Exclusive breastfeeding and holistic maternity care are strategic to improving maternal and infant health outcomes in Nigeria. This thesis aimed at informing policies and interventions to promote breastfeeding and to improve Nigerian mother’s experiences in antenatal and intrapartum care. The study in this research focused upon psychological dynamics underlying societal culture around maternity and breastfeeding. Using quantitative method, attitudes toward breastfeeding and health orientation were surveyed in 400 Nigerian men and women using the Iowa Infant Feeding Attitude Scale (IIFAS) and the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control Scale (MHLoC). There were more positive attitudes toward breastfeeding in males, participants in the 20-29-year-old age category, and in those who identified as single. Higher internal HLoC was associated with more positive attitudes to breastfeeding and higher EHLoC scores were associated with more negative attitudes to formula feeding. The second study explored the experience of pregnancy and childbirth in Nigerian women. Qualitative interviews with 12 women implied that Nigerian women perceive pregnancy and childbirth as a multidimensional experience comprising physiological and psychological elements and also as risky. Control mechanisms that reflected internal HLoC included choosing multiple antenatal care sources to obtain holistic care, adopting new technology in bridging perceived communication gaps with health care providers and adopting physical and mental strategies in controlling the somatic and sensory changes that accompany pregnancy. Pregnancy and childbirth were viewed through an external HLoC lens as spiritual, and reflected in an entrenched belief in the intervention of deity to mitigate pain and risk associated with childbirth. These results have implications for practice, intervention and policy to promote breastfeeding at the societal level and improve maternity services for the current and next child-bearing generation.

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The main aim of this study to investigate the effectiveness of conceptual change texts oriented instruction accompanied with analogies over traditionally designed chemistry instruction on overcoming 10th grade students&amp / #8217 / misconceptions, their understanding of rate of reaction concepts and attitude towards chemistry as a school subject. 56 tenth grade students from two classes of a chemistry course taught by the same teacher in the ATAT&Uuml / RK Anatolian High school, participated in the study. This study was carried out in 2003-2004 spring semester. There were two groups in the study. Experimental group was instructed with conceptual change texts oriented instruction accompanied with analogies and the control group was instructed by traditionally designed chemistry instruction over a period of four weeks. To investigate the effect of treatment, Rate of Reaction Concepts Test and Attitude Scale Toward Chemistry as a school subject were administered to all students in both groups at the beginning and end of the treatment. To evaluate students&amp / #8217 / science process skills, Science Process Skills Test was administered before treatment. To test the hypothesis of the study ANOVA and ANCOVA were used. The result of the study showed that students in conceptual change texts oriented instruction accompanied with analogies got higher average scores in Rate of Reaction Concepts Test than traditionally designed chemistry instruction. Also, students in experimental group indicated a higher positive attitude toward chemistry as a school subject. In addition, science process skill was a strong predictor for the achievement related to rate of reaction concepts. Results and strategies that were developed for this study may be used by teachers to reduce and eliminate students&amp / #8217 / misconceptions about the rate of reaction concepts.

The main aim of this study to investigate the effectiveness of conceptual change texts oriented instruction accompanied with analogies over traditionally designed chemistry instruction on overcoming 10th grade students&rsquo / misconceptions, their understanding atoms and molecules concepts and attitude towards chemistry as a school subject . 45 tenth grades students from two classes of a chemistry course taught by the same teacher in Elmadag High School prticipated in the study that was carried out in 2004 &ndash / 2005 Fall semester . Two student groups participated in the study . One of them , called as Experimental group , was instructed with conceptual change text oriented instruction accompanied with analogies and the other one , called as Control group , was instructed with traditionally designed chemistry instruction over a period of two weeks . To investigate the effect of the treatment , Atoms and Molecules Concept Test and Attitude Scale Toward Chemistry as a school subject were administrated to all students in both groups at the begining and end of the the treatment . To evaluate students&rsquo / science process skills , Science Process Skills Test was administrated before treatment . ANCOVA and ANOVA were used to test the hypothesis of the study . The result of the study showed that students instructed with conceptual change text oriented instruction accompanied with analogies gained higher average scores in Atoms and Molecules Concept Test than students instructed by traditionally designed instruction . In addition , students in experiental group indicated a higher positive attitude toward chemistry as a school subject .The results also indicated science process skill was a stronger predictor for the achievement of atoms and molecules concepts. Strategies that were developed and results obtained for the present study may be used by science teachers to eliminate the students&rsquo / misconceptions about atoms and molecules concepts and provide better conceptual understanding of atoms and molecules.

Petra A n ý ž o v á Doctoral thesis: Cross-Country Comparability of Social Capital and Political Disaffection Attitude Scales in the European Social Survey Abstract The doctoral thesis deals with the methodological perspectives of comparative cross-national research. Currently, in the globalization period, the importance of these perspectives has been increasing. Unfortunately, social scientists analyse attractive international data more and more often without realising the levels of data comparability. Therefore they are not fully aware the best approach to statistical analysis of these data and their convenient comparative interpretation. This thesis introduces the issue of data equivalence as one of the most important quality aspects of cross-national research and focuses especially on attitude scales owing to the fact that their comparability is endangered the most in comparative research. In particular, the subject of the analysis is the international comparability of two of the most frequent robust attitude scales: namely social capital and political disaffection scales as they are measured in the European Social Survey first data set. In sociology and political science, these two social science concepts are very significant and they have been studied both theoretically and empirically as social...

[pt] Esta tese tem por objeto o estudo interdisciplinar da aplicação de regras jurídicas. A pesquisa é dividida em duas partes. Na Parte I, o objetivo é conhecer a relação ou postura psicológica que as autoridades decisórias mantêm com regras por meio de um construto sociopsicológico aqui chamado de atitude em relação às regras. Também se busca investigar se essa atitude se relaciona com o processo de excetuar regras nas experiências recalcitrantes, com traços de personalidade do modelo dos Cinco Grandes Fatores, e com variáveis sociodemográficas. Após seguir o procedimento de construção de instrumentos psicológicos, procedeu-se à busca de evidências de validade da Escala de Atitudes em Relação às Regras (EARR) contendo 29 itens. O instrumento completo contendo itens sociodemográficos, a EARR, a Escala Reduzida de Descritores dos Cinco Grandes Fatores de Personalidade, e casos concretos a serem julgados pelos participantes, foi submetido a uma amostra diversa de 347 profissionais do direito ligados ao sistema de justiça e de bacharéis em direito. Os resultados encontrados fornecem evidências iniciais de validade interna do construto hipotético atitude em relação às regras, acessado e medido pela EARR com 12 itens e alpha de Cronbach de 0,89. Também foram encontradas evidências de validade externa em correlações com o traço de personalidade abertura à experiência, com diversas emoções e sentimentos autopercebidos, com variáveis sociodemográficas (ex.: local de residência e área de atuação profissional do participante) bem como com as médias dos julgamentos nos itens 2 e 3 dos casos concretos apresentados aos participantes, justificando a interpretação de que a relação ou postura psicológica das autoridades decisórias com as regras pode ser concebida como uma atitude. A atitude em relação às regras também se correlacionou da maneira esperada com as respostas nos casos concretos, ressalvada a situação nº 1 do caso concreto nº 1, na qual o construto parece ter transbordado seu espaço de atuação esperado. A Parte II foi motivada por este achado e teve por objetivo buscar uma explicação teórica, além de organizar os achados teóricos e empíricos em um modelo abrangente de tomada de decisão jurídica. Para tanto, foram examinados diversos tópicos relacionados às exceções no campo do direito: conceito, diferenciação entre exceções predicativas e o processo de excetuar normas, os elementos desse processo, com destaque para o juízo de normalidade, e os resultados possíveis (mudança do sentido da norma vs. derrotabilidade). A partir dessas distinções formulou-se a hipótese de que o achado empírico que motivou o prosseguimento da pesquisa é parcialmente explicado pelo juízo de normalidade acerca do funcionamento do direito, que pode iniciar o processo de excetuar normas. Por fim, o acervo teórico e empírico é organizado em um modelo abrangente de tomada de decisão jurídica, que abarca a um só tempo a normalidade e anormalidade, os casos rotineiros e os casos incomuns, os casos fáceis e os casos difíceis. A Conclusão organiza as ideias centrais da tese, resume seus principais achados e revê as principais implicações para a Psicologia, para a Teoria do Direito e para a Psicologia Social do Trabalho e das Organizações. / [en] This dissertation aims at the interdisciplinary study of legal rules as applied by legal authorities. The research is divided in two parts. Part I’s objective is to understand the psychological relationship between decision-making authorities and rules through a sociopsychological construct dubbed attitude towards rules, as well as its possible relations with the process of creating exceptions to rules in recalcitrant experiences, with personality traits from the Big Five Factors model, and with sociodemographic variables. After following the procedure for constructing the psychological tests, we proceeded to search for evidence of validity of the Attitude Towards Rules Scale (ATRS) containing 29 items. The complete instrument containing sociodemographic items, the ATRS, the Brazilian Short Form Scale of Descriptors of the Five Personality Factors, and hypothetical cases to be judged by the participants, was submitted to a diverse sample of 347 lawyers from Justice System or Law School graduates. The results provide evidence for the internal validity of the sociopsychological construct attitude towards rules, measured by the ATRS with 12 items (Cronbach s alpha = 0.89). Evidence for external validity was also found in correlations with the personality trait openness to experience, with various emotions and self-perceived feelings, with sociodemographic variables (e.g., place of residence and domain of professional activity of the subject) as well as with the averages for the subjects’ judgments in items 2 and 3 of the hypothetical cases presented, allowing for a justified interpretative statement such that the psychological relationship between decision-making authorities and rules could be conceived as an attitude. Attitude towards rules also correlated in the expected way with the responses in concrete cases, except in one case, in which the construct seems to have surpassed its expected conceptual boundaries. Part II was motivated by this finding and aimed to seek a theoretical explanation, in addition to organizing the theoretical and empirical findings into a comprehensive model of legal decision-making. To this end, several topics related to legal exceptions were examined: its concept, the difference between predicative exceptions and the process of excepting norms, the elements of this process, with emphasis on normality judgments, and the possible results (meaning change vs. defeasibility). From these distinctions, it was hypothesized that the empirical finding that motivated the continuation of the research is partially explained by normality judgments on the functioning of the Law, which may initiate the process of excepting norms. Finally, the theoretical and empirical collection is organized into a comprehensive model of legal decision-making, which encompasses both normality and abnormality, routine cases and unusual cases, easy cases, and hard cases. The Conclusion organizes the central ideas of this dissertation, summarizes its main findings and reviews the main implications for Psychology, for Legal Theory, and for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

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