Student Number : 7820500 - MA research report - School of Psychology - Faculty of Humanities / Internationally, suicide is highly prevalent among adolescents and young adults, and South African data suggest that suicide is a serious problem that is increasingly affecting the Black population and young men in particular. This study aimed firstly to investigate the prevalence of suicidal behaviour among young adults, and, in a sample of 85 young people (aged 19-30), one in seven had previously attempted suicide, and almost one in three had recently thought about killing themselves. Sociological research has shown that religion has a predominantly protective effect with regard to suicide, however psychological research, while providing evidence for a similar relationship, has also shown that religious strain may contribute to suicidality. This study sought to establish whether a relationship exists between suicidal ideation (and positive ideation), and various indicators of religiosity. Unexpectedly, given the research trends, suicidal ideation was significantly positively associated with self-reported religious salience (r = .297, p = .006), and with the collaborative/deferring religious coping style (r = .301, p = .005), characterized by higher levels of religiosity. Suicidal ideation was significantly negatively associated with the self-directing style (r = -.331, p = .002), favoured by less religious participants. Positive ideation was unrelated to religious salience, participation, and both religious coping approaches. Various explanations were proposed for these results. Cognition is a central pathway for suicidality, and insecure religious attachment, when triggered by stressors, may set in motion a cognitive process involving negative religious attributions and harmful religious coping strategies – typical symptoms of religious strain which has been associated with suicidal behaviour. Maladaptive religious beliefs and behaviours may also have a negative impact on depression, hopelessness and helplessness, all vulnerability factors for suicidal behaviour in young people. It is also possible that, when faced by life challenges that exceed coping capacity, individuals may be more likely to turn to God, while simultaneously experiencing hopelessness, depression and suicidal ideation. Finally, the gender skew in the sample may have resulted in the high levels of suicidal behaviour and religiosity, and the positive relationship between them. Vulnerability to suicidal behaviour in young adults is a multifaceted problem, and religion, itself a multidimensional concept, is one of many factors that may provide protection against or contribute to suicidal behaviour. In order to understand the complex problem of vulnerability to suicidal behaviour in young adults, there is a need for further multivariate research.

<p>This thesis investigates help-seeking and effects of help-seeking on causal attributions for helping (i.e., what people believe caused help or lack of help). Additionally, it examines self-serving and other-serving attributions (i.e., to augment a person's positive sides and diminish the negative ones). Help-seeking was investigated in questionnaires, describing situations where spouses collaborate in doing household chores. A first study showed that women and men report using direct styles (i.e., explicitly verbalising the requests) more often than indirect ones. A second study showed that spouses inaccurately believe that wives in general would report more indirect and less direct styles than husbands in general. Causal attributions for helping were investigated in four studies with different methods, settings, and types of relationships (questionnaires, laboratory experiment; spouses doing chores, students and strangers doing computerized exercises). Consistent support was obtained for a predicted interaction between helping and the clarity of the request for help in determining the attributions. It is suggested that this finding is an effect of people comparing the behavior of one person with their beliefs about how other persons behave (i.e., consensus). Additionally, the findings did not support the claims that people make self-serving attributions and that the latter would be more pronounced among men than women. However, the attributions were other-serving. The thesis gives a novel understanding of everyday life by combining the issues of help-seeking and causal attributions. It also offers a discussion of the previous literature and of theoretical and applied implications of the findings.</p>

This thesis investigates help-seeking and effects of help-seeking on causal attributions for helping (i.e., what people believe caused help or lack of help). Additionally, it examines self-serving and other-serving attributions (i.e., to augment a person's positive sides and diminish the negative ones). Help-seeking was investigated in questionnaires, describing situations where spouses collaborate in doing household chores. A first study showed that women and men report using direct styles (i.e., explicitly verbalising the requests) more often than indirect ones. A second study showed that spouses inaccurately believe that wives in general would report more indirect and less direct styles than husbands in general. Causal attributions for helping were investigated in four studies with different methods, settings, and types of relationships (questionnaires, laboratory experiment; spouses doing chores, students and strangers doing computerized exercises). Consistent support was obtained for a predicted interaction between helping and the clarity of the request for help in determining the attributions. It is suggested that this finding is an effect of people comparing the behavior of one person with their beliefs about how other persons behave (i.e., consensus). Additionally, the findings did not support the claims that people make self-serving attributions and that the latter would be more pronounced among men than women. However, the attributions were other-serving. The thesis gives a novel understanding of everyday life by combining the issues of help-seeking and causal attributions. It also offers a discussion of the previous literature and of theoretical and applied implications of the findings.

Extensive changes are taking place in working life and creating new and important areas for research. New knowledge is needed in order for individuals and organizations to be able to maintain long-term development. The aim of this thesis is to increase our understanding of how change and (im)mobility in the labor market are related to employees’ health, wellbeing, and work-related attitudes. The thesis comprises three studies, based on questionnaire data from different samples. Study I examined the potential consequences of downsizing in two organizations that had implemented change in two different ways (proactively and reactively). A proactive approach seems to lessen change-related demands and provide an opportunity for increased participation, which helps lessen the negative effects on employee work attitudes and wellbeing. The descriptive data from a representative sample in Study II revealed that 28 percent of the permanent and 50 percent of the temporary employees did not work in their preferred occupations. The results indicate that those individuals who were involuntarily embedded (locked-in position), especially among the permanent employees, had more health problems and less development at work. Study III utilizes a newly developed construct (work-related health attributions) that focuses on the individual’s perception of the relation between work and health. The results indicate that it seems to be a promising construct for predicting job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intention. For employees to have the opportunity to participate in organizational change, as well as the opportunity to exercise mobility and alter their circumstances when the organization, occupation, or job is not contributing to their better health appear to be factors that help improve health and sustainability for both employees and organizations.

La Constitution portugaise établit une vaste autonomie locale aux autarcies locales au sein de l'organisation étatique. Elle crée un intérêt local propre à chaque autarcie locale qui coexiste avec l'intérêt général car il bénéficie de la protection de la Constitution. L'intérêt local autarcique est un intérêt autonome. Sa représentation appartient à chaque autarcie locale. La municipalité se distingue parmi les autarcies locales par l'importance de ses compétences et par la singularité de son fonctionnement. Ses deux organes sont élus directement créant une tension quant à leur légitimité démocratique, bien que la Constitution établisse que la Chambre municipale répond devant l'assemblée. Selon la Constitution, l'exécutif municipal est un organe collégial élut proportionnellement et son président est le premier candidat de la liste la plus votée. Il est de fait un organe, bien que la Constitution de la loi ne le reconnaisse pas comme tel. Ses compétences propres sont vastes mais trois de ses compétences font la différence. Elles lui donnent une suprématie sur l'organe qui empêche son fonctionnement collégial. / The Portuguese Constitution grants a large autonomy to the local communities in the context of the State organisation. The Constitution recognizes a local interest regarding each local community, which exists alongside with the general interest and under the protection of the Constitution. The autarchy's interest is autonomous. The municipality bas a prominent role in the autarchy's organisation because of its competences and its singular functioning. Both organs are directly elected witch creates tension concerning their democratic legitimacy although the Constitution stipu1ates that the executive is accountable before the assembly. The Portuguese Constitution states that the municipal executive operates collectively, is elected by a proportional system and bas a president that is the first candidate in the most voted list. In fact, the Constitution and the law do not recognise him as an organ. Although he has vast competences, three of those competences make all the difference. They block the organ from operating collectively.

Background: Psychiatric inpatient staff members work with arguably the most challenging service users. However, reference to these challenges often does not go beyond ‘challenging behaviour’, offering no insight into the actual presentation, thus preventing formulation of the perceived challenges, or subsequent interventions. Moreover, studies have shown that staff responses to challenging presentations can impact on both the staff member and the service user. In particular, staff causal attributions have been shown to impact on their therapeutic response (Apel & Bar-Tal, 1996), as well as being associated with staff emotions (Colson et al., 1987). In turn, the emotional response has been found to be associated with coping, both of which have also been found to effect staff behavioural response, as well as staff members’ psychological well-being (Wykes & Whittington, 1998). However, there have been limited studies assessing these relationships with psychiatric inpatient staff. This may be due to the lack of assessment tools developed for this staff group to measure these particular domains. A specifically designed tool would enable consistent assessment to take place to build on our theoretical knowledge of psychiatric inpatient staff members’ perceived challenges, and their responses to them, as well as highlight specific areas within these domains where further staff training and support is required. Aims: The first aim of the study was to explore psychiatric staff’s views on the challenges they faced when working with service users in inpatient settings, their emotional responses, attributions, and coping strategies about those challenges and then to develop a measure which would accurately capture these (the SEACCS). The second aim was to assess the reliability of the new scale as well as explore relationships within the SEACCS. Finally, the third aim was to assess content and face validity, as well as conduct preliminary psychometric investigations of the construct validity of the newly developed measure. Method: The study was conducted using various methods across three phases. In order to generate items for the SEACCS, a systematic review of the relevant literature and semi-structured interviews took place during the first phase. Secondly, the results of Phase I were combined in order to develop and construct the SEACCS. The third phase involved a postal survey of the SEACCS (including re-test), followed by psychometric investigations to scrutinise the items, explore the reliability, and construct validity of the SEACCS.Results: Twenty three studies were included in the systematic review. The results highlighted inconsistent measurement and findings of the domains concerned. Seven multi-disciplinary staff interviews took place. Thematic analysis was used to conduct four separate analyses focusing on each of the research questions. Several themes and sub-themes were found. Themes such as: ‘Engagement’, ‘Attributions of controllability’, and ‘Behavioural responses’. Findings from the review, thematic analyses, and consultation groups (content and face validity) were combined in order to develop the 64 item SEACCS. A total of 76 multi-disciplinary psychiatric inpatient staff members completed the SEACCS, 15 of which completed re-tests. No items were removed following item scrutiny assessments. Preliminary psychometric investigations indicated good reliability, significant relationships across domains within the SEACCS, and partial construct validity with the GHQ-28.Conclusion: The results of the current study provide the first step in the development and construction of a clinically relevant tool that can be used to assess these domains. The methodological limitations and clinical implications are considered, and future directions for research in this area are suggested.

Police officers are allowed considerable discretion within the criminal justice system in addressing illegal behaviors and interpersonal conflicts. Broadly, such resolutions fall into two categories: formal (e.g., arrest) and informal outcomes. Many of these interventions involve persons who have historically faced stigmatization, such as those who have mental disorders, criminal histories, or both (i.e., mentally disordered offenders). On this point, stigma generally includes discriminatory behavior toward the stigmatized person or group and can be substantially influenced by internal and external attributions. In addition, researchers have suggested that internal attributions lead to punishing behaviors and external attributions lead to helping behaviors. The current study examined attributions about offender behavior made by police officers in an effort to evaluate the effectiveness of Corrigan’s model. Specifically, this study investigated the effects of officer attributions on their immediate decisions in addressing intentionally ambiguous and minor offenses. Officers provided one of two vignettes of a hypothetical offender who was either mentally disordered or intoxicated and provided their anticipated resolution of the situation. Encouragingly, disposition decision differed by offender condition, with a substantially higher rate of arrests for the intoxicated offender (i.e., the external condition). Corrigan’s model was initially successful for both offender conditions, but was overall more successful for the mentally disordered condition. Results are discussed within the broader context of police policy, such as crisis intervention training, and identification of officers who could benefit from additional mental health trainings.

In line with the Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation (VSA) model of marriage, this study examined the role of neuroticism, stressful life events, mutual problem solving and negative relationship attributions on marital quality and adjustment among a sample of newlywed couples in Addis Ababa. A quantitative cross-sectional study design involving a sample of 192 newlywed couples was employed. Data were analysed using correlation and multiple regression analysis methods. The PROCESS module in SPSS and Structural Equation Modeling was also used to test indirect effects and actor and partner effects, respectively. The results showed that for both wives’ and husbands’, neuroticism significantly predicted their own marital satisfaction but only husbands’ neuroticism significantly predicted their partners’ marital satisfaction. Stressful life events did not have a significant actor and partner effect for both wives’ and husbands’. Negative relationship attribution was found to be a significant predictor of actors as well as partners' marital satisfaction for both wives’ and husbands’ while only husbands’ mutual problem solving, not that of wives’, had a significant effect on their own marital satisfaction. Tests of indirect effects also showed that, for both wives’ and husbands’, neuroticism had a significant negative intrapersonal and interpersonal indirect effect on marital satisfaction through the mediation of both mutual problem solving and negative relationship attribution. Wives’ and husbands’ stressful life events had a significant negative intrapersonal and interpersonal indirect effect on marital satisfaction through the mediation of negative relationship attribution. Mutual problem solving only mediated a significant indirect effect of husbands’ stress on marital satisfaction at the intrapersonal level and wives’ stress on marital satisfaction at the interpersonal level. This research contributed to enhancing scientific knowledge that guides the design and implementation of policies, programs, and services to promote newlyweds’ marital quality and adjustment in the Ethiopian context. The research also made a theoretical contribution to the VSA model by indicating that adaptive processes play a varying mediational role for wives’ and husbands’ in the indirect effect of stress on marital satisfaction and by confirming that adaptive processes such as mutual problem solving and negative relationship attribution play a more prominent role in affecting marital quality and satisfaction than the other two components of the model, that is neuroticism and stressful life events. / Psychology

El presente estudio cualitativo tiene como finalidad identificar posibles perspectivas de investigación sobre la base de los conceptos de las creencias y de atribuciones causales en el marco de la educación intercultural bilingüe [EIB] en el Perú. Es por ello que, para plantear esas posibilidades de indagación, se ha efectuado una revisión bibliográfica de documentos que abordan la implementación y desarrollo de la EIB en América Latina, en el Perú y, en particular, en la región Loreto. A partir de ello, en el presente documento, se plantea una descripción de este proceso educativo. Además, se definen los constructos de creencias y atribuciones causales, y se reportan hallazgos de otras investigaciones que utilizan estos conceptos en contextos con algún nivel de similaridad al de la EIB. También se presenta lo encontrado en otros trabajos que han indagado las percepciones y factores que influyen la implementación y desarrollo pertinente de la EIB en los pueblos originarios. A partir de lo anterior, se proponen las siguientes posibilidades de investigación: creencias y atribuciones causales de padres y madres de familia de pueblos originarios pertenecientes a escuelas EIB, creencias docentes sobre la implementación de la EIB, factores a los que atribuyen los actores educativos el éxito o fracaso de la experiencia educativa EIB y actitudes de los actores educativos frente al servicio de la EIB en todos los niveles de educación. Asimismo, se puede abordar el tema acerca de las percepciones de los padres y madres de familia en relación con el perfil docente EIB. / The purpose of this qualitative study is to identify possible research perspectives based on the concepts of beliefs and causal attributions in the framework of intercultural bilingual education [EIB] in Peru. That is why, to raise these possibilities of inquiry, a bibliographic review of documents that address the implementation and development of IBE in Latin America, Peru and, in particular, in the Loreto region has been carried out. Based on this, this document presents a description of this educational process. Furthermore, the constructs of beliefs and causal attributions are defined, and the findings of other investigations that use these concepts in contexts with some level of similarity to that of IBD are reported. It also presents what was found in other studies that have investigated the perceptions and factors that influence the implementation and pertinent development of EIB in indigenous peoples. Based on the above, in this document, the following research possibilities are proposed: beliefs and causal attributions of parents of indigenous peoples belonging to IBE schools, teaching beliefs about IBE implementation, factors to which educational actors attribute the success or failure of the IBE educational experience and attitudes of educational actors towards the IBE service at all levels of education. Likewise, the issue about the perceptions of fathers and mothers in relation to the EIB teaching profile can be addressed. / Trabajo de investigación

Solicitud de envío manuscrito de artículo científico. / En Latinoamérica, en los últimos años, se han aplicado evaluaciones de desempeño docente. Dado ese contexto, en algunos países como Chile y México, se ha evidenciado una actitud negativa de los docentes y de incertidumbre frente a esta evaluación (Schulmeyer, 2002). En el caso peruano, por ejemplo, en el 2017, aproximadamente 238 mil docentes realizaron una de las huelgas magisteriales más grandes, donde reclamaron la derogatoria de la EDD (Fowks, 2017). Esta situación internacional evidencia la importancia de investigar las diversas aristas de esta problemática. En ese marco, se realizó esta investigación con el objetivo de explorar las creencias y las atribuciones causales que los docentes de escuelas bilingües rurales-multigrado de Nivel Primaria de la región Áncash manejan sobre esta evaluación. Se eligieron las creencias y las atribuciones causales como elementos teóricos, porque ambos son constructos que son complmentarias y que permiten estudiar las percepciones acerca de un fenómeno. A partir de ello, se realizó este estudio cualitativo con una aproximación fenomenológica y se utilizaron algunas herramientas de la teoría fundamentada. Luego de definir este presupuesto metodológico, se llevaron a cabo cinco entrevistas semiestructuradas a docentes de este tipo de escuelas. Después del análisis, se evidenció que los participantes asumen que su experiencia en aula, su preparación y su formación inicial constituyen causales de éxito o fracaso al momento de afrontar la EDD. Asimismo, se identificó cierto nivel de desconfianza en cuanto a la finalidad de la evaluación, ya que se halló que algunos docentes creen que esta evaluación probablemente busque el despido de los docentes. Por último, se encontró que algunos docentes creen que algunas características de sus estudiantes de las escuelas en las que trabajan y el tiempo asignado a la evaluación influirían en su desempeño al momento de afrontar la EDD. / In Latin America, in recent years, teacher performance evaluations have been applied. Given this context, some countries such as Chile and Mexico have shown a negative attitude of teachers and uncertainty regarding this evaluation (Schulmeyer, 2002). In the Peruvian case, for example, in 2017, approximately 238 thousand teachers carried out one of the largest teacher strikes, where they demanded the repeal of the Teacher Performance Evaluation (EDD in Spanish, Fowks, 2017). This international situation shows the importance of investigating the various aspects of this problem. In this framework, this research was carried out with the objective of exploring the beliefs and causal attributions that teachers of bilingual rural-multigrade Primary Level schools in the Ancash region handle on this evaluation. Beliefs and causal attributions were chosen as theoretical elements, because both are constructs that are complementary and that allow the study of perceptions about a phenomenon. Based on this, this qualitative study was carried out with a phenomenological approach and some tools of grounded theory were used. After defining this methodological estimation, five semi-structured interviews were carried out with teachers of this type of schools. After the analysis, it was evidenced that the participants assume that their experience in the classroom, their preparation and their initial training constitute causes of success or failure when facing the EDD. Likewise, a certain level of distrust was identified as to the purpose of the evaluation, since it was found that some teachers believe that this evaluation is likely to seek the dismissal of teachers. Finally, it was found that some teachers believe that some characteristics of their students from the schools in which they work and the time allocated to the evaluation would influence their performance when facing the EDD. / Trabajo de Suficiencia Profesional