published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

Syftet med denna undersökning har varit att kartlägga vad som driver människor att söka sig till eller anta mellanchefspositioner. En kvalitativ intervjustudie har genomförts utifrån en induktiv ansats då intresseområdet tidigare har varit obeforskat och ambitionen har varit att undersöka det unika inom detta. Tio intervjuer har utförts i vilka samtliga respondenter, vid undersökningstillfället, har befunnit sig på mellanchefspositioner inom antingen privat- eller offentlig sektor. Data har transkriberats och senare analyserats utifrån en induktiv tematisk analys vilken har resulterat i fyra övergripande teman för vad som driver människor att söka sig till eller anta mellanchefspositioner. Dessa teman benämns som: Utvecklingen – en strävan efter utveckling på det personliga planet, Makten – att ha makt och därigenom kunna påverka såväl organisationen som sin egen arbetssituation, Att klättra i karriären – mellanchefspositionen som en fas i karriären på väg uppåt i karriärvärlden, Bekräftelsen – en önskan om att bli omtyckt, att få bekräftelse från folk i sin omgivning för att man har lyckats åstadkomma något. Resultatet har jämförts mot befintliga psykologiska teorier och slutsats har dragits i form av att ovanstående teman beskriver vad som driver människor att söka sig till eller anta mellanchefspositioner. Avslutningsvis har förslag till vidare forskning presenterats för att exemplifiera hur man vidare kan kartlägga det som här har undersökts. / The purpose of this research has been to map out what drives people to strive towards or accept middle management positions. A qualitative interview study has been conducted with an inductive approach since the area of interest until now had not been researched and that the ambition has been to examine the unique within this. Ten interviews were carried out in which all of the respondents, at the time of the study, were working as middle position managers within either the private or public sector. The data has been transcribed and then analyzed using an inductive thematic analysis which resulted in four overall themes answering what drives people to strive towards or accept middle management positions. These themes are denominated as following: The Development – a strive towards a development on a personal level, The Power – to have power and through it the possibility to influence as well the organization as the own work situation, Career advancement – the mid-level management position is seen as but a step in the career advancement, The Confirmation – a wish to be liked, to be confirmed by those in your surroundings for having accomplished something. The results have been compared with existing psychological theories and a conclusion has been made that the above themes describe what drives people to strive towards or accept middle management positions. To conclude, suggestions about future research have been presented to exemplify how to further map out what has been researched here.

In this study, we capture the moderating effect of aggressive driving behavior while assessing the influence of a comprehensive set of variables on injury severity. In doing so, we are able to account for the indirect effects of variables on injury severity through their influence on aggressive driving behavior, as well as the direct effect of variables on injury severity. The methodology used in this study to accommodate the moderating effect of aggressive driving behavior takes the form of two models – one for aggressive driving and another for injury severity. These are appropriately linked to obtain the indirect and direct effects of variables. The data for estimation is obtained from the National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Study (NMVCCS). From an empirical standpoint, we consider a fine age categorization until 20 years of age when examining age effects on aggressive driving behavior and injury severity. There are several important results from the empirical analysis. Young drivers (especially novice drivers between 16-17 years of age), drivers who are not wearing seat belt, under the influence of alcohol, not having a valid license, and driving a pickup are found to be most likely to behave aggressively. Situational, vehicle, and roadway factors such as young drivers traveling with young passengers, young drivers driving an SUV or a pick-up truck, driving during the morning rush hour, and driving on roads with high speed limits are also found to trigger aggressive driving behavior. In terms of vehicle occupants, the safest situation from a driver injury standpoint is when there are 2 or more passengers in the vehicle, at least one of whom is above the age of 20 years. These and many other results are discussed, along with implications of the result for graduated driving licensing (GDL) programs. / text

Because of increased commuter traffic volume on rural roadways collisions between motor vehicles and farm equipment have increased in frequency and severity over the last several years. This study investigated the effects of a multimedia narrative simulation program that taught hazard recognition and promoted defensive driving on rural roadways shared by farm equipment. A companion animated driving game allowed users to practice reaction/stopping time distances with a simulated automobile on a simulated highway when objects appeared suddenly in the path of the automobile. The program and game were delivered by an objective-oriented client/server computer program that also recorded and stored student pre-test, performance, and posttest data. Prior to the main study a user test and pilot study were conducted. Fifteen instructional systems design graduate students completed the user test to evaluate the study procedures and debug the program. Then, a pilot study sample of 17 rural high school students completed the narrative simulation exercise, the reaction/stopping time game, and the study measures that included a demographic survey, pre- and post measures of predicted reaction/stopping time, recognition of collisions hazard cues, numerical performance scores for the simulation exercise, and tracking logs of each student's performance during the animated raction/stopping time game. The main study sample included 123 students age 16 years and older who attended four rural and suburban county high schools. The schools were randome assigned to the four treatment conditions, one control and three treatment groups. The treatment group students completed either (a) the multimedia narrative simulation only, (b) the animated reaction time/stopping time game only, or (c) both the multimedia simulation and the reaction time/stopping time game. As hypothezised, students in the groups that completed the hazard recognition and defensive driving skills performed significantly better on posttests of those skills than students in groups that did not complete the simulation. Compared to students that did not complete the reaction/stopping time game, significantly more students that did complete the game became aware that they could not stop the simulated automobile before hitting an object in its pathway. Yet there was nodifference across the four groups in students' estimates of reaction/stopping time distances. Limitations of the study are noted and discussed. Recommendations for future studies are proposed.

Under frameworks such as Alcohol Myopia Theory, a body of literature has developed demonstrating how alcohol intoxication can increase behavioral risk-taking, potentially via impaired inhibition of prepotent behavioral responses. A separate area of research has shown that responses to alcohol intoxication are not homogenous across the population. Whereas most previous research has considered alcohol responses in relation to risk for alcohol use disorders, the present investigation tested whether they may additionally contribute to the acute effects of alcohol on drinking-episode-specific cognitive and behavioral consequences. We recruited 82 moderate-to-heavy drinking emerging adults to each complete 2 research protocols: a placebo-controlled, within-subject, counterbalanced alcohol challenge in a simulated bar laboratory and a 21-day, event-level self-monitoring follow-up. Replicating previous research, the alcohol challenge increased heart rate and subjective stimulant-like and sedative-like responses and impaired psychomotor performance and response inhibition. Individual differences in subjective stimulation but not sedation were significantly associated with inhibitory impairment. In the event-level follow-up, we found little evidence that alcohol responses elevated risk for adverse behavioral outcomes, although evidence was stronger that alcohol responses were associated with alcohol-induced memory blackout. Whether and how alcohol responses relate to the physiological, cognitive, and behavioral consequences of alcohol intoxication may depend on a) the quality of the response (e.g., stimulation vs. sedation), b) the type of outcome (e.g., response inhibition vs. blackout vs. behavioral risk-taking), and c) whether perceptions of alcohol-induced effects may contribute to emerging adults' evaluations of risk (e.g., driving after drinking and riding with a drinking driver). / text

Elements of an individuals occupational exposure, such as their posture can affect their comfort during work, and also their long term musculoskeletal health. Knowledge as to the extent of the influence of particular aspects of the exposures can help in providing guidance on risk evaluation, and direct future technical design focus. In many situations the exposures interact, and even if the effects of individual exposures are understood, the interactions are often less so. This is certainly the case with off-road driving exposures. Specific investigations have focussed on the effects of vibration exposure, resulting in the development of international standards and guidelines on measurement and evaluation of exposure. Consideration of the posture of the operator can be accomplished through postural assessment tools, although none of the currently available methods are developed specifically for use within a vehicle environment. The issues of both the posture of the operator and the seated vibration exposure are particularly apparent in off-road agricultural driving environments, where the driving task dictates that operator is often required to maintain specific postures whilst also exposed to whole-body vibration. In agriculture, many of the tasks require the operator to maintain axially rotated postures to complete the task effectively. The analysis of the combined effects of the axial rotation of the operator and the whole-body vibration exposure has been limited to a few studies within the literature, and is currently poorly understood. The overall aim of the thesis was to assess the influence of axial rotation and whole-body vibration on the musculoskeletal discomfort of the neck and trunk, in order that the true extent of the exposure risk may be evaluated. A field study was conducted to determine the common characteristics of some typical exposures, to provide a basis for the laboratory studies. A survey of expert opinion was conducted, examining the knowledge and experience of experts in assessing the relative influence of axial rotation and whole-body vibration on operators musculoskeletal health. The main investigations of the thesis are focussed in the laboratory, where the objective and subjective effects of axial rotation (static and dynamic) and whole-body vibration were investigated. Objective measures included the investigation of muscular fatigue in response to exposures. The tasks investigated in the field study indicated that the exposures often exceed the EU Physical Agents Exposure Limit Value, and that the axial rotation is a large component of the postures required. The survey of expert opinion concluded that combined exposure to axial rotation and whole-body vibration would increase the risks of lower back pain, and that acknowledgement of combined exposures should be included when assessing for risk. The results of the laboratory studies indicated that the greatest discomfort was present when subjects were exposed to axial rotation in the neck and shoulders. Out of the 8 muscles investigated, at most 6 of the 8 indicated fatigue during an experimental exposure. The muscle group which was affected most by the exposures was the m. trapezius pars decendens. Findings demonstrated that when subjects were exposed to axial rotation and whole-body vibration they indicated discomfort and their muscles fatigued. However, there was poor correlation between the sites of discomfort and the location of muscular fatigue. The discomfort findings suggest that there is an increased risk of discomfort from experiencing axial rotation together with whole-body vibration. Investigations of muscular fatigue do not substantiate this finding.

In recent years, autonomous driving has become an increasingly practical technology. With state-of-the-art computer and sensor engineering, autonomous vehicles may be produced and widely used for travel and logistics in the near future. They have great potential to reduce traffic accidents, improve transportation efficiency, and release people from driving tasks while commuting. Researchers have built autonomous vehicles that can drive on public roads and handle normal surrounding traffic and obstacles. However, in situations like lane changing and merging, the autonomous vehicle faces the challenge of performing smooth interaction with human-driven vehicles. To do this, autonomous vehicle intelligence still needs to be improved so that it can better understand and react to other human drivers on the road. In this thesis, we argue for the importance of implementing ”socially cooperative driving”, which is an integral part of everyday human driving, in autonomous vehicles. An intention-integrated Prediction- and Cost function-Based algorithm (iPCB) framework is proposed to enable an autonomous vehicles to perform cooperative social behaviors. We also propose a behavioral planning framework to enable the socially cooperative behaviors with the iPCB algorithm. The new architecture is implemented in an autonomous vehicle and can coordinate the existing Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) and Lane Centering interface to perform socially cooperative behaviors. The algorithm has been tested in over 500 entrance ramp and lane change scenarios on public roads in multiple cities in the US and over 10; 000 in simulated case and statistical testing. Results show that the proposed algorithm and framework for autonomous vehicle improves the performance of autonomous lane change and entrance ramp handling. Compared with rule-based algorithms that were previously developed on an autonomous vehicle for these scenarios, over 95% of potentially unsafe situations are avoided.

Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of teenage deaths in the United States, highlighting the need for ways to reduce teenage driver crash rates. Adolescents (n = 176, M age = 16.4 years, 53% female) and their parents (n = 204, 71% mothers) self-reported on parenting style, driving restrictions, and risky driving. Results showed that more parental restrictions were associated with less adolescent risky driving. Three-way interactions were found such that more restrictions were associated with less concurrent risky driving in boys only under conditions of high parental warmth, structure, or autonomy support. Parenting style generally did not moderate the association for girls, although more restrictions were associated with less risky driving one year later for girls only in the context of low autonomy support. Findings are discussed in terms of how parenting may differentially affect risky driving as a form of risk-taking versus risky driving stemming from inexperience.

Only circumscribed aspects of highway aggression have been investigated. The upsurge of abuse and violence transpiring between motorists necessitated a more definitive depiction of the actual events, participants, and relevant contextual features. A questionnaire administered to 120 motorists, aged 18 to 68, solicited a recountal of incidents occurring within 12 months and a description of their most recent encounter. Based on severity of experience, subjects were relegated to distal threat, direct threat, and nonvictim groups. Although most events involved unreported distal threats lasting less than three minutes, men and non-college graduates were more often directly threatened, while non-victims were predominantly women and college graduates. Perpetrators were primarily unknown Caucasian males who generally aggressed in populated areas during afternoon hours.

Research has revealed a variety of negative health consequences for older adults who stop driving, and with the "graying of America," this will be a frequently encountered issue for healthcare providers. The purpose of this study was to determine if there are differences in quality of life and depressive symptoms between former drivers who made the decision to stop driving voluntarily and former drivers who made the decision involuntarily (either in a resistant or in a reluctant manner). In this cross-sectional cohort comparison study, community dwelling older adults were asked to complete questionnaires of depression (using the Geriatric Depression Scale), and quality of life (QOL) (using the Short Form Health Survey-36 questionnaire). Descriptive statistics include data for each individual group separately; separate analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the data to determine if differences in QOL and depression exist between the groups. Results: the small sample (n=18) was predominantly comprised of women (15/18), most were widowed, and the age of participants was 81 years. No differences were detected between the three group means for the GDS, F(2, 15) = .782 (p = .47). Results for the SF-36 revealed differences between the group means in the mental health component summary was F(2,13) = 4.209, (p = .039). Conclusions: There are few differences between involuntary and voluntary former drivers demographics, but differences may exist between involuntary and voluntary former drivers' quality of life.