This project is designed as an aid to those interested in practicing, researching or teaching crisis communication. For public relations’ practitioners, it offers a comprehensive approach for structuring a crisis communication plan. For researchers, several theoretical frameworks for the study of crisis communication are provided, with the goal of allowing them a more complete foundation for executing future research. Those involved in teaching crisis communication are offered additional resources such as a sample crisis communication plan, media guidelines and a concluding case study for educating future practitioners.

Abstract Internet and information technology have changed our daily life extremely. Information technology affects not only the way people running the business but also their expectation to learning and education. All this external shift and new requirement have become the driving force of e-learning. Mission Based Learning (MBL), which proposed by pedagogical experts, are a new learning model to address the new learning pattern of e-learning. MBL would like students to be trained as entrepreneur, with entrepreneurship, willing to take risk and can learning from failure experience. Thus, MBL activity increases the difficulty of the learning tasks in order to motivate students¡¦ potential and hope that students can use innovative strategy to overcome the mission. However, this may causes students to fail in the learning activity easily. Therefore, understanding students¡¦ failure response is the key point to teach students learning from failure experience. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting students¡¦ failure response in participating MBL. The study depends on prior-research and uses questionnaires to collect data. A total of 252 students attending the MBL activity are the research subjects. The collected data is processed and analyzed with SPSS for Windows 10.0. The main findings show that students¡¦ failure tolerance, failure attribution and perceived goal structure will significantly affect students¡¦ constructive failure response. Furthermore, students¡¦ age will not affect students¡¦ failure tolerance, self-concept and failure response. Students¡¦ perceived goal structure will affect their failure tolerance and failure response in MBL activity. This research also finds that failure attribution will significantly affect students¡¦ failure tolerance, self-concept and failure response. Finally, according to the research result, this thesis proposed conclusions and suggestions for the educators and the follow-up.

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Certain properties of individuals’ social networks within their organizations are known to be associated with benefits. However, these properties are not universally beneficial for all individuals. To explain the differing utility of social connections for different actors, network research has tended to focus on factors relating to the actor’s characteristics, agency and cognition. With this dissertation, I explore a different contingency affecting actors’ abilities to leverage their networks: how observers perceive and evaluate the behavior of actors as they craft and use their networks, and how these attributions impact actors’ job performance. I develop a theoretical framework that incorporates social capital theory to develop a taxonomy of networking behaviors. I build upon network cognition research to explore how observers’ perceptions and attributions of actors’ networking behaviors rather than perceptions of network ties or structure affect actors’ outcomes. I draw upon attribution theory to suggest how observers’ attributions about actors may affect observers’ behavior towards actors, thus impacting actors’ outcomes. Results suggest that networking behaviors that are seen as serving the collective positively impact actors’ outcomes, while networking behaviors that are seen as self-serving negatively impact the actors’ outcomes by limiting access to high-status friends. However, attributions about an actor’s self-serving behavior augment the benefits the actor receives when he or she has access to high-status friends. When it comes to performance, networks matter, but it also matters how observers evaluate actors’ networking behaviors.

In line with Schwarz’s (2008) suggestion of extending Situational CrisisCommunication Theory (SCCT) with Kelley’s covariation principle, the presentresearch aims to further examine the applicability of integrating a covariation-basedapproach to crisis responsibility assessment into the SCCT framework. Specifically, acontent analysis was conducted to verify the basic assumptions for applying acovariation-based approach in crisis communication context. A follow-upexperimental study was exercised to test the effect of consensus information – themissing variable in SCCT – on crisis responsibility attributions. The researchsuggested that a covariation-based approach of crisis responsiblilty assessment couldbe legitimately applied in the SCCT framework, and that crisis responsibilityassessment in the SCCT framework could be improved, at least in some particularsituations, by more consistently and systematically taking into account the threeinformation dimensions in covariation principle as integrated information patternsrather than separately considering the effect of one single information dimensionalone.Keywords:

abstract: There have been multiple calls for research on consumers' responses to social issues, regulatory changes, and corporate behavior. Thus, this dissertation proposes and tests a conceptual framework of parents' responses to government regulations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) that address juvenile obesity. This research builds on Attribution Theory to examine the impact of government regulations and CSR on consumers' attitudes and their subsequent behavior. Three pilot studies and three main experiments were conducted; a between-subjects and randomized experimental design being used to capture the effects of regulations and corporate actions on product satisfaction, company evaluations, and behavioral intentions, while examining the mediating role of attributions of responsibility for a negative product outcome. This research has implications for policy makers and marketing practitioners and scholars. This is the first study to offer a new perspective, based on attributions of blame, to explain the mechanism that drives consumers' responses to government regulations. Considering numerous calls for government actions that address childhood obesity, it is important to understand how and why consumers respond to such regulations. The results illustrated that certain policies may have unintended consequences due to unexpected attributions of blame for unhealthy products. Only recently have researchers tried to address the psychological mechanism through which CSR has an impact on consumers' attitudes and behavior. To date, few studies have investigated attributions as a mediating variable in the transfer of CSR associations on consumer responses. Nonetheless, this is the first study that concentrates on attributions of responsibility, per se, to explain the impact of CSR on company evaluations. This dissertation extends previous research, where locus, stability, and controllability mediated the relationship between CSR and attributions of blame; the degree of blame being consequential to brand evaluations. The current results suggest that attributions of responsibility, per se, mediate the impact of CSR on company evaluations. Additionally, attributions of blame are measured as the degree to which consumers take personal responsibility for a negative product outcome. This highlights a new role of the CSR construct, as a moderator of consumers' self-serving bias, a fundamental psychological response that has been neglected in the marketing literature. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Business Administration 2013

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Food, Nutrition, Dietetics, and Health / Tandalayo Kidd / HIV and nutrition status are interrelated. Nutrition problems associated with HIV or its treatment occur in nearly all people living with HIV (PLHIV) and can be indicative of the stage and progression of infection. On the other hand, adequate nutrition ensures good nutrition status, immune function, improved treatment outcome, and quality of life. The growing problems of HIV and AIDS in Indonesia require health professionals, including dietitians, to mobilize for HIV care and control. However, studies have demonstrated health care workers to have prejudicial attitudes towards PLHIV, which may further jeopardize the quality of care. The objective of this study was to implement the attribution theory to improve HIV-related knowledge and attitudes among dietetics students. It is hypothesized that given the opportunity to revisit the antecedent of their stigma, dietetic students might be able to improve their attitudes and emotional reactions to HIV. Results from the cross-sectional study confirmed the attribution theory, showing that the stigmatizing attitudes were influenced by both personal values and environmental factors. The study also found that greater knowledge about HIV was associated with a better attitude toward PLHIV. This and the fact that universities differed in how they educated dietetic students about HIV, raise questions on the current dietetic curriculum in Indonesia and the teaching conduct in each dietetic school. These notions were studied in the second study, using a qualitative approach to inquire lecturers and school administrators. Four major themes emerged from the analysis confirming that HIV discourse in dietetic schools in Indonesia is very limited since it is not mandatory in the curriculum, lecturers are reluctant to talk about HIV, and there is apparent restriction to work with the key population. The way the lecturers attribute HIV with blames of personal responsibility and fear of contagion, heavily influence their teaching conduct. The intervention model with transformative learning supported the hypothesis that given the opportunity to reflect and re-question their judgment, students were able to improve their knowledge and reduce their stigmatizing attitudes. Overall, these studies give a warning to policy makers in health and education sectors as well as the school administrators that dietetics students have negative attitudes towards PLHIV and this stigma is associated with lack of knowledge about HIV, hence the need to improve response from both sectors. This study also serves as a strong call to provide more opportunities to students to learn about HIV and to reach out to the patients and key population to instill better understanding and acceptance to HIV.

This abstract summarises the thesis entitled Defensive Avoidance in Paranoid Delusions: Experimental and Computational Approaches, submitted by Michael Moutoussis to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in the faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, in 2011.The possible aetiological role of defensive avoidance in paranoia was investigated in this work. First the psychological significance of the Conditioned Avoidance Response (CAR) was reappraised. The CAR activates normal threat-processing mechanisms that may be pathologically over-activated in the anticipation of threats in paranoia. This may apply both to external threats and also to threats to the self-esteem.A temporal-difference computational model of the CAR suggested that a dopamine-independent process may signal that a particular state has led to a worse-than-expected outcome. On the contrary, learning about actions is likely to involve dopamine in signalling both worse-than-expected and better-than-expected outcomes. The psychological mode of action of dopamine blocking drugs may involve dampening (1) the vigour of the avoidance response and (2) the prediction-error signals that drive action learning.Excessive anticipation of negative events might lead to inappropriately perceived high costs of delaying decisions. Efforts to avoid such costs might explain the Jumping-to-Conclusions (JTC) bias found in paranoid patients. Two decision-theoretical models were used to analyse data from the ‘beads-in-a-jar’ task. One model employed an ideal-observer Bayesian approach; a control model made decisions by weighing evidence against a fixed threshold of certainty. We found no support for our ‘high cost’ hypothesis. According to both models the JTC bias was better explained by higher levels of ‘cognitive noise’ (relative to motivation) in paranoid patients. This ‘noise’ appears to limit the ability of paranoid patients to be influenced by cognitively distant possibilities.It was further hypothesised that excessive avoidance of negative aspects of the self may fuel paranoia. This was investigated empirically. Important self-attributes were elicited in paranoid patients and controls. Conscious and non-conscious avoidance were assessed while negative thoughts about the self were presented. Both ‘deserved’ and ‘undeserved’ persecutory beliefs were associated with high avoidance/control strategies in general, but not with increased of avoidance of negative thoughts about the self. On the basis of the present studies the former is therefore considerably more likely than the latter to play an aetiological role in paranoia.This work has introduced novel computational methods, especially useful in the study of ‘hidden’ psychological variables. It supported and deepened some key hypotheses about paranoia and provided consistent evidence against other important aetiological hypotheses. These contributions have substantial implications for research and for some aspects of clinical practice.

A social analog of a short-delay conditioning paradigm in Pavlovian learning was used to test the prediction that under certain conditions, human causal judgments would reflect acquired response properties that can be either increased (augmented) or decreased (discounted). The learning experiment was masked by describing it as a study testing a computerized employee evaluation system.

The aim of this study is to test if the impersonal trust sub-constructs serve aspredictors of quality in LMX-relations. By performing structural equation modelingwith empirical data, a model was developed that optimally predicts quality in LMXrelations. A cross-sectional survey was designed in order to gather data fromemployees in Kalmar municipality (N=574) and was analyzed by Analysis ofMoment Structures (AMOS). The result suggests that the sub-construct of HRMpractices predicts quality in LMX-relations while simultaneously being regressed bythe sub-construct management of business and people and organizing theoperational activities. Additionally, the result indicates that the sub-constructmanagement of business and people correlate with other sub-constructssustainability, fair play and communication. This study indicates the importance ofHRM-practices, managerial capability and the organizing the operational activitiesin order to predict quality in LMX-relations by increasing the impersonal trust.