Marijuana has been found to be the sole substance used by 57.3 percent of illicit drug users in the United States (NSDUH 2008). Taking this statistic into mind, it makes sense that individuals currently wed, divorced, cohabitating, or in some form of committed, romantic relationship would also be affected by the use of marijuana. While in today’s society the process of mate selection and relationship formation is considered to be a rather private and personal affair, some aspects of relationships still have consequences for the greater society. The effects of failed pairings on the individuals involved can have numerous repercussions; such ramifications are only multiplied when children are present within the relationship. The purpose of this project was to gain an understanding of the interplay between marijuana use and relationships and to better understand the means and methods by which relationships and marijuana use change over time. The influence of one’s personal, committed relationships on the increase, decrease, initiation, or cessation of marijuana use is examined in this study. Through the use of qualitative, in-depth interviews with 19-seven current and former users of marijuana, the underlying processes and events associated with the use of marijuana within relationships are better understood. According to the current research, marijuana can have both positive and negative repercussion on the romantic relationships of users. However, the most negative impacts on relationships tend to be seen when partners are unequally matched on their usage of the substance.

This study examined whether a difference in marital satisfaction existed among pre-marital cohabitating couples and non pre-marital cohabitating couples. Twenty of the couples had cohabitated and twenty had never cohabitated prior to their marriage. The forty couples were from the Atlanta metropolitan and LaGrange, Georgia areas and were selected for the study utilizing a non probability/purposive snowball sampling technique. The couples were referred by previous participants and were screened in order to ensure that all eligibility requirements were met. The couples' ages ranged from 20-45 years and all couples were involved in their first marriage. The Marital Satisfaction Inventory Revised (MSI-R) was administered to all forty couples in order to ascertain differences in marital satisfaction and to determine an interaction effect of gender and cohabitation status. The MSI-R is a 150 question, true-false inventory which measures marital satisfaction by testing nine marital scales and two validity scales. The findings of the study indicated that there were significant differences in marital satisfaction among premarital cohabitating and non pre-marital cohabitating husbands and wives. The significance between the two groups were Aggression, Family History of Distress, Time Together, Role Orientation, and Disagreement about Finances.

This study investigated the influence of past witnessed or experienced abuse on heterosexual cohabiting couples' Premarital Personal and Relationship Evaluation for Cohabiting Couples (PREPARE-CC) couple relationship types. The researcher utilized preexisting data from 5,000 cohabiting couples who had previously participated in the PREPARE marriage preparation program and had completed the PREPARE-CC inventory including a demographic section that elicited information about past abuse. Discriminant analysis was conducted in SPSS to answer the question of whether the presence of past witnessed or experienced abuse could successfully predict relationship type among cohabiting couples. Results of the discriminant analysis yielded no significant ability to classify cohabiting couples by individuals' experience of past abuse, however, isolating females and males with the highest frequencies of past abuse indicated that males abused "very often" had a higher frequency of higher-satisfaction relationship types than the general sample consisting mostly of individuals with little or no history of abuse. Females reporting abuse "very often" did not follow this same pattern. Recommendations were made for future longitudinal studies and for strength-based research on healthy heterosexual cohabiting couples in an effort to understand what contributes to these couples' success.

This qualitative study was conducted to investigate how subordination and superiority emerges in the interaction between heterosexual couples between 20 to 30 years old, without children. Eight semi-structured interviews with four couples have been conducted to provide insight into how subordination and superiority is made in the interaction between the cohabiting couples. All interviews were transcribed and then manually categorized along specific main themes and sub themes. The empirical data were then assayed by a hermeneutic interpretation.   Three previous studies have formed the basis for this study, Det kallas kärlek by Carin Holmberg, the anthology, Jämställdhetens pris and Familjer i tiden by Christine Roman and Helen Peterson. The theoretical framework consists symbolic interactionism, and especially the concept of asymmetrical role-taking and also doing gender. By using these theories, we can gain knowledge about the interaction between the pairs. We have also enlisted the aid of the theory doing gender to gain an understanding of how household distribution of the pairs look like.   The analysis of the empirical material showed that the majority of the women were the initiator in the relationship, with regard to housework and leisure. It was also in the female and male informants' statements that the primary responsibility for the division in terms of housework was on the women. In this way, one can, using the theory of asymmetric role- taking, identify the subordination of the woman in the relationship.

The major aims of the present study have been to investigate the predictive role of communication patterns and sexual satisfaction on relationship satisfaction / and to investigate the moderating role of sexual satisfaction on this relationship for married individuals both with and without children and for cohabiting individuals. In order to evaluate these, the Communication Pattern Questionnaire (CPQ), the Golombok-Rust Sexual Satisfaction Inventory (GRISS), the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS), and Demographic Information Form were administered to 74 married individuals with children, 68 married individuals without children, and 66 cohabiting individuals. To examine relationship statuses differences on communication patterns, sexual and relationship satisfaction, analysis of variance was performed. The results showed that relationship statuses do not differ on these variables. After controlling for the effects of age and duration of relationship, the main and interaction effects of communication patterns and sexual satisfaction on relationship satisfaction were assessed with a hierarchical regression analysis. The results revealed that a lower level of destructive communication, a higher level of constructive communication, and sexual satisfaction were separately associated with greater relationship satisfaction for all relationship status. However, emotional-logical communication was positively associated with relationship satisfaction only among married individuals with children and that aggressive communication was negatively associated with relationship satisfaction among married individuals without children and cohabiting individuals. Moreover, the interaction effect was found that sexual satisfaction moderated the effect of destructive communication on relationship satisfaction only among married individuals without children. Results are discussed with reference to related literature together with implications and the limitations of the study.

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A atividade do sistema nervoso central (SNC) afeta aquela do sistema imune e esta por sua vez, através de produtos originados em células imunes, como por exemplo, as citocinas modificam a atividade cerebral e, portanto, alguns comportamentos. O ato de conviver com pessoas portadoras de um tumor ou de patologias crônicas debilitantes tem sido estudado por vários pesquisadores, os quais têm relatado evidencias que mostram ser algumas condições psicológicas experimentadas por ?caregivers? associadas com variações de comportamento e de imunidade. Manifestações de estresse têm sido intensamente estudadas nestas pessoas. Neste sentido, e guardado os devidos cuidados com as extrapolações, não existe um modelo animal especificamente desenvolvido para analisar, em laboratório, as eventuais alterações imunes que possam ocorrer em animais que convivem com um outro doente. Este foi o objeto do presente trabalho. Mais especificamente, avaliou-se a existência de uma possível interação neuroimune em camundongas que coabitaram com outras portadoras de um tumor de Ehrlich, através da análise de parâmetros hematológicos, imunológicos, hormonais, comportamentais e neuroquímicos. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que a convivência por 11 dias com um animal portador do tumor de Ehrlich produziu em camundongas: 1) leucopenia; 2) diminuição do burst oxidativo induzido por PMA e por S. aureus e da porcentagem e, também da intensidade de fagocitose de neutrófilos sanguíneos; 3) aumento do burst oxidativo e redução da porcentagem, mas não alterou a intensidade de fagocitose de macrófagos ativados pelo ONCO-BCG; 4) diminuição da resistência ao crescimento de um tumor de Ehrlich, isto é, aumentou a concentração de células tumorais/ml de líquido ascítico e o número total de células tumorais; 5) redução do número de leucócitos circulantes em animais inoculados com o tumor de Ehrlich; 6) diminuição dos níveis hipotalâmicos de noradrenalina e aumento daqueles de dopamina e de MHPG; 7) aumento do ?turnover? de noradrenalina no hipotálamo e de dopamina no córtex frontal; 8) aumento dos efeitos da anfetamina sobre alguns parâmetros da atividade locomotora dos animais observados no campo aberto; 9) potenciou os efeitos de um tratamento com diazepam, reduzindo ainda mais o burst oxidativo induzido por PMA e por S. aureus assim como os efeitos do fármaco sobre a porcentagem e a intensidade de fagocitose de neutrófilos sanguíneos. No entanto, esta convivência não modificou a média do número de eritrócitos, a porcentagem do hematócrito e o volume corpuscular médio, assim como a atividade de macrófagos peritoneais residentes e, não interferiu com os níveis de corticosterona sérica dos animais. Em seu conjunto, os presentes resultados mostraram que a convivência com animais portadores de um tumor ascítico de Ehrlich produziu alterações comportamentais, neuroquímicas e imunológicas, que guardam grande similaridade com sinais e sintomas relatados em caregivers. Estas alterações foram interpretadas como decorrentes de uma situação de estresse psicológico prolongado vivenciado pelas camundongas companheiras de conspecíficas portadoras de um tumor. Mais especificamente, postulou-se, neste trabalho, sejam as alterações observadas decorrentes de um aumento de atividade catecolaminérgica no SNC e/ou de ativação do SNAS. A semelhança dos resultados obtidos em companheiras de animais doentes com aqueles de caregivers permitiu sugerir, tomados os devidos cuidados com extrapolações, seja o modelo experimental agora usado de alguma utilidade para a compreensão da situação vivenciada por estes caregivers / The activity of the central nervous system (CNS) affects the immune system, which by means of products molecules synthesized by its cells, modify the activity of the CNS, and, consequently, animal behavior. People that care for and support the needs of patients bearing tumors or with chronic, debilitating diseases, have been studied by many groups, with evidences pointing towards an association between some psychological conditions experienced by caregivers and changes in behavior and immunity. Stress-associated symptoms have been intensely studied in these people. Thus, taking into account the required grounds reasonable comparisons, there was no description of a suitable model for laboratory analysis of possible changes in immunity of animals cohabiting with a sick cage-mate. Therefore, the objective of this study was to establish a suitable model for this purpose. We particularly aimed on possible neuroimmune interaction in female mice that had cohabited with Ehrlich tumor-bearing mice, using for comparison hematological, immune, hormonal, behavioral, and neurochemical parameters. The results of this study show that cohabiting with a sick mate - mice bearing the Ehrlich tumor - for 11 days induced, in female mice: 1) leukopenia; 2) decrease in PMA- or S. aureus-induced oxidative burst, and also of the percentage and intensity of phagocytosis by circulating neutrophils; 3) increase in oxidative burst and reduction in the percentage, but did not influence intensity of phagocytosis by ONCO-BCG-activated macrophages; 4) decrease in the resistance to the progression of the Ehrlich tumor, shown by the enhanced concentration of tumor cells per ml of the ascitic fluid, and total number of tumor cells; 5) reduction in the number of circulating leukocytes in animals injected with the Ehrlich tumor; 6) diminished hypothalamic levels of noradrenaline and increased those of dopamine and MHPG in the same region; 7) increased the turnover of noradrenaline in the hypothalamus, and of dopamine in the frontal cortex; 8) enhanced the effects of amphetamine on several parameters of motor activity observed in the open field arena; 9) potentiated the effects of diazepam, reducing the PMA- or S. aureus-induced oxidative burst, and on the percentage and intensity of phagocytosis by circulating neutrophils even further. Nonetheless, cohabiting with the sick mate did not alter the red cell count, the hematocrit, or the mean cell volume, nor did it influence the activity of resident peritoneal macrophages or interfere with serum corticosterone levels. Altogether, these findings show that cohabiting with animals bearing the ascitic Ehrlich tumor caused behavioral, neurochemical, and immunological changes compatible with those presented and described by caregivers. These changes are interpreted as related to a sustained, long-term situation of psychological stress experienced by the conspecific female healthy mates of the tumor-bearing mice. In particular, we postulate in this study that the changes observed might be driven by the increased cathecolaminergic activity in the CNS and/or by the activation of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system (SANS). The resemblance of the results obtained here and those seen in human caregivers allows the careful suggestion that this model may be relevant to help understanding the situation experienced by caregivers

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-04T20:01:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 12 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Esta dissertação consiste no estudo teórico embasado, principalmente, na Teoria da Biologia do Conhecer da autoria de Humberto Maturana, articulada a um viver e conviver de educadores em formação no Mundo Virtual (Eduverse). Assim, foram desenvolvidas duas Atividades Complementares: Aprendizagem em Mundos Virtuais e Prática Pedagógica em Mundos Virtuais, para estudantes dos diferentes cursos de Licenciatura da Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos – UNISINOS e construída a Vila Aprendizagem em Mundos Virtuais. O foco principal da investigação foi: estudar como se desenvolvem a autonomia e a autoria no processo de formação do educador, por meio da construção de Mundos Virtuais, cuja proposta pedagógica está fundamentada numa concepção interacionista/construtivista/sistêmica. A metodologia de estudo de caso auxiliou na coleta dos dados empíricos, bem como na articulação desses dados com a teoria para realizar as análises. As fontes de informações utilizadas neste estudo foram: questionário, extratos eletrônicos / This dissertation consists of the theoretical study chiefly based on the Theory of Biology of Knowing by Humberto Maturana, articulated for future teachers’ living and cohabiting in the Virtual World (Eduverse). So two Complementary Activities have been developed: Learning in Virtual Worlds and Teaching Practice in Virtual Worlds for students in different teaching courses in Universidade do Vale do Rio dos Sinos (UNISINOS), and the Village ‘Learning in Virtual Worlds’ was built. The main investigation focus was studying how autonomy and authorship develop in the teacher education by constructing the Virtual Worlds, whose teaching proposal is based on an interactionist/ constructivist/systemic notion. The methodology of the case study helped in collecting empirical data and articulating these data with the analysis theory. The information sources for this study were a questionnaire, electronic excerpts (AVA-UNISINOS, MSN and Eduverse), and images captured in the Virtual World. Evidences coming out from this in