to stakeholders and ensure user control of tradeoffs between impact categories, while retaining simplicity. This method is based on value judgements about how important target outcomes are, rather than how important the impact categories themselves are. That is, it is an alternative to weighting methods. The Target Ordering method is also extended to allow an aggregation of data across multiple time frames. That is, to provide an alternative to discounting. There seems to be a dearth of studies comparing how effective integrated evaluation tools are for helping users to think through and articulate their own preferences and to learn about the preferences of others. This thesis draws on existing research and presents new research, such that the effectiveness of weighting and non-weighting methods on these dimensions may be examined. Two experiments were conducted where a small number of water industry professionals utilised weighting and non-weighting tools to rank a large number of water management options. The non-weighting methods include Target Ordering and a graphical tool for facilitating an intuitive evaluation of management options. These tools are respectively classified as aspirational and holistic evaluation methods. Feedback was obtained from the participants through both surveys and interviews. The survey results indicate that the Target Ordering tool was significantly more useful than weighting methods for helping participants to articulate and apply their values to the problem. In general the Target Ordering tool was easier to utilise and was said to be more intuitive by some participants. The graphical tool was found to outperform a simple weighting method in facilitating users to think through and articulate their value judgements. No differences in usefulness of the graphical method and the Target Ordering method were found. Further experimental research is needed to compare how effective weighting, aspirational and holistic methods are in facilitating learning and communication of preferences in the decision making process. / PhD Doctorate

This thesis explores weblogs and, for purposes of comparison, their paper near-equivalent, the personal diary. The analysis demonstrates the values that weblogs hold as potential archival records, in and of themselves and in comparison to their diary “equivalents,” and then suggests appraisal concepts and strategies for archivists in collecting weblogs. The emphasis of this study is on women’s diaries and weblogs, and gender analysis is incorporated into the discussion. / October 2007

This thesis explores weblogs and, for purposes of comparison, their paper near-equivalent, the personal diary. The analysis demonstrates the values that weblogs hold as potential archival records, in and of themselves and in comparison to their diary “equivalents,” and then suggests appraisal concepts and strategies for archivists in collecting weblogs. The emphasis of this study is on women’s diaries and weblogs, and gender analysis is incorporated into the discussion.

No description available.

This thesis explores weblogs and, for purposes of comparison, their paper near-equivalent, the personal diary. The analysis demonstrates the values that weblogs hold as potential archival records, in and of themselves and in comparison to their diary “equivalents,” and then suggests appraisal concepts and strategies for archivists in collecting weblogs. The emphasis of this study is on women’s diaries and weblogs, and gender analysis is incorporated into the discussion.

No description available.

No description available.

Prior investigation of a new rater training paradigm, rater variability training (RVT), found no clear empirical distinction between RVT and the more established frame-of-reference training (FOR), (Hauenstein, Facteau, & Schmidt, 1999). The purpose of the present study was to expand upon this previous investigation by including a purpose manipulation, alternative operationalizations of Cronbach's accuracy components, finer-grained distinctions in the rating stimuli, and a second control group receiving quantitative accuracy feedback void of a substantive training lecture. Results indicate that finer-grained distinctions in the rating stimuli result in the best differential elevation accuracy for RVT trainees. Furthermore, RVT may be best suited for improving raters' abilities to accurately evaluate average performing ratees when the performance appraisal is used for an administrative purpose. Evidence also suggests that in many cases, the use of Cronbach's accuracy components obscures underlying patterns of rating accuracy. Finally, there is evidence to suggest that accuracy feedback without a training lecture improves some types of rating accuracy. / Master of Science