An issue of great concern for amputees continues to be lack of proper fit and comfort in their sockets. This lack can often be attributed to changes in the shape of the residual limb that cannot be compensated for by existing prosthetic socket technology. In regions where cost is a prohibitive factor in the replacement of ill-fitting prosthetic sockets, the need for a volume adjustable, and potentially longer lasting, socket design is abundant. This research focuses on designing a volume adjustable lower limb prosthetic socket that accommodates the needs of amputees in underdeveloped countries using collaborative design techniques. Though advocated as a means of accurately identifying and satisfying their needs, including end-users in the design process often adds an additional layer of complexity because of differences in culture, language, or geography among the participants. This research therefore includes a study in which product design techniques were applied to the same volume adjustable socket design problem with a variety of users – typical users, lead users, and new Empathic Lead Users - from different countries, one developed and one developing. To overcome differences among participants, this research includes an alternative strategy to create Empathic Lead Users (ELU) from non-user product design engineers through the use of simulated lead user experiences. As a result of this study, customer needs analysis with ELU helps to identify 95% of traditional and lead user customer needs and 100% more latent needs, and possibly more avenues for product innovations, than interviewing lead or traditional users alone. The concepts generated by all users were also compared. Based on the resulting concepts’ novelty, variety, quality, and quantity, all users were able to satisfactorily complete the concept generation exercises and produced competitive design solutions. Using the concepts generated during this co-design study, a volume adjustable socket was developed. The final socket design, based on the analogous rotational movement of a camera aperture, is pursued through mechanical and subject testing. Early users of the socket liked the design and it has been demonstrated to provide the necessary volume adjustments, but future design iterations to improve its comfort are necessary. / text

User-Centred Design (UCD) was proposed in the 1980s and, since then, its philosophy has helped to solve design problems, regardless of the advances in technology over time. The standard ISO 9241:210 (2010), formerly ISO 13407, provides guidance in human-centred design principles and activities undertaken throughout the design lifecycle to further support UCD. In addition, since it was mentioned in ISO 9241:210, UCD has also utilised User Experience Design (UXD) in recent years. There are many approaches that support UCD to ensure it is more attainable when designing. In addition, large firms, such as HP, IBM and Microsoft, use anthropologists in their user research in order to make products more user-centred. However, the concept of UCD should, theoretically, be more widely used in all product design and it is intriguing as to why it is not as popular as it should be. As noticed in the real world, imperfect designs still frustrate us everywhere. The aims of this thesis were to investigate the difficulties of practicing a UCD approach in idea generation and to design solutions for idea generation that would encourage further practice of UCD/UXD. In the first part of the thesis, there is an exploration of the problems encountered when practicing UCD idea generation. When examining the process, a multitude of problems were found, with most blamed as being costly, time consuming and requiring complex skills. In addition, it was suggested that a systematic solution was required to overcome such difficulties. Therefore, later in this research, a systematic model is proposed and evaluated using participants (both designers and target users). Due to the fact that design practitioners are not usually researchers, further help to implement the model in the form of persona application software is needed. Hence, the concept of service design was employed to further assist with the use of the model. In the end, computer-aided development was introduced, together with the integration of the systematic UCD model. The UCD model and the software have been evaluated as effective from both the responses of product design practitioners and end-users. Future recommendations and the research limitations are also discussed in each chapter and the overall results are given in the last chapter. This thesis successfully provided the complete process during the exploration of the low usage problems of UCD, and solutions were presented to assist designers with their UCD/UXD in the future.

Au cours des dernières années, il a été démontré que la façon dont la douleur est communiquée, par l’entremise de comportements de douleur, est associée à l’incapacité auto-rapportée et à la trajectoire de chronicité des individus souffrant de douleur persistante. Cependant, très peu de recherches ont investigué le lien entre la perception de la douleur dans le couple et la trajectoire de chronicité des individus souffrant de douleur persistante. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, trois études ont été réalisées afin de mieux comprendre les facteurs impliqués dans la communication de la douleur au sein de couples dont l’un des partenaires souffrait de douleur persistante. Une première étude a été réalisée afin de valider une version francophone du « Pain Disability Index (PDI) », un questionnaire développé pour évaluer l’incapacité reliée à la douleur persistante. Comme attendu, les résultats indiquent que cette version du PDI reproduit la structure factorielle de la version originale du PDI et présente une bonne fidélité et validité. Une autre étude a été réalisée auprès de couples dont l’un des partenaires souffre de douleur persistante afin d’évaluer les corrélats de la justesse empathique, d’explorer la relation entre la justesse empathique reliée à la douleur et différentes variables associées à l’adaptation du patient et du conjoint et enfin d’explorer la relation entre la justesse empathique reliée à la douleur et des variables relationnelles. Les résultats suggèrent que de façon générale, la justesse empathique est associée à des résultats négatifs chez les patients souffrant de douleur persistante et ne semble pas un corrélat important de la satisfaction conjugale. Enfin, une dernière étude a été réalisée afin de comprendre l’influence de la concordance des pensées catastrophiques dans le couple sur l’émission de comportements de douleur et sur la perception de la douleur et de l’incapacité lors d’une tâche physiquement exigeante. Il a été trouvé que les participants ayant un niveau élevé de pensées catastrophiques, qui étaient en relation avec un conjoint ayant un faible niveau de pensées catastrophiques, ont émis plus de comportements de douleur que tous les autres groupes. Ces résultats suggèrent que les personnes souffrant de douleur persistante ayant un niveau élevé de pensées catastrophiques peuvent avoir besoin d’augmenter le « volume » de la communication de la douleur afin de compenser pour la tendance des conjoints ayant un faible niveau de pensées catastrophiques à sous-estimer les signaux de douleur. En résumé, puisque l’émission de comportements de douleur est associée à l’incapacité auto-rapportée des individus souffrant de douleur persistante, il est possible que toute situation qui contribue à une augmentation des comportements de douleur, contribuera également à un niveau d’incapacité plus élevé. Ainsi, d’un point de vue clinique, les interventions qui amènent le conjoint à faire de l’écoute active et à valider la personne souffrante, pourraient réduire la présence des comportements de douleur et potentiellement avoir un impact sur le niveau d’incapacité des personnes souffrant de douleur persistante. / In the past, it has been shown that pain communication, through the display of pain behaviours, is related to self-reported disability and pain chronicity. However, few studies have investigated the link between pain perception in couples and the chronic trajectory of individuals suffering from persistent pain. In the current thesis, three studies were conducted in order to understand the factors that are involved in pain communication in couples where one partner suffers from persistent pain. The first study aimed to validate a francophone version of the Pain Disability Index (PDI), a questionnaire, developed to assess disability associated with persistent pain. As expected, the results showed that this version of the PDI replicate the factorial structure of the original version of the PDI and showed a good reliability and validity. Another study was conducted with couples where one partner suffers from persistent pain to investigate the correlates of empathic accuracy, explore the relation between pain-related empathic accuracy and different variables associated with adaptational outcomes for chronic pain patients and their spouses, and explore the relation between pain-related empathic accuracy and relational variables. The results generally suggest that empathic accuracy is associated with negative outcomes for the patient, and might not be an important correlate of marital satisfaction. Finally, a last study was conducted to understand the influence of couple concordance of catastrophizing on the display of pain behaviours and on the perception of pain and disability in a physically demanding task. Results revealed that high catastrophizing pain participants, who were in a relationship with a low catastrophizing spouse, displayed more pain behaviours than all other groups. These findings suggest that high catastrophizing chronic pain persons might need to increase the ‘volume’ of pain communication in order to compensate for low catastrophizing spouses’ tendency to underestimate the severity of their pain experience. In brief, since the display of pain behaviours is related to self-reported disability of chronic pain persons, it is possible that any situation that contributes to the increase of pain behaviours, will also contribute to a higher disability level. Therefore, from a clinical perspective, interventions that lead the spouse to engage in active listening and to respond with validating statements, could reduce the amount of pain behaviours and possibly have an impact on the disability level of chronic pain persons.

Numerous studies demonstrate the effectiveness of university-based community service programs on students' personal, social, ethical, and academic domains. These effects depend on both, the characteristics of students enrolled and the characteristics of the programs, for instance whether they are voluntary or mandatory. Our study investigates whether effects of voluntary service programs are indeed caused by the service experience or by prior self-selection. Using data from a pre-post quasi-experimental design conducted at a public university in Europe and taking students' socioeconomic background into account, our findings on self-efficacy, generalized trust, empathic concern, and attributions for poverty show that there are no participation effects. Instead, students who join in community service differ significantly from nonparticipants with regard to almost all investigated domains a priori, indicating strong self-selection. Our results underline the importance of structured group reflection, most notably with regard to attitude-related topics.

As mulheres têm sido retratadas como inertes, sem vida e despojadas de seus lugares de sujeitos-históricos, dizem-nos isso os estudos sobre as relações de gênero em Moçambique. No entanto, os mesmos estudos ao construírem narrativas transversais dominantes sobre os gêneros, tendem a essencializar as mulheres como o único sujeito, oprimido pela cultura/tradição calcada pelo patriarcado. Com efeito, a mulher de que falam tais narrativas é sempre vitimizada, oprimida mesmo pelos estudos que têm a intenção de tornar sua voz audível. Sendo assim, nesta tese, objetivo traçar uma outra alternativa analítica que, a partir de uma corporalidade especifica – ubiquidade dos corpos – retrata-as de forma regenerada, como tendo agência feminina. / Women have been portrayed as inert, lifeless and deprived of their places as subjects of history, we are told about studies of gender relations in Mozambique. However, the same studies, when constructing dominant cross-narratives about gender, tend to essentialize women as the only subject, oppressed by the culture/tradition traced by patriarchy. Indeed, the woman of whom such narratives speak about always is victimized, oppressed even by the studies that are intended to make her voice audible. Thus, in this thesis, the objective is to outline another analytic alternative that, based on a specific corporality – the ubiquity of bodies – portrays them in a regenerated way, as having a female agency.

abstract: This study investigated the relation between Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS) temperament and depression, and whether such a relation might be further influenced by the indirect effects of parenting environment and empathic personal distress. A moderated mediation model was proposed to explain the underlying relations among SPS, depression, parenting environment and empathic personal distress. That is, greater levels of SPS temperament might predict higher levels of empathic personal distress, which then leads to increasing likelihood of experiencing depression. Moreover, it was predicted that this mediation relation might be significantly stronger under a less positive parenting context. The present study recruited 661 participants from a U.S. university and implemented questionnaires in an online survey. There was a significant main effect of SPS temperament in predicting empathic personal distress and depression, such that the more sensitive individuals reported higher empathic personal distress and depression. There also was a significant main effect of parenting environment on depression, where more positive parenting was associated with less depression. Empathic personal distress was found to partially mediate the relation between SPS and depression. That is, the association between SPS and depression could be partially explained by empathic personal distress. However, parenting environment did not moderate the main effect of SPS temperament on depression, the main effect of SPS on empathic personal distress, or the mediation model. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2019

Theoretical and empirical evidence indicate a possibility that reading certain types of historical texts could improve different constructs of empathy that include theory of mind (ToM), empathic concern (EC), and historical perspective-taking (HPT).The objective of this study was to compare the effect of reading a collection of primary documents in comparison to a historical narrative on ToM, HPT, and EC for adolescents in an eighth-grade history class. Students were randomly assigned to read either a historical narrative or a collection of adapted historical documents with approximately the same length, and reading level. This researcher controlled for student comprehension scores, ToM scores, estimated amount of reading frequency, gender, and age. Post reading, students were assessed on ToM, EC, and HPT using age-appropriate and valid measures. The results demonstrated no statistical difference for individuals assigned to read either text as measured by ToM, EC, and HPT. Individuals with higher comprehension abilities in the historical document group were more likely to read for a longer period of time than individuals with high comprehension abilities in the narrative group. Empathic emotions for the narrative group were significantly correlated with higher HPT. The researcher argues that better ToM assessments need to be developed for adolescents and the relationship of reading historical texts and empathy for adolescents should be a topic of future research.

Secondary level engineering education is a relatively new field of study. This report evaluates an activity in which high school students experience simulated disabilities as they interact with and redesign consumer products. These activities are also known as empathic experiences, in which the designer is challenged to place himself or herself in the position of a lead user who pushes a product to its extremes and experiences various customer needs sooner and more acutely than the typical user. The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not these types of empathic experiences help high school students develop more innovative product ideas in a concept generation activity. The results of this study are compared with similar studies that use college students for the subject pool. Differences between subject pools are examined to identify implications for secondary engineering education and assessment. / text

Au cours des dernières années, il a été démontré que la façon dont la douleur est communiquée, par l’entremise de comportements de douleur, est associée à l’incapacité auto-rapportée et à la trajectoire de chronicité des individus souffrant de douleur persistante. Cependant, très peu de recherches ont investigué le lien entre la perception de la douleur dans le couple et la trajectoire de chronicité des individus souffrant de douleur persistante. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, trois études ont été réalisées afin de mieux comprendre les facteurs impliqués dans la communication de la douleur au sein de couples dont l’un des partenaires souffrait de douleur persistante. Une première étude a été réalisée afin de valider une version francophone du « Pain Disability Index (PDI) », un questionnaire développé pour évaluer l’incapacité reliée à la douleur persistante. Comme attendu, les résultats indiquent que cette version du PDI reproduit la structure factorielle de la version originale du PDI et présente une bonne fidélité et validité. Une autre étude a été réalisée auprès de couples dont l’un des partenaires souffre de douleur persistante afin d’évaluer les corrélats de la justesse empathique, d’explorer la relation entre la justesse empathique reliée à la douleur et différentes variables associées à l’adaptation du patient et du conjoint et enfin d’explorer la relation entre la justesse empathique reliée à la douleur et des variables relationnelles. Les résultats suggèrent que de façon générale, la justesse empathique est associée à des résultats négatifs chez les patients souffrant de douleur persistante et ne semble pas un corrélat important de la satisfaction conjugale. Enfin, une dernière étude a été réalisée afin de comprendre l’influence de la concordance des pensées catastrophiques dans le couple sur l’émission de comportements de douleur et sur la perception de la douleur et de l’incapacité lors d’une tâche physiquement exigeante. Il a été trouvé que les participants ayant un niveau élevé de pensées catastrophiques, qui étaient en relation avec un conjoint ayant un faible niveau de pensées catastrophiques, ont émis plus de comportements de douleur que tous les autres groupes. Ces résultats suggèrent que les personnes souffrant de douleur persistante ayant un niveau élevé de pensées catastrophiques peuvent avoir besoin d’augmenter le « volume » de la communication de la douleur afin de compenser pour la tendance des conjoints ayant un faible niveau de pensées catastrophiques à sous-estimer les signaux de douleur. En résumé, puisque l’émission de comportements de douleur est associée à l’incapacité auto-rapportée des individus souffrant de douleur persistante, il est possible que toute situation qui contribue à une augmentation des comportements de douleur, contribuera également à un niveau d’incapacité plus élevé. Ainsi, d’un point de vue clinique, les interventions qui amènent le conjoint à faire de l’écoute active et à valider la personne souffrante, pourraient réduire la présence des comportements de douleur et potentiellement avoir un impact sur le niveau d’incapacité des personnes souffrant de douleur persistante. / In the past, it has been shown that pain communication, through the display of pain behaviours, is related to self-reported disability and pain chronicity. However, few studies have investigated the link between pain perception in couples and the chronic trajectory of individuals suffering from persistent pain. In the current thesis, three studies were conducted in order to understand the factors that are involved in pain communication in couples where one partner suffers from persistent pain. The first study aimed to validate a francophone version of the Pain Disability Index (PDI), a questionnaire, developed to assess disability associated with persistent pain. As expected, the results showed that this version of the PDI replicate the factorial structure of the original version of the PDI and showed a good reliability and validity. Another study was conducted with couples where one partner suffers from persistent pain to investigate the correlates of empathic accuracy, explore the relation between pain-related empathic accuracy and different variables associated with adaptational outcomes for chronic pain patients and their spouses, and explore the relation between pain-related empathic accuracy and relational variables. The results generally suggest that empathic accuracy is associated with negative outcomes for the patient, and might not be an important correlate of marital satisfaction. Finally, a last study was conducted to understand the influence of couple concordance of catastrophizing on the display of pain behaviours and on the perception of pain and disability in a physically demanding task. Results revealed that high catastrophizing pain participants, who were in a relationship with a low catastrophizing spouse, displayed more pain behaviours than all other groups. These findings suggest that high catastrophizing chronic pain persons might need to increase the ‘volume’ of pain communication in order to compensate for low catastrophizing spouses’ tendency to underestimate the severity of their pain experience. In brief, since the display of pain behaviours is related to self-reported disability of chronic pain persons, it is possible that any situation that contributes to the increase of pain behaviours, will also contribute to a higher disability level. Therefore, from a clinical perspective, interventions that lead the spouse to engage in active listening and to respond with validating statements, could reduce the amount of pain behaviours and possibly have an impact on the disability level of chronic pain persons.

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