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La tendance des personnes âgées à évaluer leur santé favorablement en dépit du nombre croissant de problèmes de santé associés à cette étape de la vie constitué un phénomène d'intérêt en gérontologie. De plus, la santé subjective représente un facteur de prédiction pour différentes variables importantes, notamment l'utilisation des services de santé et la mortalité subséquente. La présente étude, qui s'inscrit dans le champ de la psychologie positive, tente d'élucider les facteurs et processus susceptibles de favoriser une meilleure santé subjective à l'âge adulte avancé. Dans un premier temps, les contributions du bien-être psychologique et du soutien social à la prédiction de la santé subjective ont été évaluées, en tenant compte de l'effet de l'âge, du degré de scolarité, de la maladie physique et du statut fonctionnel. L'objectif principal a consisté ensuite à mettre à l'épreuve un modèle intégratif de la santé subjective, qui ajoute le bien-être psychologique et le soutien social aux autres variables typiquement envisagées par les modèles médicaux. Cette analyse a permis d'éxaminer plus précisément les interrelations entre les différentes variables du modèle propose. Des analyses de type longitudinal ont enfin porté sur le pouvoir de prédiction de ces variables et l'application du modèle final pour expliquer la santé subjective à travers le temps. Les données de la presente étude ont été tirées de la deuxième phase de l'Étude Canadienne sur la Santé et le Vieillissement. Une mesure de la santé subjective prise en moyenne six ans plus tard durant la troisième phase de cette étude a également été utilisée pour effectuer les analyses longitudinales. Au total, les données de 2022 participantes et 1336 participants agés de 69 ans et plus ont été retenues pour les analyses effectuées dans le cadre des deux premiers objectifs. De ces données, celles de 1426 participantes et 868 participants ont été incluses dans les analyses longitudinales subséquentes. Les résultats ont révélé que le bien-être psychologique contribuait significativement à expliquer la variance de la santé subjective, après avoir tenu compte des effets de l'âge, du niveau de scolarité, de la maladie physique, du statut fonctionnel et du soutien social. Sien que le soutien social ne contribuait pas à expliquer la santé subjective, l'analyse du modèle intégratif a devoilé une association indirecte à travers son effet sur le bien-être psychologique. Le modèle propose a été partiellement appuyé et modifié sur des bases statistiques et théoriques. Le modèle final a entre autres confirmé la pertinence de considérer le bien-être psychologique dans la prédiction de la santé subjective. En outre, l'effet indirect du bien-être psychologique sur la santé subjective par l'entremise de la maladie physique a été mis en évidence. Contrairement à ce qui était attendu, les résultats ont suggéré que l'effet du statut fonctionnel sur le bien-être psychologique et la santé subjective était très faible, quoique ce dernier lien a été retenu en raison de son importance théorique. Enfin, les résultats ont indiqué que dans l'ensemble, les variables du modèle final continuaient a exercer un effet direct et/ou indirect sur la santé subjective à travers le temps, bien que leur contribution était moins importante qu'au premier temps de mesure. Les résultats de cette étude confirment l'importance théorique de développer des modèles conceptuels plus holistiques de la santé subjective. À un niveau pratique, ces résultats suggèrent que la promotion de ressources psychologiques et sociales pourrait s'avérer bénéfique pour la santé physique et subjective à l'âge adulte avancé. Les forces et limitations de cette étude, ainsi que les implications des résultats, sont élaborees en plus de détails dans la discussion.

The central purpose of the present thesis was to integrate the construct of autonomy support postulated by Cognitive Evaluation Theory and the literature on parental behavioral and psychological control. Its first specific objective was to demonstrate that autonomy support (AS), behavioral control (BC), and psychological control (PS) are distinct constructs. Its second specific objective was to ascertain unique associations between parental AS, BC, and PC, on one hand, and youth self-processes, internalizing symptoms, and externalized behaviors, on the other hand. Three studies were designed to achieve these goals. In Study 1A (N=342) and Study 1B (N=300), cross-sectional questionnaires were completed by undergraduate students and the dimensionality of parental behaviors was examined by means of confirmatory factor analyses. Results revealed that AS, BC, and PC are modelized in an optimal manner as distinct constructs. Study 2 ( N=138) consisted of a laboratory experiment designed to test the unique associations between AS, BC, and PC and youth self-processes, internalizing symptoms, and externalized behaviors. Study 3 (N=239) was a prospective field study that also endeavoured to examine the unique contribution of AS, BC, and PC to children functioning. In this study, self-processes, internalizing symptoms, and externalized behaviors were assessed over an 8-month competitive season. Globally, results from Study 2 and Study 3 revealed that AS predicted youth autonomous motivation, positive affect, satisfaction, and lower levels of internalizing symptoms. PC reached significant negative influences on youth functioning (i.e., controlled motivation, higher levels of impaired concentration, manifest anxiety and externalized behaviors). BC revealed positive associations with two beneficial outcome variables (i.e., autonomous motivation and lower levels of intended dropout), and a single negative consequence (i.e., manifest anxiety). Taken together, the findings of the three studies presented here provide support for the importance of distinguishing between AS, BC, and PC as basic functional dimensions that offer unique contribution to our understanding of the influence of socializing agents on youth development and functioning.

National incidence and prevalence estimates of homelessness in Canadian youth are unknown. However, a recent annual profile of shelter users in a large urban centre estimated that one in five consumers of emergency shelter services are youth. Adolescence is a period of vulnerability from developmental perspective. In their progression from childhood to adulthood, youth have multiple role transitions such as identity, autonomy, and parental separation to negotiate. Dire circumstances such as homelessness place youth at a disadvantage for attaining mastery of developmental transitions compared to their housed peers. Resilience has been defined as the maintenance of positive adaptation despite adversity. Developmentally, resilience is understood as age-appropriate functioning concurrent with vulnerability related to the adversity that might otherwise place the young person at risk for less positive adaptation. Ecological Systems Theory examines not only the most immediate aspects of youths' social context, such as social support, but also broader factors, such as resource-intensity of communities. Ecological Systems Theory considers linkages between the different levels comprising youth's social ecology. This framework is useful for understanding resilient outcomes in homeless youth because their social contexts are less insulated and protected, and are subject to differing influences than housed youth living in a traditional family unit. The purpose of this dissertation was to develop and test Ecological Resilience Prediction Models of outcomes in N = 157 youth who were homeless in October 2002 to October 2003, and N =99 youth who were re-interviewed between March 2004 to October 2005. The current study and its participants are part of the larger Panel Study on Homelessness in Ottawa (Aubry, Klodawsky, Hay & Birnie 2003). The Panel Study was undertaken to understand pathways into and out of homelessness across purposively sampled subgroups of homeless individuals. The three resilient outcomes predicted by Ecological Resilience Prediction Models within the dissertation were becoming re-housed, returning to school, and joining the work force. Secondary analyses were conducted amongst 17 youth who had become parents between Time 1 and Time 2 interview, whose data were considered separately from the rest of the sample. Results indicated that the single predictor of becoming re-housed was shorter lifetime durations of homelessness. Female sex and re-housing (for 90 days or longer), best predicted return to school. Factors predicting employment were complex, but consistent with working long hours while attending high school in studies conducted on housed youth with respect to cumulative stress. Greater Time 1 substance use and increased size of social networks predicted employment stability at Time 2. Diminished mental health functioning and greater duration of rehousing at Time 2 were additional predictors of employment at Time 2. Although employment was associated with benefits such as re-housing and decreased alcohol use at Time 2, it was associated with reduced mental health at follow-up. Policy and research recommendations emerged from examining each resilient outcome ecologically. The United States has specific educational legislation for homeless youth (the McKenny-Vento Act), a national data system to track epidemiological statistics on homeless youth (NEO-RHYMIS), and re-housing interventions for homeless adults, the implementation of which is supported in an adolescent population based on results of this dissertation (Housing First). Future research is needed to identify methods of feasibly implementing protective education, supportive employment and immediate housing for homeless youth in Canada.

Studying emotion regulation in childhood has particular importance for understanding the developmental trajectory of these abilities, as well as for informing preventative work that could offset later psychopathology. Gross (1998a) has distinguished between antecedent- and response focused emotion regulation strategies, and has shown that emotion regulation strategies that occur earlier in the emotion generative process have more favourable outcomes. The first step in antecedent emotion regulation is situation selection, which involves seeking out or avoiding certain situations or environments in order to regulate emotion. In fact, there is a growing psychological literature on children's environmental choices, or environmental niche picking, and how they may affect self-regulatory processes such as emotion regulation. To date, most research has focused on environmental choices for preferred (favourite) environments, and little attention has been focused on non-preferred environments, namely the school playground - the predominant social environment in which children spend their formative years. One's ability to plan, think about the future, and delay immediate gratification are also thought to be important factors in antecedent focused emotion regulation, as such skills allow an individual to move beyond immediate concerns. Few studies have investigated the relationship between emotion regulation and children's future time perspective and planning ability. The present study sought to add to existing research on emotion regulation by investigating the mechanisms by which children develop healthy emotion regulation skills. It was hypothesized that children who scored higher on future time perspective and planning ability would demonstrate better emotion regulation and be rated by peers as less aggressive. It was also hypothesized that any relationship between emotion regulation and aggression would be mediated by future time perspective and/or planning ability. Participants were 82 elementary school students in grades 3 (13 females, 15 males), 4 (17 females, 13 males), and 5 (17 females, 7 males). Parents and homeroom teachers of children also participated by completing the Lability/Negativity scale of the Emotion Regulation Checklist (Shields and Cicchetti, 1997). Children completed peer nomination measures of social behaviour using the Revised Class Play (Masten, Morrison, and Pellegrini, 1985) and one measure of emotion regulation, the Environmental Choices task (Ledingham, Rafter, & Genot, 1995). Children also completed two measures of means-end thinking: the Children's Time Perspective Inventory (Myers, 2000), and the Woodcock-Johnson III Test of Cognitive Abilities - Planning subtest. Results indicated that children as young as the age of 7 could be classified as having a future time perspective, and that future time perspective significantly predicted peer nominations of children's aggression. In addition, children's planning ability, as measured by the Woodcock-Johnson, played a significant role not only in predicting children's self-reported emotion regulation reasons for environmental choices, but also in accounting for parent ratings of children's emotion regulation. This study also highlighted the importance of environmental niche picking for emotion regulation, with a majority of children indicating that they actively used different locations on the playground to help them regulate their negative emotional states. Contrary to hypotheses, there was no evidence that future time perspective or planning ability mediated the relationship between emotion regulation and aggression. Limitations and implications of the current findings are discussed.

This dissertation advanced a life story model of the self-concept, linking the presently understood past and the anticipated future with the experienced present of the individual story-teller. The central components of this model were identified as the story structure (defined as integrative complexity, an information-processing variable) and story content (defined as the significant life events recalled and anticipated by the participants). The nuclear thesis of this dissertation examined the relationship between these two components in various forms and explored their association with other (individual difference) variables. Participants were 30 males and 30 females drawn in equal numbers from three age groups (young, middle, and later adulthood). These participants completed an extensive questionnaire which entailed a written self-evaluation (which was coded for complexity), the identification and evaluation of significant life events (on scales of event pleasantness, outcome desirability, and event intensity, responsibility, adjustment, and anticipation), and the completion of a series of individual difference measures (life satisfaction, attitudes toward aging, repression-sensitization, and self-esteem). Participants were also interviewed regarding the personal significance of each event, discussions which were coded for integrative complexity and a measure of self in relation to others. The major results indicated that the complexity of self-evaluation (and not chronological age) was associated (curvilinearly) with the number of identified events (with low and high complexity characteristic of fewer events than moderate complexity). A similar pattern emerged between life satisfaction and this measure of complexity, but complexity was not related to any of the other individual difference variables. Unpleasant and undesirable events were discussed in more complex terms than were pleasant, desirable events. There was a similar pattern for high versus low intensity events. However, low responsibility, low adjustment, and low anticipation were associated with greater complexity than were events high on these dimensions. Women identified a greater number of events and discussed them more in terms of connectedness with significant others than did men. These results are presented in the context of the life story and their implications for this model of the self-concept are discussed. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate