This thesis applies Higgins (1997) Regulatory Focus Theory to the study of conflict by exploring the relationship between power and promotion vs. prevention orientation. After considering the earlier work of Keltner, Gruenfeld & Anderson (2003) that established the considerable effect that power has on approach and avoidance behaviors, the present research shows that this link also applies to regulatory focus. In this study, participants had their sense of power experimentally manipulated by a set of vignettes and then answered follow-up questions to determine what effect this had on their regulatory focus orientation. Results indicated that high power is associated with a promotion focus, while low power, a prevention focus. The implication of these findings were discussed and were integrated with the work of Cesario, Higgins & Scholer (2008) on regulatory fit and persuasion to create a novel strategy for conflict resolution. / by Noel J.M. Trew. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

by Yeung Wing Tsui, Lisa. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 156-167). / Abstract --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.ii / Contents --- p.iii / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter I. --- Professionalism as Cognition in a Discursive Society --- p.11 / The Taxonomical Approach: Reappraisal --- p.11 / The Power Paradigm: Room for Improvement --- p.18 / "Cognition, Professional Discourse and Society" --- p.23 / Chapter II. --- Foucault's Theoretical Contributions to the Study of Professions --- p.37 / """Power/Knowledge"": Archaeology and Genealogy" --- p.39 / """Disciplines"" and ""Disciplinary Society""" --- p.49 / """Disciplinary Apparatus"" and Arenas of Jurisdictional Claims" --- p.56 / Chapter III. --- The Hong Kong Western and Chinese Medical Professions --- p.66 / The General Scenario and Some Theoretical Highlights --- p.67 / The Medical Attitude of Hong Kong People --- p.75 / Chapter IV. --- The Production of the Hong Kong Western- Chinese Medical Discourse in Historical Context --- p.83 / The Social Organization of Health Care Service --- p.84 / Chinese Medicine as a Rational System --- p.89 / The Importance of the Establishment of Tung Wah Hospital to the Production of the Local Medical Discourse --- p.94 / The 1894 Bubonic Plague: Consolidation of the Western-dominant Medical Cognitive Structure --- p.102 / Chapter V. --- "Institutions, ""Disciplinary Power"" and Dissemination of Social Knowledge: Further Medical Discourse" --- p.110 / The Educational and Credential Arena --- p.111 / The Public Arena --- p.118 / The Political Arena --- p.122 / The Legal Arena --- p.128 / The Workplace Arena --- p.132 / Conclusion --- p.138 / Notes --- p.146 / References --- p.158

In this dissertation, I explore how male university graduates in Lahore go about securing mainly government employment. Ethnographic exploration of what seems to be an individual quest in the temporal juncture between completing a degree and securing full time employment is in fact an intensively social and political process. Participant observation of these career-building endeavors in and around a hostel, an ‘academy,’ and in a call center speaks to the way graduates orient themselves and endeavor to create their future in a stratified society. Accounts of experiences of job seekers reveal how different forms of capital are mobilized in educational processes. The goal that shapes aspirations and strategies is that of elite government service, indicative of a time of anemic economic growth and perceived political instability. The state then sets the standard for achievement of graduates’ career goals, motivated by security, status, and stability. Thus, the state looms large in the ways young men figure their future, in a way, becoming an arbiter in an encounter between job seekers and the structure of power relations. That is, unemployed graduates need to become worthy or achieve merit, adjusting or cultivating one’s habitus in order to get there. The foregoing suggests power relations in the eyes of young men are configured not only through social or cultural capital but by political capital. I thus highlight power in the self-making process that produces what I argue could be seen as a culturally-specific middle class subjectivity. I make the case for a ‘habitus’ that can be cultivated and shaped by political and economic conditions, loosening theory’s conceptual rigidity while highlighting the ways it mediates the temporal juncture between education and employment.

In this dissertation, I theoretically and empirically examine the psychological experience of middle-power, which occurs when someone frequently alternates between adopting behavioral strategies targeting higher-power and lower-power interaction partners. In Chapter 1, I update and extend the approach/inhibition theory of power (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003) by developing a novel theoretical framework related to the psychological experience of middle-power. This new theoretical perspective draws from and integrates insights from role-based identity (Ashforth & Johnson, 2001; Stryker, 1980) and role transition theories (Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000). In Chapter 2, I conduct a systematic review of the social hierarchy literature over the past 10 years and demonstrate that scholars have considered the middle of the distribution with respect to stratifying variables in only 5.4% of past empirical investigations. This conscious absence of the middle forces us to reconsider existing findings in the social hierarchy literature. In Chapters 3 and 4, I examine the relationship between power and unethical behavior and present evidence of a curvilinear relationship: middle-power individuals consistently behave more ethically than both their higher and lower-power counterparts. Taken together, these insights highlight the importance of considering the antecedents and consequences of middle-power states.

Traditionally vocational rehabilitation has as its goal providing services to support individuals with disabilities to achieve outcomes that relate to employment and independent functioning so that they may live self-sufficient and empowered lives. The current research discusses models of empowerment among varied marginalized groups identifying its components and dimensions, but little is known about how learners perceive and experience empowerment. This qualitative case study brought the voices of 18 adult learners who are deaf-blind into the conversation and examined the instructional practices and experiences that were reportedly empowering among learners while participating in vocational rehabilitation. The study revealed learners’ interpretations of their experiences, motivations, insights, and challenges during their vocational rehabilitation journey. The study illuminated how learners perceived empowerment and identified six elements of the experience. In addition, learners shed light on six elements of the learning context that were worthy of consideration among learners and practitioners for optimizing the learning experience. Emergent themes surfaced regarding the relationship between empowerment-based practice and transformative learning. The change reportedly undergone by learners encompassed the whole person: affective, cultural, social, practical, political, and spiritual domains. Preliminary investigation into the distinctive pathways to empowerment among deaf-blind adult learners provided a unique perspective by learners on how they made meaning and navigated their new reality of combined vision and hearing loss. Recommendations to practitioners and learners are derived from the 18 voices of learners who participated in the study. The study also revealed a need to further investigate the link between transformative learning and empowerment-based practice and how these two theoretical frameworks might inform one another with implications for practice.

The work that is submitted here for the degree of PhD by publication comprises one book, one book chapter, and fourteen papers published in peer-reviewed journals. Many arise from qualitative research projects on which I was the appointed researcher. I am sole author on five of the publications, lead author on seven, and joint author on four. The publications span the years 1998-2007. They are included in full, and are examined, using Foucault's notion of 'governmentality', in an overview. The projects were designed and conducted during a particular era in history (characterised as 'risk society' or Yeflexive modernity'), dominated by a particular political ideology (characterised as 'neo-liberal'), and all examined aspects of public service delivery and use. Using Foucault's notion of governmentality, this body of research is concerned with questions of how we govern, and how we are governed, and with the relation between the government of ourselves, the government of others, and the government of the state. Foucault suggests that it is only through the analysis of various micro-sites that practices of power or governmentality might be identified. The research collected here represents a study of governmentality in the 'micro-sites' of welfare, (in this case, the provision and use of social security benefits); health care (the delivery and 'consumption' of NHS Direct, an innovative health care service); and education (in particular, the management of change in Higher Education, and the production of university learning, teaching and research).

This dissertation aims to contextualize the normative and structural constraints on women's bodies, health, and wellbeing in rural Tamil Nadu, India. Using theoretical frameworks by R.W. Connell and Michel Foucault, this qualitative study explores the intersection of gender and power at interpersonal-, institutional-, and community-levels. Findings from this research highlight specific manifestations of the local gender regime that women may need to overcome to better care for their bodies and selves.

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This research proposes that it is possible to meaningfully examine the differences between subjects' perceptions of concepts at two different levels of analysis. The central theory, called "fractionation", is derived from structuration theory. The theory suggests that there is an important and particular difference between subjects' perceptions of key concepts at the value (abstract) level, as differentiated from the policy (action) level. The key concepts provided here are capitalism and democracy. Three major stages of data gathering and analysis were conducted. The first stage, carried out in several phases, surveyed 337 college students to gather words commonly associated ·with two key concepts: capitalism and democracy. These words were then used as items in a multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis. The results were used to represent the relationship between the two key concepts at the value level of analysis. The second stage consisted of gathering policy fragments from two mainstream newspapers. Television advertising was selected as the focal point of this search, to represent one area where democracy and capitalism co-exist. Fragments were taken from the newspapers and compiled into "fragment topics", or pieces of argument about the relationship between capitalism and democracy in television advertising. Stage III was carried out by surveying seventy-three subjects who were presented with the argumentative statements developed in each fragment topic. An assessment was made of the relationship between capitalism and democracy at the policy level based on the argument choices made by the subjects. Stage I resulted in a clear distinction between the two key concepts of capitalism and democracy at the value level, while Stage III resulted in a conflict between the two at the policy level. The comparison of results between the first stage of the research and the third stage represents the fractionation that was being sought.