Although affirmative action is a beacon of hope for millions of South Africans, it is unfortunately also a source of potential unrest amongst the minority groups, since personal security and integrity in interpersonal relationships between races are being threatened. In light of this it seems as if the government of the day is challenging universal principles by means of their affirmative action policy which may lead to distrust and broken relationships. The aim of this study is to investigate the potential impact of affirmative action on characteristics of interpersonal relationships by means of a Personal and Professional Leadership perspective. In order to accomplish the aim and objective of this study, the following specific goals are set for this research essay: § to identify and describe characteristics of interpersonal relationships by means of a Personal and Professional Leadership perspective; § to identify and describe features of discrimination; § to identify and describe features of affirmative action; § to investigate possible implications of affirmative action for characteristics of interpersonal relationships. / Prof. D.P.J. Smith

Scholars of adolescence have identified parents and peers as two important contexts of development. This dissertation examines an understudied linkage between these two contexts: parents' management of adolescents' friendships. A conceptual model for thinking about parents' management of adolescents' peer relationships was developed and examined as part of the study. Specifically, four peer management behaviors were examined: communicating preferences, communicating disapproval, supporting friendships, and information-seeking. The nature of parents' beliefs about their adolescents' friends (specifically, parents' perceived efficacy in managing their adolescents' friends and parents' concerns about their adolescents' friendships) was also explored. To further evaluate linkages suggested by the conceptual model, connections between parents' beliefs about adolescents' peers and their peer management behaviors were investigated. These aspects of managing adolescents' friendships were then examined for linkages, suggested by the conceptual model, to adolescents' reported friendships (i.e., the deviant and prosocial orientations of their friends) and psychosocial adjustment (i.e., their reported engagement in school and in problem behaviors). The participants for the study were 452 adolescents and 269 parents (161 mothers and 108 fathers). Data were collected from the adolescents at two time points, in the spring of 1997 and the spring of 1998, resulting in longitudinal information for 170 adolescents. Approximately six months after the first data collection for adolescents, questionnaire packages were sent home for parents' participation. The study results suggest that parents use the four management behaviors described, albeit relatively infrequently. Additionally, the more parents engaged in one peer management behavior, the more they engaged in the other peer management behaviors. Parents also felt relatively efficacious in managing their adolescents' friendships and were generally unconcerned about their adolescents' friendships. In general, mothers and fathers held similar beliefs about adolescents' friendships, and were similar in their management of their adolescents' friendships. When the relationships between parents' beliefs about peers and management behaviors to adolescents' friendships and psychosocial adjustment were examined, some interesting linkages were revealed. For example, mothers and fathers reported being more concerned about their adolescents' friendships when their adolescents were engaged in more problem behaviors. When relationships to parents' peer management behaviors were examined, adolescents' problem behaviors and deviant friends emerged as significant predictors of parents' management behaviors, showing relationships to mothers' and fathers' communicating disapproval and information-seeking, as well as to fathers' supporting friendships. For mothers, their concerns also emerged as a significant predictor of their peer management behaviors, showing relationships with supporting friendships and information-seeking. For fathers, feeling efficacious in managing adolescents' friendships was more consistently related to their peer management behaviors than were their concerns about adolescents' friendships. Finally, parents' concerns about adolescents' friends, communicating disapproval and information-seeking were examined for relationships to change in adolescents' deviant friendships and psychosocial adjustment. These analyses revealed that when adolescents' school engagement increased, fathers communicated disapproval more and when adolescents' school engagement decreased, fathers sought information about their adolescents' friends more often. The results of this study provide insight into parents' management of adolescents' friendships and suggest avenues for further research. These avenues and other unexplored linkages suggested by the conceptual model are the substantive focus of the discussion. / Graduate

M.Cur. (Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing) / Psychiatric nursing is seen as a high-stress profession. The demands of caring for others, especially those who suffer from acute and chronic mental health impairment, can be extremely stressful (Lin, Probst & Hsu, 2010:2343). Psychiatric nurses run a high risk for being exposed to aggression in the work environment. The aggression that they experience is not only from hostile and aggressive mental health care users, but also from fellow colleagues. Aggression in the work environment has an overt negative psychological effect on the nurse (Yildirim, 2009:509; Bimenyimana, Poggenpoel, Myburgh & Van Niekerk, 2009:5). The aim of the research study was to explore and describe the lived experience of psychiatric nurses of aggression amongst colleagues in the work environment. A second aim was to formulate guidelines on assisting psychiatric nurses and their colleagues in order to facilitate their own mental health. The research design of the study is qualitative, explorative, descriptive and contextual in nature (Maphorisa, Poggenpoel & Myburgh, 2002:24). This qualitative approach created an opportunity to discover the phenomena of the lived experiences of psychiatric nurses of aggression amongst colleagues. The research study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, data was collected by means of conducting in-depth phenomenological interviews, naïve sketches, observations and field notes until data saturation was achieved. In the second phase, guidelines, recommendations, challenges and a summary were formulated to address the lived experience of the psychiatric nurses of aggression amongst colleagues in the work environment. During data collection, the following question was asked in the in-depth phenomenological interviews and naive sketches, “What is your experience of aggression amongst colleagues in the work environment?” Tesch’s (Creswell, 2004:256) open coding method and an independent coder were used during data analysis.

Francisco- La Grange, F.H., Prof. / Despite the high divorce rate in South Africa marriage is still a sought after social institution and many potential couples have high expectations upon entering marriage. The continuation of marriage rather than its breakdown awakes the special interest of the candidate. She reasons that marital satisfaction is a significant determinant in the continuation of a marriage and she is keen to identify some indicators of marital satisfaction. She furthermore envisages strategies in social work intervention by means of which the public could be sensitized to marital satisfaction. Methodology In this essay research is in essence explorative, particularly in the sense that it is an attempt to initiate a new conseptualization of a phenomenon. The following methodology was used: A literature study exploring the nature of the marriage relationship; characteristics which indicate marital satisfaction and the philosophy and methodology of research. Consultation with specialists in the field of marital relationships and marriage counselling. The research enabled the candidate to identify the following indicators: Constructive communication between the spouses. Skilled handling of conflict. Characteristics of the spouses. A relatively compatible value system. Sexual fulfilment. Socio-economic security. Premarital factors. The influence of children.

M.A. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

This research sought to examine changing meaning of marriage and meaning of family among urban working class residing in East London and how their perceptions of marriage have shifted from the orthodox norms. This study was conducted in Amalinda, which is one of the East London suburbs. Interviews were conducted with male and female informants. It is acknowledged in this study that marriage has traditionally been regarded as imperative in both African and Western cultures. However, there have been some drastic changes in the marriage institution in the twenty-first century. This study found out that people have shifted from the orthodox practices of marriage. The traditional culture has been influenced by various factors such as education, globalisation, and urbanisation. Furthermore, there has been a rise in the number of people who cohabit, increase in the age of first marriage, premarital childbearing and there has been a decline in the number of polygamous marriages and arranged marriages and a number of people have no problem with same-sex marriages. Furthermore, financial implications and financial securities play are influences on why some people choose or not choose to marry.

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship between adult interpersonal functioning of women, currently in therapy wherein they were addressing unresolved issues about their childhood maltreatment, and childhood experiences referring to a developmental psychopathology framework. One hundred and twenty women (30 sexual abuse, 30 physical abuse, 30 family disruption, and 30 control) were individually presented with a series of audiotapes of three interpersonal situations (conflictual, neutral, dating), and asked to record their self-report of physiological response, self- and other-perceptions and coping responses. Physiological indices (heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure) were also recorded, as well as self-report of childhood coping strategies. The data were examined as to whether abuse survivors in therapy addressing their childhood experiences have more interpersonal problems than non-clinical control subjects or than individuals having other types of traumatic backgrounds and whether any noted interpersonal difficulties are specific to the type of abuse, or general in nature. Results indicated that abusive experiences are related to greater dysfunction in regards to self- and other-perceptions than exposure to disruptive/chaotic family environments alone. However, the differences appear to be variable-specific and few differences were obtained on physiological and coping variables. Some specific problems in adult interpersonal functioning were evidenced between the sexual and physical abuse groups. Specifically, in comparison to the physical abuse survivors, sexual abuse survivors reported greater use of different, and perhaps less adaptive, coping strategies in neutral situations. No other dependent variables significantly differed between the two groups. The results were discussed in terms of theoretical and empirical issues related to abuse-specific outcomes, the specific methodology employed in this study, and directions for future research. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Toy sharing and sibling interaction are major contexts for young children's developing social skills. This study examined the effects of parenting on sharing between siblings, and the effectiveness of a 5-session parenting programme in promoting sharing. Forty-eight mothers with two preschoolers participated. Each family was assessed before and after the parenting programme and at a 6-week follow-up. The mother completed measures of her parenting approach and reported on her children's behavior. The children were interviewed to obtain cognitive measures. Interactions of the mother and two children were observed in a laboratory playroom. Fathers and preschool teachers also reported on the children's behavior. Two parts of the study used data collected at the first assessment. First, multivariate analyses showed significant correlations between mother behaviors and those of the children, and between the two children. Second, the immediate effects of parenting on children's sharing were explored by manipulating the mother's activities. Children exhibited more appropriate sharing when the mother was free to interact with them than when she was busy with paperwork. The third part of the study examined the effects of two formats of a parent-training programme on sibling sharing. Families were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: individual programme, group programme, or waiting-list control. The programme provided parents with information about the development of sharing and sibling relationships and taught behavioral parenting techniques to use in promoting the development of child sharing skills. Positive effects of the sharing programme on siblings' sharing-related behavior were clearly demonstrated. These effects were seen to generalize across informants and across behaviors, but not across informants and behaviors combined. Treatment effects were maintained over a follow-up period. Although mothers demonstrated increased knowledge of the content covered by the programme and rated it highly, they did not demonstrate or report significant changes in their own parenting approach on the original measures. Mixed results were obtained concerning the two treatment formats. For observations of child behavior, only the individual format showed superiority over the control condition. The two formats did not differ in treatment effects found on most questionnaire measures. Mothers' reports of decreased behavior problems among younger children and a few tentative findings from child interview measures suggested superiority of the group format. Overall, this study demonstrated both strong relationships between the sharing-related behavior of children, and correlational and causal relationships between mother behavior and sibling sharing. A parent-training intervention was demonstrated to have positive effects on children's sharing behaviors, and these effects generalized over situations, behaviors and time. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

In a previous study (Deutsch and Solomon, 1959) it had been hypothesized that if another evaluated an actor in a manner consistent with or similar to that actor's evaluation of himself, the other -would be positively attractive'; if the other's, evaluation were inconsistent with or dissimilar to the actor's evaluation of himself, the other would be negatively attractive. It was found, however, that equally consistent and inconsistent others were not equally positively and negatively attractive. This study attempted to provide an explanation for these results. It was suggested that the principal source of attraction toward the other in the previous study was not in the other's evaluation of the actor per se, but rather in the perception of the other's desire or lack of desire for group success, the experimental situation having been such that actor and other were interdependent for the success of their team in competition with another team. A similar experiment was conducted where it was found that males who regarded group success as being important were positively attracted toward others who desired group success and negatively attracted toward others who did not desire group success, regardless of whether or not the evaluations these others made of the subjects' performances were consistent with the subjects' own evaluations of their performances. While females with positive evaluations of their own performances were positively or negatively attracted toward others who did or did not desire group success, respectively, females with negative evaluations of their own performances were positively attracted toward those others whose evaluations of them were positive or supportive and negatively attracted toward those others whose evaluations of them were negative or non-supportive. Consistent with other findings in the field is the interpretation that females place much more importance upon supportive than upon competitive aspects of situations, and that the supportive rather than the competitive aspects are the issues which determine the attractiveness of others. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

A fundamental assumption underlying any interpersonal model of depression is that depressed social behaviour evokes a predictable response from others that in turn contributes to depression. Whereas most recent research has focused on the response that the depressed elicit in others, the present study examined the social impact of that response. The central premise of interpersonal models of depression can be expressed more precisely in terms of interpersonal circumplex complementarity theory: The hostile-submissive quality that has been reported in depressed behaviour evokes a complementary response from others (labelled RD). That response, in turn, evokes more hostility and submissiveness in the depressed, thus perpetuating the cycle. To have clinical relevance, RD would also be expected to induce relatively negative mood. Predictions regarding possible intrapersonal mediating variables were derived from critics and proponents of cognitive models of depression. After initial mood was assessed, each of 12 0 female subjects was shown a videotape depicting either RD or a control condition. Each subject then completed questionnaires assessing mood, her perceptions of what she would be like in the company of the person she had watched, and the social impact of the person she had watched. It was predicted that, compared to the control group, a) subjects exposed to RD would show more negative mood, b) they would anticipate that they would be more hostile and submissive in the company of the person they saw, and c) RD would impact as the interpersonal complement of hostility-submission, whether according to the traditional model of interpersonal complementarity or a facet analytic approach. These three predictions were borne out and the facet analytic prediction was supported. Further predictions that preexisting depressive symptoms and cognitions would correlate with mood and social acceptance for experimental group subjects were not supported. Methodological and theoretical implications are discussed. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate