No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina Wilmington, 2009. / Title from PDF title page (February 16, 2010) Includes bibliographical references (p. 31-35)

Thesis (Psy.D.)--Alliant International University, California School of Professional Psychology, San Francisco, 2008. / Includes bibliographic references (33-38) and abstract.

Thesis (M.A.)--Regis University, 2005. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Jan. 5, 2006). Includes bibliographical references (p. [77]-84).

Thesis (M.S.)--Minnesota State University, Mankato, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 19, 2006). Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-73).

No description available.

Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology - Psychology / The relation between self-esteem and depression with regard to employment status of gay men in long-term monogamous partnerships was investigated, specifically to determine if a relation exists between employment status and self-esteem, and between employment status and depression in these men. The relation between eleven biographical and psychosocial variables with self-esteem and depression were also investigated. Non-probability snowball and purposive sampling were used to gather the sample of 56 gay male couples who were predominantly white; middle-class; well-educated; urban-dwelling South Africans; that had been involved for a mean length of 7.3 years. Each couple consisted of an employed partner and an unemployed partner, who had a mean length of 3.4 years of unemployment. Five couples (10 subjects) formed a pilot study and completed only the Revised Janis-Field Feelings of Inadequacy Scale (R-JFFIS), while the remaining 51 couples (102 subjects) completed both the R-JFFIS and the Revised Beck Depression Inventory (R-BDI). An Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) computed for the mixed effect model with fixed factor of employment status nested within the random factor of couple, controlling for the effects of the possible covariates revealed a significant difference between self-esteem of employed and unemployed partners. The difference is not significant for depression. Confirmatory evidence for the importance of age as a significant predictor of self-esteem was found for the whole sample; while perceived health and education were found to be significant predictors of depression. Self-esteem and depression were found to be inversely related in both employed and unemployed partners individually and collectively, while a positive correlation was found between self-esteem of employed and unemployed partners. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the eleven variables investigated were poor correlates of self-esteem in both partners. Only perceived health was found to be a significant predictor of depression in employed and unemployed partners respectively. No known existing studies investigate these particular dimensions of gay life. The disparity of self-esteem scores between employed and unemployed partners and the inverse relation between perceived health and depression provide a proactive position, from which primary prevention of depression could be achieved.

Mating systems are classifications of the outcome of individual strategies aimed at maximising reproductive success. These systems have two components; one describes how individuals socially relate and bond to mating partners and the other describes the genetic outcome of actual mating activities. Reproductive activity is under strong endocrine and behavioural regulation where inter-sexual discrepancies in the regulation of reproductive success have resulted in the majority of mammal species exhibiting polygynous mating systems, with only 5% of mammals being socially monogamous. However, in monogamous species there can be a discrepancy between social pair bonds and sexual mating activities. Aardwolves are extreme diet specialists ii on a temporally fluctuating resource, Trinervertermes spp. A number of studies have described them as socially monogamous but at the same time observed a high frequency of extra pair copulations (EPCs). A recent study also linked sex variation in den use to polygamous mating. However, it is unclear to what extent these EPC's contribute to individual fitness, and how these contrasting mating strategies influence space use and reproductive physiology. The aim of this project was to determine if there was seasonality in reproductive activity and to test if endocrine physiology, home range size and space use were similar between males and females as predicted for a socially monogamous species. We assessed reproductive endocrinology in zoo-housed aardwolves and quantified if physiological and behavioural data in wild aardwolves relate more to predictions based on social monogamy or polygamy. We found physiological support for previous behavioural observations of reproductive seasonality in both zoo-housed and wild aardwolves. We suggest that the seasonal breeding strategy in aardwolves is as a direct consequence of their strong dietary preference on a temporally fluctuating resource, where it is important for aardwolves to time periods of high physiological investment in reproduction with high seasonal abundance of these termites. Our data on zoo-housed aardwolves also showed that the social environment appeared to modify physiological responses to variation in environmental conditions. We suggest that due to strict seasonal breeding in wild aardwolves females are time constrained in receptivity which, combined with their largely solitary behaviour, implies that males have to be dynamic in the onset of their reproductive activity to closely match that of locally receptive females. Therefore, it may be adaptive for aardwolves to retain social receptivity even if resource distributions cause these animals to forage alone. We also found that physiological and behavioural traits correspond better to predictions based on social monogamy than polygamous mating in a population of wild aardwolves. However, earlier studies in the same population found that behavioural traits were more related to predictions based on polygamous mating. Therefore, our data and other studies show how a difference between traits can relate to either social monogamy or polygamous mating in wild aardwolves in the same study area. We suggest that social mating system components regulate the observed endocrine and behavioural parameters more than actual mating patterns, which implies that social components pose a stronger selective pressure on physiology and behaviour than sexual mating patterns. Overall, we conclude that due to the discrepancy in traits that correspond to predictions based on different mating systems, aardwolves do not fit discreetly into any current mating system classification. We suggest that the evolutionary causes for the potentially conflicting mating strategies as well as the fitness benefits of these strategies need to be further investigated. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2013 / Zoology and Entomology / unrestricted

In this account of male infidelity and the migrant imaginary, I take on the idea of how it is that moral arguments can be made in support of the claim that male infidelity does not invalidate the assertion of love to one’s partner. In trying to address this issue I undertook an ethnographic study of eight middleclass Zimbabwean men living in Midrand. Using these young Zimbabwean middleclass men as an analytical category, I delve into the imagined lifestyles that they have about life in South Africa and the frustrations that they encounter in trying to realise these standards of living. I use Berlant’s (2006) concept of ‘cruel optimism’ to show how these frustrations in turn lead to a situation in which infidelity is not seen as antithetical to love.

Magister Legum - LLM