Cities and countries increasingly seek mega-events to boost tourism, update local infrastructure, and improve the international standing of the host community. Benefits are actively promoted by the organizing committees, but these large-scale events also create significant economic, environmental and social costs for the host community. Measuring resident support is necessary because their support is required to secure the rights to the event, and to provide the necessary economic and human resources needed for hosting the event. This study utilized existing data on the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games to investigate the impact of a mega-event on the host community, and to measure resident support for the event. Social exchange theory provided the theoretical background for this dissertation. The theory states that the costs and benefits of an exchange are continually re-evaluated by the actors in the exchange relationship. The primary contribution of this study is support for the notion that social exchanges are temporal in nature; residents continually monitored the positive and negative impacts of the event on themselves and on their community. To reach this conclusion, this study utilized four data points in the year leading up to the Olympics to assess the changes in residents’ perceptions of the impacts of the event over time. These changes were evaluated in light of residents’ support for the event. A factor analysis reduced the fifteen impact statements into three factors: Benefits, Local Problems, and External Problems. Residents were segmented according to their assessment of the event impacts, resulting in three clusters: Supporters, Cynics, and Realists. Proximity to the main event location also was evaluated since this variable has had mixed results in previous resident studies. Results showed that resident perceptions varied over time, thus providing support for monitoring residents over multiple time periods. In addition, residents’ support and residents’ plans to attend the event were contributing factors in the assessment of the Benefits and Local Problems. Supporters, Cynics, and Realists demonstrated significant differences over time in their assessment of External Problems, and proximity to the event was found to be a significant factor in residents’ assessment of Local Problems. / Ph. D.

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From an evolutionary perspective, “dark” personality traits are argued to comprise a coordinated system of co-adapted traits that facilitate exploitive, manipulative, and aggressive strategies to vie for valued social and reproductive resources. Three quantitative studies were conducted to examine the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between dark personality characteristics with bullying (Study 1), delinquency and dating (Study 2), and status-striving (Study 3) in adolescents aged 15–18 (Studies 1–2) and adults aged 18–61 (Study 3). In Study 1, using random-intercept cross-lagged panel modeling in a sample of N = 514 adolescents from ages 15–18 (Grades 10–12), Machiavellianism and psychopathy (but not narcissism) shared significant between-person associations with bullying. Within-person cross-lagged relations supported both disposition- (e.g., Machiavellianism at Grade 10  bullying at Grade 11) and perpetration-driven pathways (e.g., bullying at Grade 11  narcissism at Grade 12). In Study 2, cross-lagged panel modeling with the same sample as Study 1 revealed that secondary (i.e., impulsivity), but not primary (i.e., callous-unemotionality), psychopathy as well as delinquency were positively correlated with being in a current dating relationship at Grade 10. An indirect effect was found, whereby secondary psychopathy at Grade 10 positively predicted delinquency at Grade 11, which then predicted being a dating relationship one year later. In Study 3, path analysis with a sample of N = 516 adults aged 18–61 demonstrated that narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy positively predicted dominance status-striving, whereas only narcissism positively predicted prestige. Indirect aggression mediated the positive associations between psychopathy and sadism with dominance status-striving. Findings from the current dissertation indicate that dark personality traits are dynamically related to bullying and delinquency in youth, as well as aggression in adults, which is of relevance to educators, clinicians, and researchers looking to curb problematic behaviour that can carry significant personal and interpersonal harm.

This research was supported by an award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01-HD- 059835). The NIH had no further role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. The authors wish to thank the dedicated staff members of Asociacion Civil Proyectos en Salud (PROESA), Peru and Instituto Materno Perinatal, Peru for their expert technical assistance with this research. / Objective We examined associations of childhood physical and sexual abuse with risk of intimate partner violence (IPV). We also evaluated the extent to which childhood abuse was associated with self-reported general health status and symptoms of antepartum depression in a cohort of pregnant Peruvian women. Methods In-person interviews were conducted to collect information regarding history of childhood abuse and IPV from 1,521 women during early pregnancy. Antepartum depressive symptomatology was evaluated using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Multivariable logistic regression procedures were used to estimate adjusted odds ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CI). Results Any childhood abuse was associated with 2.2-fold increased odds of lifetime IPV (95%CI: 1.72–2.83). Compared with women who reported no childhood abuse, those who reported both, childhood physical and sexual abuse had a 7.14-fold lifetime risk of physical and sexual IPV (95%CI: 4.15–12.26). The odds of experiencing physical and sexual abuse by an intimate partner in the past year was 3.33-fold higher among women with a history of childhood physical and sexual abuse as compared to women who were not abused as children (95%CI 1.60–6.89). Childhood abuse was associated with higher odds of self-reported poor health status during early pregnancy (aOR = 1.32, 95%CI: 1.04–1.68) and with symptoms of antepartum depression (aOR = 2.07, 95%CI: 1.58–2.71). Conclusion These data indicate that childhood sexual and physical abuse is associated with IPV, poor general health and depressive symptoms in early pregnancy. The high prevalence of childhood trauma and its enduring effects of on women’s health warrant concerted global health efforts in preventing violence. / : This research was supported by an award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01-HD-059835). The NIH had no further role in study design; in the collection, / Revisión por pares

This is a longitudinal cross-lagged panel model examining the bi-directional association of attachment styles and relationship quality in a community sample of 355 married couples, with at least one child between 10-14 years of age at the beginning of the study and 17-21 years of age at the end of the study. An Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM), was used to test for actor and partner effects, thereby accounting for the non-independent nature of the data. Two separate APIM models were tested with Male Attachment predicting Female Relationship Quality and Female Attachment predicting Male Relationship Quality. Results indicate that own attachment was a stronger predictor of partner relationship quality over time than was own relationship quality to partner attachment; although male relationship quality did predict female attachment from T1 to T3, it was not significant at all other time points. Clinical implications and future research are discussed.

The objective of this study was to assess whether, and how, the attitudes towards business ethics of South African business students have changed between the early 1990s and 2010. The research was conducted as a cohort study utilising the same instrument, the Attitudes towards Business Ethics Questionnaire (ATBEQ). This study compared the results of the survey of the MBA alumni of the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), to the published results from a similar study at Rhodes University from the early 1990s. The study found a significant change in attitudes, with a trend towards stronger opinions, on business ethics and espoused values. A factor analysis of the responses showed eleven factors although it was less able to explain the variation in the attitudes than the previous study. A significant change in the rankings of variables also indicated a shift in priorities. These results indicated a shift towards a teleological moral philosophy as well as utilitarian motives. This shows a clear trend towards compliance-based ethics which can be explained by the proliferation of business legislation and regulation in the wake of recent corporate governance failures and the subsequent global financial crisis. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Survival models are used in analysing time-to-event data. This type of data is very common in medical research. The Cox proportional hazard model is commonly used in analysing time-to-event data. However, this model is based on the proportional hazard (PH) assumption. Violation of this assumption often leads to biased results and inferences. Once non-proportionality is established, there is a need to consider time-varying effects of the covariates. Several models have been developed that relax the proportionality assumption making it possible to analyse data with time-varying effects of both baseline and time-updated covariates. I present various approaches for handling time-varying covariates and time-varying effects in time-to-event models. They include the extended Cox model which handles exogenous time-dependent covariates using the counting process formulation introduced by cite{andersen1982cox}. Andersen and Gill accounts for time varying covariates by each individual having multiple observations with the total-at-risk follow up for each individual being further divided into smaller time intervals. The joint models for the longitudinal and time-to-event processes and its extensions (parametrization and multivariate joint models) were used as it handles endogenous time-varying covariates appropriately. Another is the Aalen model, an additive model which accounts for time-varying effects. However, there are situations where all the covariates of interest do not have time-varying effects. Hence, the semi-parametric additive model can be used. In conclusion, comparisons are made on the results of all the fitted models and it shows that choice of a particular model to fit is influenced by the aim and objectives of fitting the model. In 2002, an AntiRetroviral Treatment (ART) service was established in the Cape Town township of Gugulethu, South Africa. These models will be applied to an HIV/AIDS observational dataset obtained from all patients who initiated ART within the programme between September 2002 and June 2007.

Widespread critical shortages of high-quality teachers in the United States (Sutcher, Darling-Hammond, Carver-Thomas, 2016) has prompted considerable research on staffing trends within the teaching profession. Research suggests both an increase in the demand for teachers and a "chronic and relatively high annual turnover compared with many other occupations" (Ingersoll & Smith, 2003, p. 31). Recent studies have highlighted the negative effects that high teacher turnover has on financial costs, school climate, and student performance. Since attrition rates appear to be higher for beginning teachers (Ingersoll & Smith, 2003; Ingersoll, 2012), it is important to understand why beginning teacher attrition occurs and what factors influence beginning teachers to stay in the profession, move to another school, or return to the profession. While several studies suggest multiple factors influence teacher attrition, having a better understanding of how these factors correlate with each other and how the impact of these factors changes over time will provide additional information into how time influences teacher attrition. Exploring where teaching go after they leave teaching and why some teachers decide to return to the profession will provide additional insight into the complex nature of teacher attrition patterns in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine attrition patterns among K-12 teachers who began teaching in a public school in the United States during the 2007-2008 academic year and factors that influenced teachers decisions to move from their initial school to another school, discontinue teaching, or return to the position of a K-12 teacher. This study used data collected as part of the Beginning Teacher Longitudinal Study (BTLS) and explores the effect that various predictor variables have on the probability that BTLS teachers will either leave teaching or move to another school. Using a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach to discrete-time survival analysis made it possible to simultaneously model systems of equations that included both latent and observed variables, allow for the effect of mediators, and analyze how the effect of each predictor variable changed over time. Results suggest the higher the teachers' base salary during their first three years of teaching, the less likely they were to leave the profession during their second through fourth years of teaching. Teachers who supplement their base salaries by working extra jobs are more likely to leave the profession after their fourth year of teaching. Teachers who participated in an induction program during their first year of teaching were less likely to leave the profession in Wave 2 of the study and teachers who had taken more courses on teaching methods and strategies before they started teaching were less likely to leave teaching in all waves of the study than teachers who had taken fewer courses on teaching methods or strategies. Teachers who reported higher levels of positive school climate during their first year of teaching were less likely to leave the profession in Wave 2 and 4. Teachers who indicated higher levels of satisfaction with being a teacher in their school were less likely to move schools than teachers with lower levels of satisfaction and teachers who taught in schools with higher percentages of students who were approved for free or reduced prices lunches were more likely to move schools than teachers with lower percentages of students who were approved for free or reduced price lunches. However, due to convergence issues, these results should be interpreted with caution. Weighted item response descriptive analyses suggest teachers' most important reason for moving schools was to work in a school more convenient to their home. Teachers who leave teaching are more likely to enter professions or occupations in education-related fields than occupations outside the field of education. Results also suggest teachers who leave the profession of teaching are more likely to be working in a job, either full-time or part-time, than not working in job. Finally, the majority of teachers who return to the profession of teaching do so because they missed being a K-12 teacher or they want to make a difference in the lives of others. This study contributes to the existing literature on teacher attrition by testing whether multiple relationships exist between various predictor variables and beginning teacher attrition and examines how the influence of each of these predictor variables changes over time. The study also investigates topics that have been relatively unexplored in the literature, including where teachers go when they leave the profession and factors that influence teachers' decisions to return to the profession. The results of this study may benefit researchers, teachers, educators, administrators, and policy makers interested in and/or studying teacher attrition in the United States.

Middle childhood is a dynamic period in children’s lives marked by a host of dramatic and concomitant physical, cognitive, and social changes. Typically, during this time, fundamental motor skills improve and children develop sport-specific forms of those skills as they participate in active physical recreation. This participation occurs in expanding social worlds, and changes in children’s cognitive development heightens their ability to reflect on their successes and failures in those contexts. This dissertation examined some of these concomitant changes and interactions longitudinally in three related studies among approximately 450 children from grade 2 to grade 5. In Study 1, “Perceptions matter! Accuracy of perceived physical competence in middle childhood and the impact on active physical recreation participation,” I found that children’s self-perceptions of their physical abilities became more accurate by grade 3, and that children with both positive perceptions and high motor skills participated in the most active physical recreation. Contrastingly, children with less positive self-perceptions, whether they had relatively high or low motor skills, participated in less active physical recreation. The expanding social worlds of children were explored in Study 2, “Social contexts and participation in recreational activities across middle childhood.” Supporting what had been theorized for children, I found significant expansion in with whom and where children participated across the grades, including a significant increase in children’s participation by themselves and with friends, and a concomitant decrease in activities with their family. Overall, however, children still spent the largest proportion of their recreational time with their family in each grade. Lastly, in Study 3, “Latent profile analysis of children’s active physical recreation patterns in middle childhood,” I identified unique profiles of children from grade 2 to grade 5 based on combinations of motor skills, perceptions of physical competence, social contexts, and active physical recreation. Two consistent profiles of children persisted across the grades: one of children on a path toward active physical recreation engagement, and one seemingly at risk of disengagement. Ultimately, however, I discovered that with each subsequent grade came increasing diversity in children’s profiles, highlighting the need for tailored programs that can accommodate children’s individual differences. The findings from these three studies confirm that middle childhood is a dynamic time where children experience a multitude of changes. Overall, I found that children are developing cognitively as evidenced by improvements in accuracy, and socially, as evidenced by expanding social networks. Physically, in terms of motor skill development, children were not optimally developing, which is concerning. Three concrete recommendations arising from this work relate to (a) children who underestimate their abilities; (b) the early engagement of many children in organized sports; and (c) how perceptions of physical competence are used in physical activity research during middle childhood. Approximately one-quarter of children underestimated their physical abilities, and of great concern was their lack of motor skill improvement from grade 2 to grade 5. Along with opportunities to develop their motor proficiency, children who underestimate their abilities, need instructors in active recreation contexts to point out, affirm, and confirm their actual abilities. The second recommendation relates to the early participation of a majority of children in organized sports in the community. As such, children were participating in formal physical activities, such as team sports, during a turbulent time in the development of their self-appraisals. Leaders and family members need to ensure that the expectations they convey to children are realistic. Further, children will benefit from activities and learning opportunities that are meaningful and provide choices that are suited to their current skill and confidence levels. Finally, when examining children’s physical self-perceptions during middle childhood, researchers should consider the expected developmental trajectory of the accuracy of those self-perceptions. A drop in perceptions of physical competence levels among children with inflated self-perceptions at the beginning of middle childhood is expected as these perceptions become more accurate. Overlooking this expected developmental trajectory may confound research findings, particularly if self-perceptions are an outcome measure. / Graduate

Childhood callous-unemotional traits (CU), defined as a lack of guilt, empathy, and affect, are important in understanding conduct problems and other maladaptive behaviors. Early CU, in particular, has received recent attention, though current conceptualizations often extrapolate from the adult literature and lack a more nuanced developmental perspective. CU, however, may manifest differently earlier in development. The aims of this project were to further our current understanding of the early CU construct by investigating; 1) long-term stability and its underlying genetic and environmental etiology from early childhood to adolescence; 2) structural, developmental, and etiological similarities and distinctions between CU and prosociality; and 3) the extent to which early CU and prosociality differentially predict adolescent outcomes. I hypothesized modest stability and predictive validity of early CU into adolescence, and expected early CU and prosociality to be separate but related constructs. Two longitudinal twin samples were used to address these aims (Sample 1: Ages 2 and 3 years [N=314 twin pairs], followed-up in adolescence M=14.5 years [N=128 twin pairs]; Sample 2: Ages 3, 4, and 5 years [N=310 twin pairs]). Study hypotheses were largely supported. In Study 1 (Sample 1), parent-reported CU was modestly stable, and common genetic factors contributed to this stability. However, most of the genetic and environmental variance was unique to adolescent CU. In Study 2 (Sample 2), confirmatory factor analysis, longitudinal growth modeling, and twin analyses supported early CU and prosociality as distinct but related constructs at the structural, developmental, and etiological level, respectively. Study 3 (Sample 1) further supported distinctions between early CU and low prosociality by demonstrating that both independently predicted adolescent externalizing behavioral outcomes. These studies highlight the long-term developmental significance of early CU, in both its stability and predictive validity into adolescence. Furthermore, this work demonstrates the relevance of prosociality to our understanding of early CU, highlighting the utility of integrating childhood CU research with work on normative prosocial development. That being said, CU and prosociality are not simply flip sides of the same coin in early childhood, and should be viewed as distinct constructs that independently explain maladaptive behavior.