Abstract The aim of this study was to understand the relationships among the personality traits, risk attitudes, risk management practices, and decision making processes of dairy farmers in SE Queensland. Risk management and decision making processes are two of many components of managerial ability. The hypothesis was proposed that dairy farmers’ personalities influence their risk attitudes, decision making processes, and risk management abilities. Case studies of 46 dairy farmers in SE Queensland involving the completion of personality inventories (NEO-PI-R) based on the Five-Factor Model of personality; questionnaires and informal interviews were used to test the hypotheses. The thesis contains three parts. The first part, Chapter 1, is the introduction to the thesis. The second part of the thesis, Chapter 2 through Chapter 6, consists of an extensive review of the literature on the major topics pertinent to the project. In Chapter 2, a definition of “competence” in the context of this study is given, and an explanation of the evidence for a connection between personality and competence and thus job performance is detailed. In Chapter 3, the literature on personality is reviewed with particular emphasis on trait theory and the development of the Five-Factor Model of personality (FFM). In Chapter 4, the literature review on personality assessment using testing instruments designed for use in the context of the FFM is presented, and the rationale for the personality test instrument is expounded. It is the task of the manager to manage risk, so that considering risk attitude when making decisions is also an integral part of the study of the role of managers. Chapter 5 reviews the contemporary literature on risk and risk management with an emphasis on the application of risk management principles to dairy farms. In Chapter 6, the literature on decision theory is reviewed. Decision-making and risk management are intertwined. The behaviour resulting from the process of making a decision reflects the personality and risk attitude of the decision-maker. In this chapter, the distinction is made between formal and informal models of decision making, and examples are given. The third part of the project comprises Chapters 7 through Chapter 11. Chapter 7 outlines the research approach used – case studies - and paves the way for the following two chapters, which present a qualitative and a quantitative analysis of the data from the case studies. Chapter 8 presents part 1 of the investigation - the qualitative analysis of the case studies. This chapter introduces and explains the terminology used in the questionnaire and examines the trends and feeling in the farmers’ answers. Chapter 9 presents part 2 of the analysis – quantitative results of the personality assessments and interviews from the case studies with SE Queensland dairy farmers which were conducted to assess their risk management and decision making abilities. Chapter 10 provides a summary of the research findings, and then discusses the results with respect to the diverse responses of farmers to common external pressures. The chapter discusses the relevance of personality to the formation of management strategy and concludes with a short introduction to systems thinking as a way of thinking about the complex systems inherent in dairy farming. Chapter 11 reviews the subjects covered in the thesis and draws conclusions from the research. It outlines implications for policy makers and managers and proposes directions for further research in this area of investigation. Key Words: Five-Factor Model of Personality, risk, decision making processes, dairy farmers, management

Thesis (M.Sc.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-81). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D. in counseling)--Liberty University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references.

Barack Obama’s personality is studied to understand how the personality of a leader can contribute to the decision-making process in foreign policy. The study connects literature from foreign policy analysis as well as psychology to contribute with an example of how these two fields of study can be used simultaneously. Barack Obama is examined through the Five-Level Model of personality in order to understand his characteristics and his behavior. Each level of Obama’s personality is analyzed in regard to the decision to use air strikes towards the terrorist organization Daesh in Syria. The findings show that Obama prefer softer and more peaceful tactics, but also that he has a strong determination to fulfill his goals and to use force when America is faced with a direct threat.

abstract: This dissertation examines associations between religious affiliation, religious community context and health of women and their children in Mozambique focusing on the following issues: (1) attending prenatal consultations and delivering children in a health facility; (2) women's symptoms of STDs; and (3) under-five mortality. Estimation of random intercept Poisson regression for the outcome about attending prenatal consultations demonstrated a favorable effect of affiliation to Catholic or Mainline Protestant and Apostolic religious groups. The concentration of Zionist churches in the community had a negative influence. Random intercept logistic regression was used to estimate the relationship between religion and institutional child delivery. Affiliation to Catholic or Mainline Protestant denominations as well as concentration of Catholic or Mainline Protestant churches in the community had some beneficial effect on giving birth in health clinics. The presence of Zionist churches in the community had some negative effect and that of other groups no significant influence. Random intercept logistic regression was also employed for investigating the influence of religion on women's symptoms of STDs. Belonging to the Catholic or Mainline Protestant church had some protective effect on reporting symptoms of STDs. There was no effect of religious context, except that the concentration of Other Pentecostal churches had a positive effect on reporting symptoms of SDTs. Event-history analysis was conducted for examining relationships between maternal religious affiliation with under-five mortality. Affiliation to Catholic or Mainline Protestant churches and to Apostolic denominations increased the odds of child survival, although, the influence of having a mother belonging to Catholic or Mainline Protestant churches lost statistical significance after accounting particularly for the average level of education in the community, for the period of 5 years preceding the survey date. Taken together, the results in this dissertation show some protective effect of religion that varies primarily by denominational group to which women are affiliated. They also indicate that religious community context may have some negative effect on health of women and children. The nature of the effect of religious community context varies with the type of outcome considered and the type of religious mixture in the community. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Social Science and Health 2011

Esse projeto visou a construção, validação e normatização de escalas para a avaliação dos Fatores Extroversão e Socialização no modelo dos Cinco Grandes Fatores de Personalidade. A partir deste Modelo, Socialização é uma dimensão da personalidade que agrupa traços como altruísmo, franqueza, confiança nas pessoas, bem como frieza, falta de empatia, comportamentos antisociais, etc. Extroversão engloba traços que descrevem nível de comunicação, assertividade, gregariedade, busca por diversão, etc. A validade de construto da Escala Fatorial de Socialização (EFS) e Escala Fatorial de Extroversão (EFE) foi realizada a partir de amostras independentes compostas por aproximadamente 1.100 pessoas de cinco estados brasileiros, de ambos os sexos, com nível de escolarização médio ou superior. Foram realizadas análises fatoriais para a verificação da dimensionalidade da EFS, sendo que a solução de três fatores foi considerada a mais adequada. Os fatores extraídos foram denominados Amabilidade, Pró-sociabilidade e Confiança nas pessoas, com Alpha’s de 0,91; 0,84 e 0,80 respectivamente. A escala geral apresentou uma consistência interna de 0,92. Foram realizadas análises fatoriais para a verificação da dimensionalidade da EFE, sendo que a solução de quatro fatores foi considerada a mais adequada. Os fatores extraídos foram denominados Comunicação, Altivez, Assertividade, Interação Social, com Alpha’s de 0,90; 0,78; 0,78 e 0,83 respectivamente. A escala geral apresentou uma consistência interna de 0,91. / The present project aimed the development, validation and standardization of scales to measure Extraversion and Agreeableness in the Five Factor Model of Personality. In this model, Agreeableness is comprised by traits that describe altruism, straightforwardness, trust in people, as well as coldness, antisocial behavior, among others. Extraversion includes traits that describe level of communication, assertivity, gregariousness, search for pleasure, among others. The participants in the construct validity study of the Agreeableness Factorial Scale (EFS) and Extraversion Factorial Scale (EFE) were approximately 1.100 individuals, from five States in Brazil, of both sexes, with high school or university level of education. Factor analyses were conducted to determine the EFS dimensions. A 3-factor solution was found to be more adequate. The factors found were named: Amiableness, Pro-social behavior, and Trust. Cronbach’s alphas were .91, .84, and .80 respectively. The general scale presented an internal consistency level of .92. Factor analyses were also conducted to verify the EFE dimensions. A 4-factor solution was found to be more adequate. The factors found were named: Communication, Pride, Assertiveness, and Social Interaction. Cronbach’s alphas were .90, .78, .78, and .83 respectively. The general scale presented internal consistency level of .91.

The study focuses on assessment and specifically the formative part, therefore the purpose of this study is to examine how some primary school teachers perceive formative assessment. Building blocks for my study are three research questions that contribute to studying the phenomenon from different aspects. Formative assessment has become a familiar subject that gets incorporated more and more in the schools therefore it is necessary to study how teachers perceive the difference between the formative and the summative part of the assessment. I use a sociocultural perspective in my study. I choose to examine the teacher’s perception on the subject by carrying out focus group interviews that gets summarized with a group of teacher’s that conversed about a specific subject which in my case was assessment. I have carried out two group interviews, thereafter analysed the collected data through a couple of main categories as well as some part categories on subject of assessment. The results of the study showed that teacher’s perceives formative assessment in different ways, though they join each other in expressing that formative assessment benefits teaching. They explain their thoughts through describing their ways of using formative assessment. It also showed that they deliberately work with the formative part of assessment because they explain the purpose with each activity they carry out.

Self-determination theory (SDT) has been used to study motivation and motivational strategies within many different domains one of the most pertinent being academia. The theory emphasizes the importance of autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs and places a strong emphasis on environmental factors as both fostering and impeding of motivational energies, while simultaneously giving less importance to intrapersonal determinants of motivation such as personality and attachment. This gap in the literature was addressed in this study by investigating that aspect of academic motivation which has not been of a salient interest to SDT. To test the hypotheses that Neuroticism, Extraversion, Conscientiousness, and attachment styles are associated with Intrinsic Motivation, with attachment being a stronger predictor, 272 participants at a midsize university completed a survey including scales assessing personality traits, attachment style, and academic motivation. Data were analyzed using correlation, regression, and moderation analyses and as hypothesized, all three personality traits were significantly associated with Anxiety and Avoidance attachment dimensions, which in turn were related to Intrinsic Motivation, though only partially. Attachment Avoidance emerged as the most important dimension of attachment accounting for a significant amount of variance in Intrinsic Motivation beyond personality and illustrating the relatedness component of self-determination theory. Implications of these results include both theoretical (example, conceptualizing relatedness in terms of attachment Avoidance), and practical (example, suggestions for instructors on methods for increasing student Intrinsic Motivation) aspects.

abstract: The five-factor model of personality is a conceptual model for describing personality, and represents five traits which are theorized to interact with each other to form personality. The Big Five Questionnaire-Children (BFQ-C) was developed by Barbaranelli, Caprara, Rabasca and Pastorelli (2003) specifically to measure the five factor model in children. The original version was in Italian, but it has subsequently been translated and used in Dutch, German, and Spanish samples. Given that the BFQ-C has support in Europe, obtained in four different languages it seems promising as an assessment of personality for English speaking children and adolescents. The BFQ-C was translated into English utilizing translation and back translation in order to maintain a high conceptual equivalency. The current study utilizes principal components analysis in order to examine the structure of the English language translation of the BFQ-C in a sample of American adolescents. Results indicate that in contrast to the Italian study, findings from this study suggest a six component solution as the most effective interpretation of the data. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Educational Psychology 2012

Sammanfattning Titel: Vilka egenskaper värdesätter rekryterare inom komplex tjänsteförsäljning? – En studie genomförd med personlighetsverktyget ”The Big-Five” Nivå: C-uppsats i ämnet företagsekonomi Författare: Philip Grabert och Philip Sandberg Handledare: Jonas Kågström Nyckelord: Big Five, recruiters, sales recruiters, recruitment matching, recruiting methods Datum: 2018 – Maj Syfte: Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva och analysera vilken personlighetsprofil enligt Big-Five teorin, som rekryteringsansvariga verksamma inom komplex tjänsteförsäljning söker. Ansats/Metod: Studien utgår från en kvantitativ metod som via insamling av data från ett deduktivt förhållningssätt utgår från en positivistisk förutsättning. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in från webbenkäter, som skickades ut till 144 rekryterare över hela Sverige. Genom att tillämpa statistikprogrammet SPSS kunde insamlad data resultera i en deskriptiv analys, faktoranalys samt en klusteranalys. Teori: Den teoretiska utgångspunkten är baserad på teori kring rekrytering i allmänhet och forskning kring femfaktorteorin. Där fokus läggs på vilka faktorer som leder till en lyckad rekrytering och vad rekryterare inom fastighetsmäklarbranschen söker. Resultat & Analys: Studiens analyserade material visar att rekryterare i branschen använder sig först och främst av traditionella rekryteringsmetoder och prioriterar underrepresenterad grupp. Personlighetsprofilen som rekryteringsansvariga söker inom fastighetsmäklarbranschen innefattar ett högt värde på extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness och openness. Uppsatsens bidrag: Studien ska öka kunskapen och förståelsen för vilken personlighet som rekryterare i fastighetsmäklarbranschen söker samt vilka faktorer som en rekryterar tittar på först. Studien ska även ge ett bidrag till liknande säljbranscher eftersom studien kan fylla forskningsgapet huruvida det finns en personlighetsprofil som rekryteringsansvariga inom komplex tjänsteförsäljning söker.