Thesis (MSc (Physiological Sciences))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Early adverse life events appear to increase the susceptibility of developing psychiatric disorders later in life. The molecular mechanisms involved in the development of pathological behaviour remain unclear. Dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and alterations in neurotrophic factors have been implicated.

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The following chapters report an exploratory study of reactions to two disasters, a tornado and floods, which struck Dallas, Texas, in the spring of 1957. Although the findings and discussion are presented in the context of a somewhat shortened version of the time sequence described above, the major emphasis is on the differential impact of the two types of disaster agents and on the reactions of victims to disaster situations.Two disasters had occurred in the Dallas area, both having a major effect upon Negro areas of residence in that city. Furthermore, a rapid, impressionistic survey of the two areas made by Doctor Harry E. Moore of the Department of Sociology of the University of Texas and Doctor H. J. Friedsam of the Department of Sociology of North Texas State University, suggested that the two areas were also homogeneous in income level and. possibly in other ways. 5 Hence, the situation presented an opportunity to study and compare the residents' reactions to two different disaster agents. More specifically, it was felt that an exploratory study to determine whether or not there was Qadifference in the responses of tho victims to the tornado and floods could be undertaken.

With a total of 164 community supported agriculture programs (CSA), Vermont is leading the "locavore" movement in the United States, ranked number one in the country with the most CSAs and Food Hubs per capita. ("Locavore Index," 2013) CSAs have a large positive impact on reducing carbon emissions, advancing local economic growth, and promoting healthy lifestyles of consumers. The purpose of this study is to explore the overall experience of individuals in comparison to their current social norm, individual attitudes, identity, and intentions of change, and understand any change overtime in their individual attitude and behavior. Attitude change was measured by conducting pre and post surveys of the Intervale Food Hub UVM student members, as well as regression analysis to understand any possible indicators of chance. The data analysis provided understanding of the impact of the Intervale Food Hub's CSA membership on individuals' attitudes, norms, and identity. Survey questions, based on the theory of planned behavior, inquired about individuals' preferences, skills, and behavioral intentions. Because of the complexity of food and human relations, this data was be supplemented by collecting qualitative data to more richly understand the relationship between individuals and their Intervale Food Hub food shares. The conclusion of this study will advance understanding of one form of community supported-agriculture and its impact on human attitudes. Study findings will also aid the staff of the Intervale Food Hub in understanding their customers and implementing more efficient practices.

Energy efficiency in the operation of buildings is becoming increasingly important with a growing emphasis on sustainability and reducing environmental impacts of irresponsible energy usage. Improvements have been made both on the technology side of energy efficiency and on the human behavior side. However, when changing human behavior, it is critical to find energy conservation measures that will maintain comfort for occupants. This paper analyzes how this can be done by implementing a modulating temperature schedule based on the concept of alliesthesia, which states that pleasure is observed in transient states. EnergyPlus simulations were used to show that in cooling applications, this type of scheduling can produce significant energy savings. However, energy savings are not predicted for the same type of scheduling for heating applications. Thermal comfort was examined with a cooling experiment and a separate heating experiment, each lasting 45 minutes and taking place during the corresponding season. The experiments showed that modulating temperatures can cause occupants to experience more pleasure than if the temperature remained constant in a cooled space, whereas modulating temperatures had a negative impact on comfort relative to the constant temperature in the heated space. This presents evidence for an ideal opportunity for cooling applications by implementing modulating temperature schedules: an increase in thermal pleasure accompanied by a decrease in cooling energy.

Evolutionary theory predicts that sexual coercion and rape are likely to occur in any species in which males are more aggressive, more eager to mate, more sexually assertive, and less discriminating in choosing a mate (Thornhill & Palmer, 2000). McKibbin and Shackelford (2011) state that males of many species have evolved strategies to sexually coerce and rape females. It is for this reason that researchers have speculated that several female traits or behaviors evolved to reduce the risks of being raped (McKibbin & Shackelford, 2011). The rationale behind the proposed experiment examined whether parents’ childrearing practices and women’s plasticity during childhood may have influenced the development of psychological mechanisms in response to the recurrent adaptive problem of rape. Analyses showed that maternal support during childhood predicted how frequently rape-avoidance behaviors were exhibited by women as adults. Analyses also showed that father absence was related to earlier sexual activity but age of menarche did not predict and was not associated with any rape-avoidance behaviors. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2016. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Made available in DSpace on 2015-12-03T18:32:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Alexandre_Abbud_Sato.pdf: 1372942 bytes, checksum: 4e91cbb15d29adda9df58c5fae6dd52f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-11-23 / The present study aimed at investigating virtual teams within organizations. It was guided by the hypothesis that significant differences are found in the behavioral and social characteristics of the members of these two kinds of teams. The strategy was to match those characteristics as found in attendance and virtual teams with factors such as requirements, difficulties, outcomes and work flow to search for differences, which would they be? and which kind of team would be favored by them?. That hypothesis was investigated under the differentiation of gender and nationality, as the independent variables. The survey was carried out entirely through e-mails by the means of a questionnaire composed by closed and open questions in order to provide data for qualitative and quantitative analysis. The hypothesis was confirmed by the findings not only in the whole group of subjects but also in the two subgroups according to the independent variables. Effectiveness, lower costs and better quality of life were the main results favoring virtual teams although the latter do not apply homogeneously to the several sorts of tasks. Yet, the findings disclosed that hybrid models of teams were seen by the subjects as the ideal form of team-work. / O presente estudo teve como prop??sito investigar as equipes virtuais nas organiza????es. A pesquisa foi baseada na hip??tese de que h?? diferen??as significativas no tocante ??s caracter??sticas sociocomportamentais dos integrantes desses dois tipos de equipe. A estrat??gia foi comparar essas caracter??sticas entre equipes presenciais e virtuais quanto a fatores como necessidade, dificuldade, resultado e processo de trabalho para determinar se h?? e quais eram as diferen??as? e em qual tipo de equipe elas eram maiores?. A hip??tese foi investigada tanto em rela????o ao g??nero quanto ?? nacionalidade, como vari??veis independentes. A pesquisa foi realizada apenas com a utiliza????o de emails por meio de question??rio composto de perguntas fechadas e abertas, com vistas ?? an??lise qualitativa e quantitativa dos dados. A hip??tese foi confirmada pelos resultados, n??o somente no grupo geral de sujeitos mas tamb??m nos dois subgrupos, de acordo com as vari??veis independentes. Efic??cia, redu????o de custos e melhor qualidade de vida foram os principais resultados que favorecem as equipes virtuais, embora isso n??o ocorra homogeneamente para os v??rios tipos de tarefa. Os resultados revelaram ainda que o modelo h??brido de equipe, presencial-virtual, foi visto pelos sujeitos da pesquisa como ideal para o trabalho em equipe.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-04-09T13:02:31Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Enzo Banti Bissoli.pdf: 2151691 bytes, checksum: 66e9630f1f674107c134a63fc4964f0e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-09T13:02:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Enzo Banti Bissoli.pdf: 2151691 bytes, checksum: 66e9630f1f674107c134a63fc4964f0e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-07 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This research sought to provide an interface between Political Psychology and Behavior Analysis. To do so, a definition of Political Psychology and a presentation of its development regarding the areas from which it originates is proposed throughout the study. Considering that, for the emergence of Political Psychology to be feasible, besides the establishment of Psychology and Political Science as independent disciplines, it would be required discussions on the dimensions and political impacts of these sciences. Discussions have taken researchers in these areas to become interested in and suggest studies focused on Psycho-Political phenomena in broader contexts, not only regarding the scope of their disciplinary activities and their impacts on society. In a later stage, the main features of the Behavior Analysis will be presented. They would imply the possibility of an interface with Political Psychology, as well as the contributions and theoretical dialogues of James G. Holland, author of the Behavior Analysis (Holland 1971; 1974/2016; 1975a; 1975b; 1976; 1977; 1978a; 1978b; 1980, 2016), which have contributed to the discussions of the political dimensions of Behavior Analysis, as well as to the development of research interests and possibilities for the study of socio-political phenomena in this area. This paper also analyzes the productions of three Behavior Analysis journals focused on social and political issues as follows: Behaviorist for Social Action Journal, Behavior and Social Action and Behavior and Social Issues. Finally, we sought to consider characteristics of Behavior Analysis and its historic development, which allow us to support it as one of the possible approaches for Political Psychology studies / Esta pesquisa procurou estabelecer uma interface entre a Psicologia Política e a Análise do Comportamento. Para isso, ao longo do estudo foram propostas: uma definição da Psicologia Política e uma apresentação de seu desenvolvimento com relação às áreas a partir das quais se origina. Considerando que, para que fosse possível o surgimento da Psicologia Política, seria necessário, além do estabelecimento da Psicologia e da Ciência Política enquanto disciplinas independentes, as discussões das dimensões e os impactos políticos dessas ciências. Discussões que levaram pesquisadores dessas áreas a se interessarem e proporem estudos voltados a fenômenos psicopolíticos em contextos mais amplos que não só no âmbito das atividades de suas disciplinas e seus impactos na sociedade. Em momento posterior são apresentadas as característica principais da Análise do Comportamento, que implicariam na possibilidade de uma interface com a Psicologia Política, bem como as contribuições e diálogos teóricos do autor da Análise do Comportamento, James G. Holland (Holland 1971, 1974/2016, 1975a, 1975b, 1976, 1977, 1978a, 1978b, 1980, 2016), que contribuíram para as discussões das dimensões políticas da Análise do Comportamento e o desenvolvimento dos interesses e possibilidades de pesquisa para estudo de fenômenos sociopolíticos dessa área. Além disso, também são analisadas as produções de três revistas da Análise do Comportamento voltadas a questões sociais e políticas, que são: Behaviorist for Social Action Journal, Behavior Analysis and Social Action e Behavior and Social Issues. Por fim, buscou-se considerar as características da Análise do Comportamento e seu desenvolvimento histórico, que nos permite defendê-la como uma das possíveis abordagens para estudos em Psicologia Política

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-06-14T12:36:29Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Cainã Teixeira Gomes.pdf: 2100379 bytes, checksum: 3bd2436b6704d8926cb1b1cffbf580fa (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-06-14T12:36:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cainã Teixeira Gomes.pdf: 2100379 bytes, checksum: 3bd2436b6704d8926cb1b1cffbf580fa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-28 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Since he was coined by Skinner (1963), the term "rule-governed behavior" has been the subject of debate on how it should be conveniently defined and studied experimentally. Throughout five experiments, the pertinence of the RFT (Relational Frame Theory) proposal was evaluated, which proposes that the critical operant for rule-following is the arbitrarily applicable relational responding. For this, a multiple-exemplar training was done in a matching-to-sample task with one of two contextual stimuli, whose purpose was to assign a contextual cue function to these two stimuli for the same and opposite relational response. Then, it was trained and tested derived rule-following, under the control of a rule composed of a novel stimulus, a contextual cue of same or opposite, and a conditional stimulus whose function was directly established. Finally, there was a phase in which the participants had to respond to these rules depending on the presence of one of the two stimuli, and in the presence of one, the rule was reinforced and in the presence of the other, any other response was reinforced. The objective of this last phase was to establish antecedent control of the follow-up derived from rules. In Experiment 1, it was shown that it is possible to train, and test derived rule-following with cues of same and opposite and that seven of eight participants were able to establish antecedent control of this operant. In Experiments 2 and 3, it was found that the training that established the contextual cues that facilitated derived rule-following and antecedent control was achieved through the relational training with the words "is equal to" and "is the opposite of" (relational training used in Experiment 3), in relation to the use of words without relational training and in relation to the use of meaningless syllables in the training (relational training used in Experiment 2). In Experiment 4, we tested the assumption that performance in the first three experiments had pre-experimentally established relationships of bigger-than/smaller-than comparison between members of two relational relay networks (composed of keyboard numbers). For this, in the training phase and rule-following test, the pressure responses of one of the eight keys were replaced by responses of selecting one of eight randomly arranged senseless images. Two phases were added in this experiment: non-arbitrary relational training of comparison (with the same structure as the training of equality and opposition), aimed at establishing the tips of bigger-than/smaller-than; and the arbitrary relational training, which aimed to establish two relational networks of comparison with four stimuli each. The results showed that the hypothesis was correct, since the performances of the participants in the experiment were functionally equivalent to those observed in the first experiments. To control the effects of pre-experimentally learned relations, Experiment 5 was designed to assess whether arbitrary relational training of same and opposite was critical to the performance observed in the four previous experiments. The results showed that it didn’t. It is concluded that the relational responding could be a relevant operant for learning what has traditionally been called rule-governed behavior / Desde que foi cunhado por Skinner (1963), o termo “comportamento governado por regras” tem sido alvo de debates sobre como ele deveria ser convenientemente definido e estudado experimentalmente. Ao longo de cinco experimentos, foi avaliada a pertinência da proposta da RFT (Relational Frame Theory), que propõe que o operante crítico para a aprendizagem do seguimento de regras é o responder relacional arbitrariamente aplicável. Para tanto, foi feito um treino de múltiplos exemplares em uma tarefa de matching-to-sample com um de dois estímulos contextuais, cujo objetivo era atribuir função de dica contextual a esses dois estímulos para as respostas de responder relacional por igualdade ou oposição. Em seguida, foi treinado e testado o seguimento derivado de regras diante de estímulos novos, sob controle de uma regra composta por um estímulo novo, uma dica contextual de igualdade ou oposição e um estímulo condicional cuja função foi diretamente estabelecida. Por fim, havia uma fase na qual os participantes tinham que responder a essas regras a depender da presença de um dos dois estímulos, sendo que na presença de um deles, o seguimento da regra era reforçado e na presença do outro, qualquer outra resposta era reforçada. O objetivo desta última fase era estabelecer controle antecedente do seguimento derivado de regras. No Experimento 1, mostrou-se que é possível treinar e testar seguimento derivado de regras com dicas de igualdade e oposição e que sete de oito participantes conseguiram estabelecer controle antecedente desse operante. Nos Experimentos 2 e 3, verificou-se que o treino que estabeleceu as dicas contextuais que mais facilitaram o seguimento derivado de regras e seu controle antecedente foi o treino relacional com as palavras “é igual a” e “é o oposto de” (treino relacional empregado no Experimento 3), em relação ao emprego das palavras sem o treino relacional e em relação ao uso de sílabas sem sentido no treino (treino relacional empregado no Experimento 2). No Experimento 4, testou-se a suposição de que o desempenho nos três primeiros experimentos contava com relações pré-experimentalmente estabelecidas de comparação maior/menor entre os membros de duas redes relacionais de estímulos (compostas por números do teclado). Para isso, na fase de treino e teste de seguimento de regras, as respostas de pressão de uma das oito teclas foram substituídas por respostas de selecionar uma de oito imagens sem sentido dispostas aleatoriamente. Foram acrescidas duas fases neste experimento: treino relacional não arbitrário de comparação (com a mesma estrutura que o treino de igualdade e oposição), que visava estabelecer as dicas de maior/menor; e o treino relacional arbitrário, que visava estabelecer duas redes relacionais de comparação com quatro estímulos cada uma. Os resultados mostraram que a suposição estava correta, uma vez que os desempenhos dos participantes no experimento foram funcionalmente equivalentes aos observados nos primeiros experimentos. Ainda com o objetivo de controlar os efeitos de relações pré-experimentalmente aprendidas, foi feito o Experimento 5 para avaliar se o treino relacional arbitrário de igualdade e oposição foi crítico para o desempenho observado nos quatro experimentos anteriores. Os resultados mostraram que não. Conclui-se que o responder relacional pode ser um operante relevante para a aprendizagem do que se tem chamado, tradicionalmente, de comportamento governado por regras

A Computação Ciente de Contexto permite a obtenção e utilização de informações de contexto adquiridas de dispositivos computacionais no ambiente, com o objetivo de prover serviços; esta dinâmica aliada à evolução das redes de computadores vem provocando profundas modificações nos aspectos sociais e comportamentais das pessoas, uma vez que gradativamente têm necessidade de viverem imersas na tecnologia e integradas ao ambiente, com transparência e mobilidade, e de tal forma que as aplicações de software se adaptam ao comportamento das pessoas e nas informações de contexto capturadas do ambiente. Um dos desafios desta interação ser humano - ambiente - tecnologia - ubiqüidade é garantir a segurança. Como principal inovação e contribuição, esta tese propõe um mecanismo de autenticação contínua de usuários que faz uso de informações de contexto do ambiente, da análise do comportamento do usuário, da biometria facial, das teorias comportamentais de Skinner e da Confiança Matemática da Teoria das Evidências de Dempster-Shafer, para compor uma política de segurança adaptativa e um Sistema de Autenticação Contínua de Usuários Conhecidos - KUCAS (Known User Continuous Authentication System), que estabelece níveis de confiança para autenticar o usuário através da análise do comportamento dele em um ambiente ou domínio específico nas redes de computadores, num determinado período de tempo. A dinâmica de gerenciamento incluso nesse sistema compara o comportamento atual com o histórico de comportamentos anteriores do usuário e com as restrições de atribuição de confiança; caso haja indícios de mudanças no comportamento do usuário, aciona por meio de sensores, a Tecnologia de Reconhecimento Facial Tridimensional (3D), que captura a imagem da face do usuário, validando-a e armazenando-a nos bancos de dados de imagens; havendo incertezas e divergências, mecanismos de segurança e sinais de alerta são acionados. O Sistema KUCAS proposto possui uma infra-estrutura de um framework F-KUCAS, um Módulo de Segurança S-KUCAS e um Algoritmo de Autenticação A-KUCAS. / Context-aware Computing allows to obtain and use context informations acquired through devices in the environment, with the goal to provide services. This dynamics, allied to the computer networks evolution, has been provoking deep modifications in peoples social and behavior aspects, seeing that they have the necessity to live immersed in technology and integrated with the environment, with transparency and mobility, anywhere, anytime, so that the software applications adapt themselves to the persons behavior, based on the context information captured through the environment. One of the challenges of this human ? environment - technology ? ubiquity interaction is to provide security. As main innovation and contribution, this thesis presents an authentication mechanism of users which makes use of environmental context information, users behavior analysis, the face recognition technology, the behavior theories of Skinner and the Mathematical Confidence of the Theory of the Evidences of Dempster-Shafer, to compose an adaptative security policy and the Known User Continuous Authentication System (KUCAS) that establishes trust levels to authenticate the user by his behavior analysis in a specific domain of the computer networks, in a period of time. The dynamics of enclosed management in this system compares the current behavior with the users previous behaviors description and with the trust restrictions. In case of indications of changes in the users behavior, the 3D Technology Face Recognition is set in motion by sensors, which capture the image of the users face, validating it and storing it in the data bases of images. If there are uncertainties and divergences, mechanisms of security and signals of alert are set in motion. The KUCAS System has an infrastructure of one framework F-KUCAS, a Security Module S-KUCAS and an Algorithm of Authentication A-KUCAS.