Social contact is known to be vital for older adults' mental and physical health, but few studies of social interactions have taken place in long-term care settings. The current study investigated whether the psychological well-being of assisted living residents was influenced by factors associated with residents' social interactions involving humor. Specific aims of the present study were to develop and test a measure related to humor-related social exchanges, to examine how humor-related social exchanges affect residents' mental health, and to explore whether humor-related social exchanges mediated the effects of resident and facility characteristics on indices of mental health. One hundred and forty older adults residing in 14 assisted living facilities in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area were interviewed about the frequency and types of social interactions they experienced with members of their facility-based social networks, as well as depression, mood, loneliness, self-esteem, and self-rated health. A 12-item, two-factor model of humor-related social exchanges was identified through confirmatory factor analysis, including both positive and negative humor-related social exchange factors. The newly developed scale displayed evidence of adequate reliability and validly in the current sample. Results indicated that both positive and negative humor-related exchanges were associated with various aspects of mental health, although negative humor-related exchanges appeared to be a stronger predictor of mental health than positive humor-related exchanges. Both positive and negative humor-related exchanges also served as mediators between resident and facility characteristics and indicators of mental health. Cultivating a better understanding of the relationships between humor-related social exchanges and mental health may be beneficial for researchers interested in the way humor impacts older adults' ability to cope with stress. This research may also be of value to long-term care providers who create interventions designed at improving residents' mental health and overall quality of life.

The rise of crowdsourcing practices has revolutionized the way in which organizational tasks can be performed. One application of crowdsourcing that has been receiving growing attention over the past decade is using the crowd to collect environmental data that is needed to monitor, manage and predict environmental events. Most projects are still in their initial stages and since these projects often require high levels of citizen participation, there is a need to better understand the motivations for individuals to(dis)engage in these crowdsourcing projects, especially when long-term participation is required. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to explore the motivations of individuals that participated in a crowdsourcing project for environmental data collection. Building on Self-Determination Theory, Social Exchange Theory and Social Identity theory, a case was studied of an organization that successfully motivated citizens from all over the world to use their drones to collect geographic climate data. In total, ten interviews were conducted with the drone-operators. The findings suggest that participants felt intrinsically motivated to engage because they wanted to do good, cared about climate change and were passionate about flying drones. Additionally, they experienced extrinsic motivations such as the possibility of gaining future job offers, recognition, and experience. Moreover, since participation was deemed relatively easy and straightforward, costs of participation were low and outweighed by the benefits. Finally, feeling part of a wider community made the participants more motivated to engage. Using crowdsourcing to collect environmental data on a wider spatiotemporal scale can help guide policy-making that mitigates or manages the impacts of climate change. Future projects would benefit from more and diversified research that support the design of long-term participation schemes, as the success of the projects depends on the level of citizen engagement.

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No description available.

Summaries in English and Afrikaans / Life skills are coping skills taught to learners, with the purpose of developing self-reliant and confident people with skills, to cope with important life's challenges in times of change. Where life skill education initiatives are being set up, much time and resources are channelled into training teachers, promoting, disseminating and implementing life skill education. For life skill education to be effective and continue to be relevant, research needs to be undertaken as an integral part of the whole process. This study focuses on the 'Life Skills Train the Trainer Programme'. The aim being to evaluate the success of this programme in empowering teachers to teach life skills. It was found that although life skill education has been found to be an important area in every learner's life, there are obstacles that may affect an effective implementation of life skill education in schools. These obstacles need to be attended to. / ewensvaardighede word aan leerlinge onderrig met die doe! om selfstandigheid en selfversekerdheid te ontwikkel, sodat hulle in staat is om lewenseise te midde van veranderende tye te kan hanteer Wanneer lewensvaardighede-onderrig gelnisieer word, word baie tyd en hulpbronne gekanaliseer in die opleiding van onderwysers, asook in die promovering, verspreiding en implementering van sodanige onderwys. Vir lewensvaardighede-onderrig om effektief te wees en relevant te bly, moet navorsing 'n integrale dee! van die hele prose vorm. Hierdie studie is gerig op die "Life Skills Train the Trainer Programme". Die doe! was om vas te stel tot watter mate hierdie program bydra tot die bemagtiging van onderwysers in die onderrig van lewensvaardighede. Die bevinding was dat alhoewel erkenning gegee word aan die belangrikheid van lewensvaardighede-onderrig, daar tog struikelblokke is wat effektiewe implementering in skole kan belemmer Hierdie struikelblokke moet aangespreek word. / Educational Studies / M.Ed.

Chez l'être humain, le pouvoir d'influence peut être accordé volontairement aux individus qui se démarquent par leurs habiletés exceptionnelles. Dans cette étude, deux théories issues de la perspective évolutionniste sur ce type de pouvoir sont confrontées : celle de la transmission sociale de l'information (Henrich et Gil-White 2001) et celle de l'échange social (Chapais 2012). Cinq hypothèses principales sont extraites et mises à l'épreuve : 1) la compétence supérieure de certains individus leur permet d'acquérir un statut supérieur; 2) la compétence d'un individu est évaluée par comparaison sociale et par l'intermédiaire de mécanismes psychosociaux; 3) les experts sont utiles à autrui puisqu'ils sont de meilleurs modèles à imiter et de meilleurs partenaires de coopération; 4) ces experts reçoivent de la déférence de leurs admirateurs en échange d'un partenariat avec eux ; 5) conséquemment, une compétition pour l'acquisition d'un statut supérieur émerge via la démonstration publique de la compétence et la recherche d'une réputation favorable. Ces prévisions sont testées par une analyse comparative de la littérature ethnographique portant sur dix sociétés de chasseurs-cueilleurs relativement égalitaires en utilisant la base de données du eHRAF of World Cultures. Les résultats appuient très fortement toutes les prévisions et indiquent que des asymétries de statut sont omniprésentes chez tous les peuples de l'échantillon, ce qui refléterait l'universalité des propensions psychosociales qui sous-tendent ces inégalités. / In humans, influence power can be freely given to highly skilled individuals. In this study, two evolutionary theories on the origin of this type of power are considered: the information goods theory (Henrich and Gil-White 2001), and the social exchange theory (Chapais 2012). Based on this theoretical framework, five main hypotheses were extracted and tested: 1) individuals with higher competence in specific domains of activities have a superior status; 2) an individual's higher competence is evaluated through social comparison; 3) highly skilled individuals are useful to others because they constitute better models to imitate and better partners to cooperate with; 4) followers defer to experts in exchange for their partnership ; 5) as a result, individuals compete for status by exhibiting their competence and attempting to improve their reputation. Those predictions were tested by using the eHRAF of World Cultures database and analysing the data relating to ten relatively egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies. The results strongly support all predictions and indicate that status asymmetries are ubiquitous in the sampled societies. This suggests that the underlying psychosocial mechanisms constitute human universals.

Text in English / The small house phenomenon amongst the Shona people in contemporary Zimbabwe forms part of the relationship and household arrangements amongst certain heterosexual couples. In cases where partners engage in small house relationships, it has specific implications for existing marriage and family dynamics. The study sought to address the question: What are the perceptions on gender dynamics of the small house phenomenon as an emerging family structure in contemporary Zimbabwean society? The relative newness as well as the secretive nature and complexity of the small house relationship, render the nuances of gender dynamics in such contexts worth exploring to add value to the Sociology of Families and gender dynamics. The research was conducted in Harare metropolitan province and adopted social exchange theory and African feminism to illuminate the gender dynamics in small house households. It utilised a qualitative research paradigm and employed in-depth interviews to collect data from 30 participants who were purposively sampled. Findings of the study reveal that although the small house relationship may at times be informed by the ideals of traditional Shona polygynous marital practices, it differs in several respects with polygyny as it attempts to adapt to the socio-economic demands of the 21st century. The study uncovers that the social exchanges in small house relationships are not only gendered, but also based on inequalities relating to class, age and lineage. The small house relationship at times perpetuates gender inequalities between the partners involved. The study exposed how certain small house relationships were inundated with a myriad of problems including gender-based violence, financial constraints and increased susceptibility to HIV and AIDS and other STIs. Problems experienced in small house households are often exacerbated by the secretive nature of the relationship. Furthermore, a form of hegemonic masculinity and emphasised femininity, which are manifestations of the deeply entrenched patriarchal hegemony in the Shona culture, results in asymmetrical intimate relations. It was also revealed that small house households may inadvertently violate children’s rights, including opportunities to access and secure education and social security. Reportedly, disengaged fatherhood in the context of the small house can affect children’s welfare and socialisation negatively. / Sociology / D. Phil. (Sociology)

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-22T17:26:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dm2_Luciano_vargas.pdf: 637463 bytes, checksum: b08b63e8c6a347cd2c86fc24fdfd8986 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-03-31 / The study and development of systems to control interactions in multiagent systems is an open problem in Artificial Intelligence. The system of social exchange values of Piaget is a social approach that allows for the foundations of the modeling of interactions between agents, where the interactions are seen as service exchanges between pairs of agents, with the evaluation of the realized or received services, thats is, the investments and profits in the exchange, and credits and debits to be charged or received, respectively, in future exchanges. This evaluation may be performed in different ways by the agents, considering that they may have different exchange personality traits. In an exchange process along the time, the different ways in the evaluation of profits and losses may cause disequilibrium in the exchange balances, where some agents may accumulate profits and others accumulate losses. To solve the exchange equilibrium problem, we use the Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDP) to help the agent decision of actions that can lead to the equilibrium of the social exchanges. Then, each agent has its own internal process to evaluate its current balance of the results of the exchange process between the other agents, observing its internal state, and with the observation of its partner s exchange behavior, it is able to deliberate on the best action it should perform in order to get the equilibrium of the exchanges. Considering an open multiagent system, it is necessary a mechanism to recognize the different personality traits, to build the POMDPs to manage the exchanges between the pairs of agents. This recognizing task is done by Hidden Markov Models (HMM), which, from models of known personality traits, can approximate the personality traits of the new partners, just by analyzing observations done on the agent behaviors in exchanges. The aim of this work is to develop an hybrid agent architecture for the self-regulation of social exchanges between personalitybased agents in a open multiagent system, based in the BDI (Beliefs, Desires, Intentions) architecture, where the agent plans are obtained from optimal policies of POMDPs, which model personality traits that are recognized by HMMs. To evaluate the proposed approach some simulations were done considering (known or new) different personality traits / O estudo e desenvolvimento de sistemas para o controle de interações em sistemas multiagentes é um tema em aberto dentro da Inteligência Artificial. O sistema de valores de trocas sociais de Piaget é uma abordagem social que possibilita fundamentar a modelagem de interações de agentes, onde as interações são vistas como trocas de serviços entre pares de agentes, com a valorização dos serviços realizados e recebidos, ou seja, investimentos e ganhos na troca realizada, e, também os créditos e débitos a serem cobrados ou recebidos, respectivamente, em trocas futuras. Esta avaliação pode ser realizada de maneira diferenciada pelos agentes envolvidos, considerando que estes apresentam traços de personalidade distintos. No decorrer de processo de trocas sociais a forma diferenciada de avaliar os ganhos e perdas nas interações pode causar desequilíbrio nos balanços de trocas dos agentes, onde alguns agentes acumulam ganhos e outros acumulam perdas. Para resolver a questão do equilíbrio das trocas, encontrou-se nos Processos de Decisão de Markov Parcialmente Observáveis (POMDP) uma metodologia capaz de auxiliar a tomada de decisões de cursos de ações na busca do equilíbrio interno dos agentes. Assim, cada agente conta com um mecanismo próprio para avaliar o seu estado interno, e, de posse das observações sobre o comportamento de troca dos parceiros, torna-se apto para deliberar sobre as melhores ações a seguir na busca do equilíbrio interno para o par de agentes. Com objetivo de operar em sistema multiagentes aberto, torna-se necessário um mecanismo para reconhecer os diferentes traços de personalidade, viabilizando o uso de POMDPs nestes ambientes. Esta tarefa de reconhecimento é desempenhada pelos Modelos de Estados Ocultos de Markov (HMM), que, a partir de modelos de traços de personalidade conhecidos, podem inferir os traços aproximados de novos parceiros de interações, através das observações sobre seus comportamentos nas trocas. O objetivo deste trabalho é desenvolver uma arquitetura de agentes híbrida para a auto-regulação de trocas sociais entre agentes baseados em traços de personalidade em sistemas multiagentes abertos. A arquitetura proposta é baseada na arquitetura BDI (Beliefs, Desires, Intentions), onde os planos dos agentes são obtidos através de políticas ótimas de POMDPs, que modelam traços de personalidade reconhecidos através de HMMs. Para avaliar a proposta, foram realizadas simulações envolvendo traços de personalidade conhecidos e novos traços

隨著社群網路不斷快發展而使得上社群網站成為使用者每日生活的一部分，而社群商務也因此蓬勃發展。社群商務是社群網站使用者因社交活動而彼此交換分享產品或服務資訊的行為。根據Forrester Research在2011年的報告，預測至2015年時社群商務的產值將達300億美金。因此社群商務將隨社群網站不斷的發展，將越來越重要。 因此，本研究文獻回顧及焦點訪談藉由社群網站行為-參與及瀏覽二種行為、社會資本-結合型社會資本(親密朋友)及橋接型社會資本(普通朋友)來預測社群網站使用者採用社群商務-給予及接受二種意願。 本研究以社群網站臉書的使用者為研究對象，研究以紙本及線上二種方式來搜集使用者問卷。紙本問卷主要以北部某大學生為主要搜集對象，線上問卷則以在電腦教室的大學生、社群網站臉書的線上使用者及BBS-批踢踢實業坊的使用者同時也是社群網站臉書上的使用者為主。有效問卷970份。經由信度分析、效度分析及共同方法變異分析，確認本研究之信效度，並採用偏最小平方法(Partial Least Square,PLS)，來進行結構方程模式(Structural Equation Modeling, SEM)研究模型分析。 總體研究一開始先進行分析社群網站行為、線上社會資本及採用社群商務三者主構面皆為二階構面之間的關係。結果發現社群網站行為對線上社會資本及線上社會資本對採用社群商務三個主構面皆是顯著正向的關係。接著本研究模型整體分析社群網站行為-參與及瀏覽、線上社會資本-結合型(親密朋友)及橋接型(普通朋友)對使用者採用社群商務的意願-給予及接受皆有正向顯著的影響。因此本研究並繼續在就個別研究子構面進行探討。 參與行為和瀏覽行為皆對結合型(親密朋友)社會資本有顯著的正向影響，但瀏覽行為對於結合型(親密朋友)社會資本的正向影響程度大於參與行為對於結合型(親密朋友)社會資本的正向影響程度。參與行為和瀏覽行為皆對橋接型(普通朋友)社會資本有顯著的正向影響，但瀏覽行為對於橋接型(普通朋友)社會資本的正向影響程度大於參與行為對於橋接型(普通朋友)社會資本的正向影響程度。 參與行為對採用社群商務意願（給予）有顯著的正向影響，但瀏覽行為對採用社群商務意願（給予）沒有影響。參與行為和瀏覽行為皆對採用社群商務意願（接受）皆有顯著的正向影響，但參與行為與瀏覽行為二種行為對於採用社群商務意願（接受）沒有顯著的不同。 結合型(親密朋友)及橋接型(普通朋友)社會資本對採用社群商務意願（給予）皆有顯著的正向影響，且橋接型(普通朋友)社會資本對於採用社群商務意願（給予）的正向影響程度大於結合型(親密朋友)社會資本對於採用社群商務意願（給予）的正向影響程度。結合型(親密朋友)及橋接型(普通朋友)社會資本對採用社群商務意願（接受）皆有顯著的正向影響，但結合型(親密朋友)及橋接型(普通朋友)二種社會資本對於採用社群商務意願（接受）沒有顯著的不同。 綜上所述，總體而言，瀏覽行為對於社會資本優於參與行為對於社會資本的影響。參與行為對於採用社群商務意願優於瀏覽行為對於採用社群商務意願。橋接型(普通朋友)社會資本對於採用社群商務意願優於結合型(親密朋友)社會資本對於採用社群商務意願。 此外，在經由量化分析研究，本研究獲得全部研究假設分析的結果，接著本研究並採用事後質性分析(Post Hoc Qualitative Analysis)，利用半結構式深度訪談，對象包括大學部1-4年級的學生及上班族來做事後質性分析。事後質化分析的結果是將量化分析的所支持的假設加以驗証及探究更深一層的說明，並提供解釋量化分析所不支持假設的可能原因。 本研究理論貢獻在於採用社群網站行為-參與及瀏覽及線上社會資本-結合型(親密朋友)及橋接型(普通朋友)來預測採用社群商務-給予及接受之意願。較少研究採用社群網站行為及社會資料理論來解釋社群商務。管理意涵在於社群網站的營運者，應思考如何藉由社群網站來增加對使用者的〞黏性〞及提昇使用者瀏覽網站的流量，並依據使用者之前瀏覽的記錄，來推測並提供使用者所喜好的内容。更進一步來說，為增加使用者的參與行為可依照使用者彼此間的互動來分析使用者社群網站上的行為以推薦使用者加入其有興趣的粉絲團及社團，以增加親密朋友及普通朋友之使用者彼此的互動，同時增加線上結合型及橋接型社會資及使用者採用社群商務的意願。此外，本研究建議社群網站經營者應努力發展線上朋友介紹功能，並藉由大數據的資料分析擴大使用者的交友範圍。對於使用者線下的朋友，希望將其成為本身結合型(親密朋友)或橋接型(普通朋友)的社會資本。對於使用者線上不認識的朋友，希望能其成為橋接型(普通朋友)的社會資本，因為他們可能加入同一粉絲團或社團，以促進社群網站的使用者採用社群商務的意願。 / Following the fast growing of social network sites (SNS) such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook in the cyber world recently, the social commerce has become an important emerging issue in these SNS. According to the Forrester Research (2011) predicted the total value of output for social commerce will reach US$30 billion in 2015. Because the development of social commerce will follow the continueous growing of SNS, the social commerce will play a pivotal role in the e-commerce. According to the literature review and focus group discussions, the study explored and applied SNS behavior including participating and browsing, social capital theory including bonding (close friends) and bridging (ordinary friends) to predict SNS users to adopt giving and receiving social commerce intention (SCI). The study applied an empirical research on SNS users i.e. FB users to be research target samples. The data collection were applied by paper_based and online_based as two way to collect sample data. With regard to sample data from paper_based survey, the study adopted undergraduate students of a university located in northen Taiwan was the research main collection samples for paper_based survey. As to online_based survey, the study utilized undergraduate students, who are the same as paper_ based survey in the same university with computer lab classes, FB users of researchers’ friends and Taiwan largest Bulletin Board System-PTT who are also FB users to collect online users’ data. The total valid samples are 970 from online_based and paper_based survey. After reliability analysis, validity analysis and common method variance testing, the study confirmed that reliability and validity of study samples met the requirement of each statistical testing and were qualified for testing the study whole research model. Then, the study adopted partial least square (PLS) to proceed with structural equation modeling (SEM) research model testing. As to whole model research testing, in the beginning the study was testing the relationship among SNS behavior, online social capital and SCI. The three constructs are second order constructs. The testing results show the effects of SNS behavior on online social capital and the effects of online social capital on SCI are significantly positive. Hence, the research continues to proceed with the research model testing. The research findings of whole research model testing have shown SNS behavior as a second order construct of participating and browsing, online social capital-bonding and bridging are both significantly positive influence to adopt social commerce intention as a second order construct as SCI (giving and receiving). Hence, the study will continue to explore the relationships between each sub-construct in the research. Participating and browsing behavior are both significantly positive on bonding social capital. Moreover, browsing behavior is more significantly positive associated with bonding social capital than participating behavior is associated with bonding social capital. Participating and browsing behavior are both significantly positive on bridging social capital. Browsing behavior is more significantly positive associated with bridging social capital than participating behavior is associated with bridging social capital. Participating behavior is significantly positive on adopting SCI (giving). However, browsing behioavr is no significant influence on adopting SCI (giving). Participaiting behavior and browsing behavior both have significantly positive influences on SCI (receiving). However, there are no significant differences between participating behavior and browsing behavior on adopting SCI (receiving). Bonding and bridging social capital are both significantly positive on SCI (giving). Moreover, bridging social capital is more significantly positive associated with SCI (giving) than bonding social capital is associated with SCI (giving). Bonding and bridging social capital are both significantly positive on SCI (receiving). However, there are no significant differences between bonding and bridging social capital on adopting SCI (receiving). To Sum up, generally speaking, browsing behavior is better on social capital than participating behavior is on social capital. Participating behavior is more suitable on adopting SCI than browsing behavior is on social capital. Bridging social capital is more appropriate on adopting SCI than bonding social capital is on adopting SCI. Besides, after quantitative data analysis, the study proceeds with the post hoc qualitative analysis. Utilizing semi-structured in-depth interviews with undergraduate students and working persons to continue post hoc qualitative analysis. The aim of post hoc qualitative analysis is to validitate and provide insight for the hypotheses which are supported by quantitative analysis. Moreover, it provides the explainations for the hypotheses which ae not supported by the quantitative analysis. The theory contributions of the study are applying SNS behavior including participating and browsing, social capital theory including bonding and bridging to predict SNS users to adopt SCI (giving and receiving). Seldom researches SNS behavior and social capital theory to explain social commerce individually. With regard to managerial implications are for SNS operators to think how to utilize SNS to increase users stickiness and raise users’ browsing quantities - following the users’ accumulated browsing behaivors history to predict and provide the contents which users may have interest. Moreover, regarding the interacting behavior for SNS users of participating behavior is to analyze the behaviors of SNS users and to recommend uers to join the fan pages or clubs that they may be interested in. Doing so is to increase the interactions with close friends and ordinary friends to enhance online bonding and bridging social capital and the users’ intentions to adopt SCI simotenously. In addition, the study recommends SNS operators to adopt friends introducing functions thoroughly and apply big data statistical analysis to enlarge the users’ friends rang to make more SNS friends. For the SNS offline friends, the study wish to let SNS users’ offline friends to become their online bonding or bridging social capital. For the SNS online unknown friends, the study wish to let SNS users’ online unkown friends to become their online bridging social capital because they may join the same fan pages or clubs to enlarge and accelerate SNS users to adopt SCI.

在可預見之未來無線點對點的世界裡，資訊交易就如同現實世界人與人間的交易模式，需考量到交易資訊的成本、價值與人際關係衡量之因素；傳統廣告行銷的效率問題也待創新的資訊交易平台來解決。本研究提出的資訊交易模型，以人性考量為基礎，在各種不同情境下，動態衡量資訊成本、價值與使用者間關係，透過助理軟體，協助加入資訊交易平台之個體，以更便利方式進行資訊交易，預期讓交易結果更貼近使用者的需求；而企業方面也能透過點與點之間快速傳遞資訊的特性，預期以更低成本、更高效率，完成商務行銷目的，達到破壞性行銷之目標。 / This paper presents a novel ambient e-service aiming at distributed marketing through sensible bartering in foreseeable wireless Peer-to-Peer (WP2P) environments. A variety of influential factors (e.g., cost, value, relationship) are proposed and formalized for empowering the bartering mechanism, unfolding a rich arena of ambient distributed trading and a disruptive paradigm of e-marketing.