No description available.

Historically, streets have provided both a means of livelihood and social support for its inhabitants. The emergence of the car dramatically shifted planning practices from the pedestrian, to the efficient movement of automobiles, resulting in the fragmentation and dispersion of communities. Current academic streetscape design guidelines focus on creating an aesthetically pleasing and functional street; however, these guidelines alone do not appear to foster strong community ties and social networks. A review of the place making literature identified that a number of factors can play a significant role in a user’s ability to secure a strong sense of place, place attachment and sense of community. This exploratory research analyzed place making literature and employed qualitative methods with observations and interviews of users in three streetscapes located in Vancouver, British Columbia; W 41st Ave, Commercial Drive and Fraser St. The resulting feedback obtained from this multiple case study approach has provided the basis upon which a user driven streetscape design visualization was created. It was then compared to a visualization based upon current academic design guidelines. Through an examination of this research, it became apparent that the design of a streetscape does influence the social interaction of its users. It was also discovered that the academic driven urban design guidelines do not fully reflect the preferences and social needs of its users. This research has helped to close the knowledge gap between the design of the physical form of our streets and the user’s preferences. Additionally, it has illustrated the essential role that place making principles should play in the design process. Current theories and concepts of streetscape design have since been expanded and now have the potential of creating more socially sustainable, vibrant streets.

The present study was designed in an effort to address two general questions: (1) the primacy of social dysfunction in bulimia nervosa, and its potential as a risk factor in disease onset; and (2) the proximal antecedents of the binge eating episode in bulimic patients. Given the substantial clinical and empirical evidence of social impairment in this psychiatric group, as well as findings documenting the treatment effectiveness of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (a therapeutic program designed to exclusively address social disturbances) with bulimic patients, it has been speculated that difficulty with interpersonal relationships may be a predisposing factor in the development of bulimia. The present study sought to determine whether social problems could present as potential markers for later disturbances of eating in weight-preoccupied women. A comparison of bulimic patients with a group of restrained eaters and a group of unrestrained eaters on such features as social adjustment across domains of functioning, specific deficits in interpersonal transactions, and qualitative aspects of everyday social experiences was undertaken to determine whether deficits in the social sphere parallel the continuum of eating pathology. In support of previous research and consistent with predictions, bulimic subjects were found to display greater social maladjustment and interpersonal deficits, and to report more negative social interaction experiences than control subjects. Few dimensions of social dysfunction were found to differentiate restrained eaters from unrestrained eaters, thereby suggesting that bulimia nervosa and restrained eating are not continuous with regard to social problems. / Studies examining the proximal antecedents of binge eating episodes have suggested that negative affect reliably precedes binge eating, and as such, has been considered a precipitant to bulimic episodes. However, no previous empirical work has addressed the precursors of this negative mood state. The present study postulated an "interpersonal stress" model of the binge/purge episode which incorporates disturbances in social relatedness and negative interpersonal interaction as precipitants of the negative affect that characterizes the pre-binge state. The model was evaluated in a naturalistic investigation of social interaction experiences and eating behavior in a sample of clinical eating disorder patients. The interpersonal distress/negative affect/binging linkages postulated in the present study were supported, thus highlighting the significance of negative social interaction experiences in the elicitation of binge eating. The clinical implications of the present findings are substantial as they underscore the effectiveness of eating disorder treatment programs which consider interpersonal disturbances in their therapeutic interventions.

This thesis has examined touching as a dimension of proxemic behavior among four and five year old children - blacks and whites. Differences in touching behavior between the sexes and the races were explored.It was shown that differences' between the races in touching behavior were so slight and can be dismissed as negligible. Sex, however, was found to be a significant factor. Males tended to touch other males more than they tended to touch females. The same relationship was found for female children, i.e. they tended to touch other females more than males. The results were cast against the wider socio-cultural implications of behavior in general.

The Fagan Test of Infant Intelligence (FTII; Fagan, 1987), the Early Social Communication Scale (ESCS; Seibert et al., 1982) and the Test of Orienting Preferences (TOP), an attention task designed for this study, were used to examine social versus nonsocial attention in children with autism and developmental disorders (n = 18). The Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS; Schopler, Reichler, & Renner, 1986) was used as a continuous diagnostic measure in order to correlate performance on the measures with the severity of autism. On the FTII, as autistic symptomatology increased, the percent of time a child oriented to novel stimuli in both immediate and delayed conditions also increased. On the ESCS, as autistic symptomatology increased, joint attention behaviors decreased. Comparing the ESCS and the FTII indicated that as joint attention behaviors decreased, selective attention to novelty increased. With respect to the new attention measure, children with typical development oriented more than 85% of the time to all stimuli, whereas children with more features of autism oriented less frequently to social and auditory stimuli, and were slower to orient to auditory stimuli. The findings represent preliminary behavioral evidence for a social attention deficit in children with autism. The implications for these findings are discussed.

No description available.

Thesis (M.U.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Also available in print.

Thesis (M.S.)--Villanova University, 2008. / Psychology Dept. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1932. / Vita. Published also as part I of Child development monographs, Monograph no. 8.

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Ohio State University, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-175).