Expected mindreading is the belief that romantic partners should know one’s needs and feelings without overt communication. This dysfunctional belief is predicted to undermine relationship satisfaction, yet previous research provides mixed support. In two studies, I test my prediction that individuals higher in expected mindreading would be more reactive to misunderstandings by assessing relationship quality and attributions after participants imagined feeling understood or misunderstood by their romantic partner. In Study 1 (introductory psychology students), participants who felt misunderstood and were higher in expected mindreading were more likely to attribute misunderstandings to their partner’s lack of love than those who felt understood or were lower in expected mindreading. In Study 2 (community sample), satisfaction was lower for individuals who felt misunderstood and were higher in expected mindreading, compared to those who felt understood and were lower in expected mindreading. These findings have important implications for relationship counseling. / October 2016

Weight stigma is associated with negative health outcomes across the BMI continuum. However, few studies have examined weight discrimination targeting people with low body weights. This investigation explored the presence of anti-thin bias, defined as the belief that people with low BMIs have undesirable personality characteristics. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of six vignettes about women that differed by race (White and Black) and weight status (slightly underweight, normal weight, and slightly overweight). Negative personality characteristics were more likely to be ascribed to both underweight and overweight women, compared with normal weight women. Furthermore, participants were significantly more likely to attribute underweight women’s body weight to biological factors. Results indicate that underweight women might be more stigmatized for their body weight than normal weight women. Weight bias literature should continue to research the impact of weight discrimination for individuals across the BMI spectrum.

I argue that to know that a proposition is true one must have justification for being certain that the proposition is true. That is, one must have infallible epistemic justification for believing the proposition. It is widely accepted among epistemologists that we rarely, if ever, have such strong justification for our beliefs. It follows that there is precious little that we know. That conclusion is unacceptable to many philosophers. I argue that the positions that lead to the skeptical conclusion are well-motivated and that the skeptical conclusion is implicitly accepted by ordinary speakers. My dissertation has three main components: a metaphilosophical position, an epistemological position, and an error theory. First, the metaphilosophical position. One very important part of philosophy is the analysis of our ordinary concepts. Analysis of our concepts begins with reflecting on what we are inclined to say about various actual and possible cases when considered under specific descriptions. This traditional method has recently come under attack, due in part to the rise of semantic externalism. I agree with externalists that if ‘meaning is reference’ then there is little reason to think reflecting on our concepts from the armchair will provide insight to the nature of the concepts we investigate. I defend a version of semantic internalism which grounds meaning in factors with which subjects are directly acquainted. That view supports the traditional methodology. Furthermore, as the goal of philosophical analysis is to accurately describe concepts of philosophical interest, the only kind of objection that could be decisive against a proposed analysis is that it does not correctly describe our concept. That opens the door to a skeptical analysis of knowledge. Second, the epistemological position. I argue that the unacceptability of sentences of the form “S knows that p but it is possible for S that not-p” is best explained by the hypothesis that our concept of knowledge requires having justification for being certain that what one believes is true. I offer as a criterion of justified certainty the idea that when one knows a proposition is true, one is in a position to decisively answer questions about one’s knowledge of that proposition. I survey a number of competing theories of knowledge and show that they allow for the possibility of knowledge when one fails my criterion of decisive answerability. Those views fail my criterion because according to those views there is nothing the subject is aware of that guarantees for the subject that the allegedly known proposition is true. On that basis, I contend that knowledge is direct awareness of the factors that constitute the truth of the proposition one believes. Third, the error theory. Of course, we rarely have direct awareness of the factors that constitute the truth of the propositions we believe. So, our knowledge attributions are generally false. Yet, they are overwhelmingly natural to make. I argue that competent speakers are often quick to recognize knowledge attributions as a kind of ‘loose talk’ akin to the way we loosely ascribe geometric properties to ordinary objects. We regularly call objects ‘square’ that are not even close to being square, and we are quick to recognize this when challenged. I argue that we do this because we are so accustomed to communicating using strict language to make false claims that we often do not attend to the literal falsity of what we are saying. While we accept very demanding standards for knowledge, the phenomenon of recognizing that our knowledge claims are regularly false is as pervasive as our use of loose speech.

Emerging research highlights the social penalties for men and women who commit cross-gendered behaviors. Here, I examine how and when two contextual mechanisms (competence and credentials) alter people's perceptions of cross-gendered behavior and render actors as less gender-atypical and more gender-typical. In Study 1, I tested the hypothesis that incompetence in cross-gendered behaviors would communicate same-gendered qualities by contrast. In Study 2, I tested the hypothesis that an actor who commits a cross-gendered behavior will receive less gender-inconsistent evaluations if they first demonstrate gender-typical traits. Moreover, Study 2 examines whether or not these credentialed actors change the perception of the behavior's alignment with conventional gender stereotypes. Results were largely mixed but generally failed to support hypotheses. The Discussion focuses on how future research can address these questions.

Entrepreneurs are often perceived to be creative and risk taking (Kreuger, 2002). The purpose of this paper is to investigate entrepreneurs’ response to a failure namely a bankruptcy. People react differently to a bankruptcy and tend to blame different things as the cause. Some blame themselves while others blame things out of their control. These differences can have an impact on the learning process and how easy the entrepreneur moves on after the failure. These findings can be used for situations when dealing with failures and entrepreneurial activities. There is no single theory already existing for this topic, therefore several theories have been looked at and used for the analysis. The theories can be divided into five main areas: entrepreneurship, failure, entrepreneurial response to failure, factors affecting responses to failure and learning. Entrepreneurship is treated as the creation of new economic activity (Davidsson, 2004) and entrepreneurial traits (Kreuger, 2002) are considered in the analysis. Locus of control is an important trait since it shows the ability of the entrepreneur to think that they are in control of the environment. (Rotter, 1966) In order to explain the cause of a bankruptcy people tend to use certain attributions. Locus of causality refers to whether a person blames internal or external causes and stability whether these causes are changeable in the future or not. (Martinko, 1995) Several factors will influence the response to a bank-ruptcy and in this thesis motivation for the start-up, culture and separation of the company are looked upon. After a failure an entrepreneur can learn false lessons (McGrath & Cardon, 1997) and stop any entrepreneurial activities. However failure can also be positive if something true has been learnt. (Wiklund, 2006) This report is an exploratory type of study and a case study was conducted where five cases were used with entrepreneurs that have run companies that have gone bankrupt. A qualitative method was used and the empirical findings were gathered trough interviews which were then analysed with the support from the theoretical framework. In the analysis new models were created that showed patterns we found comparing the in-terviews. It also includes discussion about how culture affects the blaming factors of fail-ure. The factors that an entrepreneur is blaming the failure on are much depending on to what degree they possess entrepreneurial traits. This paper also suggest that how personally an entrepreneur takes his/her failure depends mostly on how financially dependent they were on their company and also how experienced they were from failure. Another finding was also that all the participants agreed that it is not a supportive business culture in the Jönköping region. Another conclusion is that entrepreneurs that blame their failure on in-ternal factors learn more from it, but this learning can be less significant due to earlier ex-perience from failure.

This study examined parent-adolescent conflict and the attributions for conflict. Adolescent participants (29 ADHD; 22 Comparison) aged 13-17 and their mothers and fathers completed questionnaires. Adolescents with ADHD have conflicts over more issues with their parents according to self and parent report. Adolescents who believed that the conflict occurred in many contexts and that their parents were responsible for that conflict reported that they had conflict over more issues. Attributions were not predictive of conflict according to mother report. ADHD status moderated attributions in predicting father reported conflict. Among fathers who believed that conflicts were their son or daughter’s responsibility, fathers of youth with ADHD were less likely to report more issues involving conflicts than fathers of youth without ADHD. Conversely, among fathers who believed conflict was pervasive across contexts and time, having a son or daughter with ADHD was associated with more issues involving conflict.

This study examined parent-adolescent conflict and the attributions for conflict. Adolescent participants (29 ADHD; 22 Comparison) aged 13-17 and their mothers and fathers completed questionnaires. Adolescents with ADHD have conflicts over more issues with their parents according to self and parent report. Adolescents who believed that the conflict occurred in many contexts and that their parents were responsible for that conflict reported that they had conflict over more issues. Attributions were not predictive of conflict according to mother report. ADHD status moderated attributions in predicting father reported conflict. Among fathers who believed that conflicts were their son or daughter’s responsibility, fathers of youth with ADHD were less likely to report more issues involving conflicts than fathers of youth without ADHD. Conversely, among fathers who believed conflict was pervasive across contexts and time, having a son or daughter with ADHD was associated with more issues involving conflict.

<p>Entrepreneurs are often perceived to be creative and risk taking (Kreuger, 2002). The purpose of this paper is to investigate entrepreneurs’ response to a failure namely a bankruptcy. People react differently to a bankruptcy and tend to blame different things as the cause. Some blame themselves while others blame things out of their control. These differences can have an impact on the learning process and how easy the entrepreneur moves on after the failure. These findings can be used for situations when dealing with failures and entrepreneurial activities.</p><p>There is no single theory already existing for this topic, therefore several theories have been looked at and used for the analysis. The theories can be divided into five main areas: entrepreneurship, failure, entrepreneurial response to failure, factors affecting responses to failure and learning. Entrepreneurship is treated as the creation of new economic activity (Davidsson, 2004) and entrepreneurial traits (Kreuger, 2002) are considered in the analysis. Locus of control is an important trait since it shows the ability of the entrepreneur to think that they are in control of the environment. (Rotter, 1966) In order to explain the cause of a bankruptcy people tend to use certain attributions. Locus of causality refers to whether a person blames internal or external causes and stability whether these causes are changeable in the future or not. (Martinko, 1995) Several factors will influence the response to a bank-ruptcy and in this thesis motivation for the start-up, culture and separation of the company are looked upon. After a failure an entrepreneur can learn false lessons (McGrath & Cardon, 1997) and stop any entrepreneurial activities. However failure can also be positive if something true has been learnt. (Wiklund, 2006)</p><p>This report is an exploratory type of study and a case study was conducted where five cases were used with entrepreneurs that have run companies that have gone bankrupt. A qualitative method was used and the empirical findings were gathered trough interviews which were then analysed with the support from the theoretical framework.</p><p>In the analysis new models were created that showed patterns we found comparing the in-terviews. It also includes discussion about how culture affects the blaming factors of fail-ure. The factors that an entrepreneur is blaming the failure on are much depending on to what degree they possess entrepreneurial traits. This paper also suggest that how personally an entrepreneur takes his/her failure depends mostly on how financially dependent they were on their company and also how experienced they were from failure. Another finding was also that all the participants agreed that it is not a supportive business culture in the Jönköping region. Another conclusion is that entrepreneurs that blame their failure on in-ternal factors learn more from it, but this learning can be less significant due to earlier ex-perience from failure.</p>

Doctor of Philosophy / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Jared A. Durtschi / Perceptions regarding the causes and intentions behind partner transgressions are often just as important as the transgressions themselves. Although mindfulness-based interventions have been useful in clinical work with couples, the potential role that mindfulness plays in attributions is unclear. Using a sample of 542 young adults in romantic relationships, I explored the direct and indirect associations among attachment, trait mindfulness, and attributions. Specifically, I conducted a latent profile analysis, a person-centered approach, through which I identified four latent classes of trait mindfulness, including a High Mindfulness class, a Nonjudgmentally Aware class, a Low Mindfulness class, and a Judgmentally Observing class. I then ran a path analysis and found a number of significant direct effects. For example, relative to membership in the Low Mindfulness, membership in the High Mindfulness class and the Nonjudgmentally Aware class were associated with more benign attributions. I also found two significant indirect effects. First, heightened attachment anxiety was associated with an decreased probability of being Nonjudgmentally Aware class relative to the Low Mindfulness class, which was inversely linked with benign attributions. Second, avoidant attachment was linked with a decreased probability of membership in the High Mindfulness class relative to the Low Mindfulness class, which was linked to a decrease in benign attributions. The clinical implications and areas for future research based on the findings of this study are discussed.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.