No description available.

Adolescence marks a time of increased social freedoms and opportunities to participate in new productive and leisure activities. As compared to typically developing high school students, those with intellectual disabilities (ID) can face more barriers to involvement in these activities. This study examined the involvement of high school students with and without ID in productive and leisure activities. Furthermore, it identified factors related to involvement, and it examined students’ satisfaction with their social interactions. Forty-seven typically developing high school students completed in-person interviews, and 45 of the students’ parents completed telephone interviews. Archival data from 63 parents of high school students with ID and 41 students with ID were also used. Students provided information about their satisfaction with social interactions, and, additionally, typically developing students provided information about the productive and leisure activities in which they participated. Parents in both groups provided information about their adolescents’ adaptive functioning and maladaptive behaviour, and parents of students with ID also provided information about the productive and leisure activities in which their adolescent participated. Results showed that typically developing students were more likely to be involved in employment and unstructured leisure activities than students with ID; however, there was no difference in involvement between the two groups for volunteer and structured leisure activities. Adaptive functioning was related to involvement in structured and unstructured leisure activities. Maladaptive behaviour was related to involvement in productive activities. Typically developing adolescents had a greater number of general daily interactions than adolescents with ID, and they were more satisfied with the quality of these interactions than students with ID. There was no difference in the quantity of close personal interactions between the two groups; however, typically developing students were more satisfied with the quality of their close personal interactions than students with ID. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. / Thesis (Master, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-18 14:51:50.134

No description available.

Trenden att hjälpa andra ökar i takt med att samhället blir mer individualiserat. Brottsofferjouren är en förening som bygger på frivilliga krafter och engagemang och huvudsyftet med verksamheten är att fungera som medmänniskor samt informatörer när det gäller rättsprocessen och försäkringsfrågor. Syftet med studien var att lyfta fram centrala motiv till det ideella arbetet och även ge en inblick i dessa människors uppdrag inom brottsofferjouren. Detta skapar en förståelse och fördjupning i vad som motiverar dessa människor att ge av sin tid och sitt engagemang. Metoden för studien var induktiv tematisk analys och åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer med 6 pensionärer och 2 högskolestuderande låg till grund för analysen. Resultatet visade att betydelsen av en meningsfull sysselsättning, viljan att hjälpa andra, social interaktion samt att ta till vara på sin kompetens var viktiga komponenter i motivbilden. Resultatet visade även att det fanns skillnader gällande motivbild mellan yngre och äldre volontärer.

This thesis explores "reciprocity" as the distinctive feature of human communication. Herein are operational and ontological descriptions of reciprocity in the psychodynamics of the interpersonal, interexperiential communication system that is uniquely operative in human life. The main parts of this study are entitled: (1) The Reciprocal Event, (2) The Intentional Being, and (3) Communication.The operational definition of interhuman communication, about which this thesis revolves, is the five-dimensional Reciprocal Event. Sequentially, these five are as follows: (1) Natural integration of reciprocal endowment and relational uniqueness of persons, (2) Intentional Reciprocity, (3) Consummate Reciprocity, (4) Reciprocal Transformation, and (5) Natural expansion of reciprocal and relational endowments and potentialities. This ReciprocalEvent and its development are unique in the literature of this field. However, the import of this thesis is the crystallization of the research and communication inquiries from the concerned disciplines: psychology, sociology, biology, anthropology and philosophy. From George Herbert Mead and John Dewey to Ronald D. Laing and Carl Rogers, this thesis draws upon major insights since the 1940's--attempting to give them their most salient focus.Finally, this thesis establishes a clear foundation for communications research, therapy, and training.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

Most studies of pragmatic aspects of language learning have dealt mainly with two languages, a native language and a second or foreign language. None of these studies has investigated a multilingual situation where there is interaction among three different languages spoken by one person. Neither have they dealt with an African language as the first language.The present study was designed to discover the norms of the three languages under investigation and to see how people speaking a second and a foreign language, with different levels of fluency in each, can participate in the activity of the speech communities of the two languages without violating their socio-cultural norms, and what impact, if any, their knowledge of these languages has on each of the languages they speak.Data was elicited from monolingual English and French speakers and trilingual speakers native in Ciluba by written questionnaire, and from monolingual Ciluba speakers by oral interview. In addition, naturally occurring speech acts and TV dialogue were considered. It was found that for the speech acts of apologizing, complaining, and complimenting, Ciluba socio-cultural norms are different from those of English and French, which are similar to each other. In contrast to the socio-cultural norms of French and English, in Ciluba, social distance and relative power between the participants played an important role in deciding whether one of the three speech acts was to be performed or not. However, the results also revealed that, despite the difference in norms which exists between Ciluba and the other two languages, i.e., French and English, some subjects from the group of Ciluba monolingual speakers showed some similarities with the groups of French and English monolingual speakers in their responses to some items in the questionnaire. This deviation from the norms of their native Ciluba was hypothesized to be a result of their contact with the urban environment and its mixed culture.It was also discovered that the trilingual speakers (who were native in Ciluba) used in French and English pattern of address which is not used by native English and French speakers. / Department of English

In the context of increasing isolation for members of our society the encounter group movement has emerged. While growing evidence indicates that encounter groups may have therapeutic effects, just what those effects are and under what circumstances they occur requires further investigation. One process variable frequently mentioned as critical to encounter group outcomes is feedback.This study examined the question "Does a relationship exist between the amount of verbal feedback directed toward a person and his perceptions of himself and others?"Specifically the study (a) devised content categories to quantify verbal feedback statements, (b) examined the incidence of verbal feedback as a natural occurrence in two marathon encounter groups, and (c) examined the relationship between the number of units of feedback directed toward group members and changes in their perceptions of themselves and the other group members.Twenty-three subjects, primarily Ball State University graduate students, participated in one of two non-stop marathon encounter groups with professional leadership. The groups started at 12:30 PM on a Saturday and ended at 8AM the next morning. Random, 15 minute segments of the sixteen hours between pre and posttesting were recorded for each group. Four hours of segments for each group were divided into individual verbal units and then later each unit was assigned to one of three categories by three independent raters. The categories used were: Type I feedback (a verbal statement from one group member to another which is about the person addressed and/or which explicitly includes the subjective, response of the speaker to the person addressed), Type II feedback (a verbal statement from one group member to another which explicitly, includes both a description of some physical act or verbal utterance of the person addressed and the subjective response of the speaker to that act or utterance), and category N (all other statements). Rater reliabilities for the categories were r=.91 (Type I); r=-.03 (Type II); r=.98 (N).A pretest and posttest was administered to all subjects using the Group Semantic Differential (GSD) and the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (BLRI). Concepts assessed with these instruments were (a) self-perceived actual behavior, (b) self-perceived ideal behavior, (c) the discrepancy between self-perceived actual behavior and actual behavior as perceived by other group members, and (d) the perceived relationship offered by others Factor scores derived from the instruments by the principal components method were then used with an analysis of covariance procedure to test thirty-five separate hypotheses.Results of the study did not demonstrate a significant relationship between the number of units of feedback received and changes in perceptions of self or others. Three other findings of interest were (a) a very low incidence of Type II feedback, (b) the emergence of two primary factors on the GSD (Impact and Evaluation), and (c) the extraction of a single factor which accounted for sixty-four percent of the variance for the BLRI.Discussion of the findings and recommendations for further investigations of verbal feedback as a process variable were made.

Research in social comparison conducted with male subjects, strangers, and acquaintances has shown that unfavourable comparisons between highly similar individuals result in a negative self-evaluation, dissatisfaction, and decreased liking for the comparison other. Two studies were conducted on comparisons between 16-18 year-old female friends who perceived each other as high or middle in similarity in order to test the generality of these findings for close friends. Subjects were given false feedback on a test of maturity and told that they were at level 4 out of 8 while their friend was at level 6. The first study indicated that social comparisons between highly similar, close friends resulted in less satisfaction, but in a more positive self-evaluation and no change in liking for the partner. A strong correlation was also found to exist between similarity and quality of friendship. It was hypothesised that this may account for the differences in comparisons between friends and strangers. The second study looked at high and low quality of friendship in addition to similarity and allowed subjects to interact with their partners. It was found that High-quality friends evaluated themselves more positively after the comparison and experienced an increase in satisfaction and liking for their partner who was found to be very supportive. The opposite was found for Low-quality friendships. This research establishes the nature of the relationship as a critical variable in social comparison research.

This study examined the efficacy of conjoint behavioural consultation (CBC) with children who are socially withdrawn, the generalization of treatment gains across home, school, and a play session, and whether treatment gains are positively associated with teacher and parent ratings of goal attainment. An A-B design was used and participants included 5 boys (ages 7, 5, 6, 5, and 6) and their parents and teachers. Children evidenced improvements in target behaviour from baseline to treatment at home or at school (effect sizes = $-$6.48 to +1.77). Preliminary evidence was obtained indicating that treatment gains generalize to non treatment settings, however z scores were not significant. Overall, children's social skills increased, problem behaviour decreased, and internalizing difficulties decreased (Reliable Change Indices $-$4.71 to 4.75). In addition, preliminary evidence of the positive relationship between effect size and perceptions of goal attainment was obtained. Results are discussed in light of their practical and theoretical implications.