<p> Past research has shown that entrainment facilitates social bonding in intimates and strangers. The current study investigated if synchronicity in romantic couples is disrupted by relationship discord. Rocking chair movements were used as an objective measure of synchronicity. Couples rocked together for 3 minutes to assess their baseline synchronicity, and again for 3 minutes after inducing a threat to the relationship in one member of each couple. It was hypothesized that satisfied couples would be more entrained than dissatisfied couples at baseline, as well as after inducing a relationship threat. Results indicated no significant difference in rocking between satisfied and dissatisfied couples at baseline. However, results supported that synchronicity was significantly disrupted in dissatisfied couples, but not satisfied couples, after the threat was induced. These results suggest that relationship satisfaction acts as a buffer to relationship threats and/or that satisfied couples are more likely to remain entrained even in the face of hardship.</p>

<p> This project focused on the motorcycle culture as evidenced in the definition of motorcycling brotherhood, the role of women in motorcycle culture, branding, and construction of self-identity. This study is intended to provide an in-depth analysis of these four areas for every-day bikers rather than outlaw motorcycle gangs. Previous research to date has focused on the culture and context of brotherhood among outlaw motorcycle gangs.</p><p> I use these four sections to determine what the everyday bikers understanding of brotherhood is, what women's current place is in motorcycle culture compared to men, the effects of branding and logos on motorcyclists, and how motorcyclists create their selfhood based upon these brands and logos. I attempt to determine if alienation is a prevalent theme or theory for the everyday biker. I found that out of 21 respondents interviewed, 10 Harley Riders and 11 non-Harley Riders, social psychology is a more prevalent explanation for why motorcyclists choose to ride.</p><p> Most of the bikers I interviewed stated that they ride because it provided a sense of adventure, it could free their mind temporarily, it felt like freedom, they felt like one with nature or the world, it was a great hobby, and most of all it allowed them to practice and share in social relationships. I also found that while women riders have grown in numbers over the years, patriarchy still exists and masculinity still dominates the motorcycling scene. Brotherhood is also found to be related to the biker code. Overall, motorcyclists still believed it is important to help out their fellow brother on two wheels rather than to worry about the brand of bike or type of bike they ride.</p>

The problems in the 2000 election in Florida focused national attention on the need for usable voting systems. As a result, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002 provided funding for updating voting equipment and many states purchased direct recording electronic (DRE) systems. Although these electronic systems have been widely adopted, they have not been empirically proven to be more usable than their predecessors in terms of ballot completion times, error rates, or satisfaction levels for the average voter. The series of studies reported here provides usability data on DREs to compare with that of previous voting technologies (paper ballots, punch cards, and lever machines). Results indicate that there are not differences between DREs and older methods in efficiency or effectiveness. However, in terms of user satisfaction, the DREs are significantly better than the older methods. Paper ballots also perform well, but participants are much more satisfied with their experiences voting on the DREs. These studies also go beyond usability comparisons and test whether voters notice if their final ballots on the DRE reflect choices other than what the voters selected. Results indicate that over 60% of voters do not notice if their votes as shown on the review screen are different than how they were selected. Entire races can be added or removed from ballots and voter's candidate selections can be flipped and the majority of users do not notice. Beyond discovering that most voters do not detect the changes, these studies also identify several characteristics of the voter and the voting situation that are important in whether participants will or will not notice the changes. This means that attacks could be targeted to only those people who will most likely not notice the changes. The result is that malicious software installed on a DRE could steal votes right in front of voters with a low probability of being detected.

<p> Technology has, without a doubt, altered the social fabric of society. Mediated forms of communication have paved the way for more efficient production, and the vast amount of information available online has given people the opportunity to be more informed than ever. However, the rise of mediated communication has also presented a number of new threats. The current study focused on one of these threats, cyberbullying, and was interested in looking at how parents talk about and understand their child's cyberbullying behavior.</p><p> This study had the goal of uncovering if parents talk to their child about cyberbullying, and how they approach these conversations. The intent of this study was grounded in the idea that parent-child communication is a valuable tool for developing belief systems, as well as making sustainable, positive and effective changes to behavior and perceptions.</p><p> Ultimately, parents do not avoid conversations about cyberbullying with their children. Parents structure these conversations with the intention of positively changing their child's behavior and beliefs. Specifically, parents talk about cyberbullying with their children as an effort to decrease the perceived risk their child faces if he or she participates in cyberbullying. However, these conversations are limited because they are grounded in misrepresented media coverage of cyberbullying which intensifies cyberbullying behaviors. As such, media producers must work toward presenting more all encompassing and wide spread coverage of cyberbullying as an effort to educate parents about the variety of behaviors which relate to cyberbullying.</p>

<p>Relationship quality has been determined to be a positive factor in the treatment of depression (Brown, 2000; Fagan, 2009). Although the importance of marriage has been broadly studied, little research has investigated correlations among relationship quality, depressive moods, and attachment styles. Although the prevalence of depressive moods has been documented within populations of Taiwanese/Chinese international students and American college students (Wei et al., 2007), Wang and Mallinckrodt (2006) found that definitions of ideal attachment differ in these groups. Furthermore, researchers have not yet investigated the effect of cultural differences and attachment styles on the interactions between relationship quality and depressive moods among Taiwanese and Chinese international students. </p><p> Two-group and four-group comparison (Macready, 2005) methods were applied to answer the following questions: 1) Is there a significant difference between quality of romantic relationships or levels of depressive moods of American college students with anxious or avoidant attachment style and Taiwanese or Chinese college students studying in America with anxious or avoidant attachment style? 2) How does the effect differ between the two groups? A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to determine the effect on the linear combination of relationship quality and levels of depressive moods between the American students and Taiwanese/Chinese international students with different attachment categories (secure, preoccupied, dismissive, and fearful). Four follow-up analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to determine statistical significant differences in levels of depressive moods or relationship quality among Taiwanese/Chinese international students with different attachment categories. </p>

This thesis introduces a conceptual framework centered around the idea of social anchorage, which is viewed as a component of the psychosocial adjustment of refugees as it enables them to recapture or redefine their social identity and, thus, to regain some control over their life. The main objective of this thesis is to estimate the effect of premigratory exposure to political violence on the social anchorage of refugees in the host country. / The sample is made up of 270 Southeast Asian and Central American refugees with school-aged children who had been living in Canada for a mean of 7 years at the time of interview. Social anchorage is measured by five types of social anchor (i.e., political, professional, religious, academic and community) and by two indices of the diversity of social anchorage. Three measures of exposure to political violence are investigated personal acute (i.e., threat and torture), personal chronic (i.e., imprisonment, reeducation camp, forced labor), and family exposure (i.e., acute and chronic). In addition to the analyses focusing on the estimation of the effect of exposure to political violence, exploratory analyses are also carried out to identify other factors such as transferable skills and socio-demographic characteristics that may affect social anchorage once exposure to political violence and ethnicity are taken into account. Approximated risk ratios are calculated from the odds ratios obtained by binary and ordinal regression analyses. / Data analysis shows that specific forms of political violence may act differently on the social anchorage of refugees from Southeast Asia and Central America and across ethnic groups. Overall, personal acute exposure tends to foster their social anchorage whereas personal chronic exposure tends to prevent it. Personal acute exposure appears to foster the probability of a wider range of social anchors in Southeast Asian refugees but to inhibit it in Central Americans whereas personal chronic exposure tends to have the opposite effect as it may be a driving force for Central Americans and a brake for Southeast Asians. Finally, when controlling for exposure to political violence and ethnicity, transferable skills (such as premigratory work experience compatible with an urban setting and level of schooling) and socio-demographic characteristics (in particular number of years spent in Canada, income category and age) contribute to the social anchorage of Southeast Asian and Central American refugees. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Family members have been observed to cope with the losses inherent in terminal illness by grieving. Little is known, however, about the factors which influence their grieving before the death of a significant other. This paper describes an exploratory, cross-sectional, correlational study designed to examine the relationships among general coping style, hope, and anticipatory grief in a convenience sample of 61 family members of individuals with terminal cancer. The organizing framework for this study was based on grief theory, Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) theory of stress and coping, and Davies, Reimer, and Martens' (1990) transition framework. Data were collected by a four-part questionnaire comprising the Jalowiec Coping Scale (Jalowiec, 1987), the Herth Hope Index (Herth, 1991), the Non-Death Version of the Grief Experience Inventory (Sanders, Mauger, & Strong, 1985), and a background information sheet developed by the researcher. Findings revealed that family members experienced individual anticipatory grief patterns. Women experienced more despair and anger/hostility than men. Adult children, more highly educated family members, individuals not living with the ill person, and non-primary caregivers expressed more anger/hostility. Multiple regression results showed that emotive coping and hope accounted for significant proportions of the variance in despair, somatization, and loss of control. Emotive coping contributed significant variation in anger/hostility, whereas lack of hope accounted for a significant amount of the variation in social isolation. Neither the general coping styles nor hope significantly predicted death anxiety. Suggestions for research and nursing were indicated.

This correlational study examined the relationships among sex role attitudes and role behaviours (traditionality), marital adjustment, caregiving involvement, caregiver satisfaction, psychological distress and psychosocial adaptation in the MI patient and his wife at two months post infarction. The research also aimed to develop explanatory models of patient and spouse adjustment. / A convenience sample of 130 couples was drawn from the cardiac units of four hospitals in a large metropolitan area. Data were collected during home visits using structured interviews and self-report questionnaires. Patients and wives were interviewed separately. Marital and psychosocial adjustment, psychological distress, sex role attitudes, and selected sociodemographic and control variables were assessed in both members of the couple. Husbands were questioned about their cardiac symptoms whereas wives were asked about their role behaviour, caregiving involvement, and caregiver satisfaction. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlations and hierarchical regression procedures. / Correlations indicated that wives' traditionality (attitudes, role behaviour) was directly related to adjustment outcomes in only two instances: worse domestic and marital adjustment in husbands. However, traditionality was found to be associated with the sociodemographic factors (age, education, illness, social support) that were central to adjustment. The results of the regression analyses revealed that the husbands' and the wives' models of adjustment differ. The husband's adjustment is associated primarily with clinical factors while the wife's adjustment is related to both clinical and psychosocial factors. Caregiving enters in the adjustment model of both husbands and wives, but from somewhat different perspectives. Finally, having a previous MI figured prominently in both models and may be a crucial clinical factor for the couple's adjustment. / These results suggest important factors to be considered in identifying couples at risk of poor adjustment outcomes and demonstrates the importance of both patient and spouse assessments during the early post-MI recovery period.

Partout, des millions d'immigrants doivent apprendre à interagir avec une nouvelle culture (acculturation) et à s’y identifier (identification). Toutefois, il existe un débat important sur la relation entre l’acculturation et l’identification. Certains chercheurs les considèrent comme étant des concepts identiques; d’autres argumentent qu'un lien directionnel unit ces concepts (c.-à-d. l'identification mène à l'acculturation, ou l'acculturation mène à l'identification). Toutefois, aucune étude n'a pas investigué la nature et la direction de leur relation. Afin de clarifier ces questions, trois modèles théoriques testeront la relation entre l’acculturation et l’identification et deux variables centrales à l’immigration, soit être forcé à immigrer et l’incohérence des valeurs. Dans le premier modèle, les variables d'immigration prédirent simultanément l'acculturation et l'identification. Le second modèle avance que les variables d'immigration mènent à l'identification, qui mène à l'acculturation. Le troisième modèle précis plutôt que les variables d'immigration prédisent l'acculturation, qui prédit l'identification. Le premier modèle propose que l'acculturation et l'identification sont le même concept, tandis que les second et troisième stipulent qu'ils sont différents (ainsi que la direction de leur relation). Ces modèles seront comparés afin d’examiner l'existence et la direction du lien qui unit l'acculturation et l'identification. Lors de la première étude, 146 immigrants latino-américains ont répondu à un questionnaire. Les analyses des pistes causales appuient le troisième modèle stipulant que l'acculturation mène à l'identification et, donc, qu'ils sont des concepts distincts. Les résultats ont été confirmés à l’aide d’une deuxième étude où 15 immigrants latino-américains ont passé une entrevue semi-structurée. Les implications théoriques et pratiques seront discutées. / At present, millions of immigrants are learning to participate (acculturation) and identify to a new culture (identification). In acculturation research, there is considerable debate about the relationship between acculturation and identification. While some researchers consider them as identical concepts, other researchers argue that they are distinct. In addition, it is unclear which variable is at the origin of the other one. The aim of our research is to clarify the distinction and relationship of the variables. To this end, three theoretical models will be tested; they will differ on how acculturation and identification relate to two important immigration variables (coerciveness to immigrate and value incongruence). The first model states that the immigration variables simultaneously predict acculturation and identification. The second model affirms that the immigration variables predict identification, which then predicts acculturation. The third model is similar but instead acculturation predicts identification. Thus, if acculturation and identification have the same relationship to the two immigration variables (first model), they represent a single construct. However, if identification leads to acculturation (second model), they must be different concepts, identification prompting acculturation. Nonetheless, if acculturation leads to identification (third model), then these variables are not only different but acculturation influences identification. In the first study, 146 Latin American immigrants responded to a questionnaire. Path analyses support the third model, suggesting that acculturation leads to identification. The results were confirmed in a second study, where the semi-structured interviews of 15 Latin American immigrants were analyzed. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

There is a paucity of research literature on the relationship between acculturation and positive indices of mental health for migrant populations. The objective of this study is to investigate the nature of this relationship for the Iranian migrant community of Canada. / Eighty-six Iranian migrants living in Montreal and Toronto filled a self-report questionnaire. Acculturation was measured through an acculturation attitude, overt behavioural and self-report Canadian contact scales. Positive mental health was measured through WHO's cross-culturally validated subjective quality of life (SQOL) scale and the level of psychological distress was measured with the SCL-25. Pertinent demographic variables were considered to control for intra-group differences. / Moreover, since data collection for this project occurred just after the events of September 11 we partially modified our research plan to include specific questions on the impact of this even. Because of its overt politicization and its salience to Iranian ethnicity we also sought to explore the effect of religiosity on mental health of this group. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)