Les travaux entrepris au cours de cette thèse visaient à répondre à des questions fondamentales sur la biologie évolutive des plantes adaptées aux sols contaminés par des métaux lourds. À travers une approche comparative de populations métallicoles (M : sur sols métallifères) et non métallicoles (NM : sur sol normal) de l’espèce modèle Thlaspi caerulescens, cette thèse avait donc pour objectif général d’appréhender l’adaptation aux habitats métallifères d’une manière plus globale que par le seul trait de tolérance aux métaux. Nous avons donc cherché à mettre en évidence les différences de stratégie de vie entre les populations M et NM. Nous avons également estimé le coût de l’adaptation à l’environnement métallifère. Enfin, nous avons porté une attention particulière au rôle que pouvait jouer la plasticité dans l’adaptation à l’environnement métallifère. Cette plasticité a été considérée au niveau des traits d’histoire de vie et du système racinaire. Trois expériences ont étudié les variations des traits d’histoire de vie des populations M et NM: (1) une culture en conditions contrôlées des populations sur un gradient de concentrations en Zn, (2) une expérience de transplantation réciproque in situ de populations M et NM et (3) un suivi démographique dans les populations M et NM. Enfin, une quatrième expérience (4) visait à évaluer les variations entre populations M et NM d’un trait particulier : la plasticité du système racinaire en réponse à une distribution hétérogène des métaux dans le sol. Nos résultats montrent que les plantes M ont, en moyenne, des cycles de vie plus courts que les plantes NM (exp. 1, 3). Par ailleurs, les populations M sont capables de modifier leur stratégie de reproduction en fonction des teneurs en métaux dans le sol ou du site de transplantation (métallifère vs. non métallifère). Que ce soit sur des substrats non contaminés en Zn (exp. 1) ou sur des sites non métallifères (exp. 2), les plantes M produisent autant de graines au cours de leur vie que les plantes NM. Ces résultats suggèrent l’absence d’un coût adaptatif fort chez les plantes M. In situ (exp. 3), nous avons mis en évidence un effet structurant de l’hétérogénéité spatiale des sites métallifères sur les stratégies de vie des plantes M. Enfin, les plantes M ont exprimé une plasticité plus élevée du comportement d’exploration racinaire que les plantes NM (exp. 4). L’existence de stratégies de vie plastiques, l’homéostasie de la fitness sur une large gamme de concentrations en Zn, ainsi que le faible coût adaptatif mis en évidence chez les populations M suggèrent que ces populations sont plus aptes à fonder de nouvelles populations que les populations NM. Nos résultats ont également clairement démontré que les populations M sont caractérisées par une plasticité plus élevée que les populations NM (génotype généraliste). Cette plasticité concerne à la fois les stratégies de vie et les mécanismes d’exploration racinaire. Cette plasticité élevée des plantes M a très probablement évolué en réponse à l’hétérogénéité spatiale des sites métallifères La sélection de génotypes généralistes sur les sites métallifères est une piste de recherche qui mérite, à présent, d’être approfondie chez les autres espèces colonisant les sites métallifères.

Spiseforstyrrelser og fysisk aktivitet i ikke-kliniske utvalg Hovedmålsetningen med avhandlingen var å studere spiseforstyrrelser og fysisk aktivitet i ulike ikke-kliniske utvalg. Det første steget omfattet mulige relasjoner mellom skårer på treningsavhengighet, fysisk aktivitet, og kjønn, mens det andre steget inkluderte screening av spiseforstyrrelser, samt aspekter av forstyrret spiseadferd og deres forhold til fysisk aktivitet, personlighetstrekk, kjønn og alder. Studien viste med Artikkel I at kvinner som trener mange timer i uken skilte seg tydelig fra kvinner som trente få timer i uken når det gjaldt skårer på treningsavhengighet. Artikkel II viste kjønnsforskjeller i motivasjon til å drive fysisk aktivitet. Høye skårer på treningsavhengighet var ikke mer vanlig blant menn. I Artikkel III ble det funnet at forstyrret spiseadferd ikke er sterkt relatert til det å trene mange timer i uken. Videre viste resultatene at både kvinner og menn med høye skårer på forstyrret spiseadferd har mange felles personlighetstrekk. Resultatene i Artikkel IV viste generelt relativt høy prevalens av forstyrret spiseadferd blant 14-15-årige gutter. Både blant jenter og gutter ble det funnet høye tall på uspesifikke spiseforstyrrelser. Artikkel V sammenliknet to måleinstrumenters evne til å screene menn med spiseforstyrrelser. De to instrumentene stemte til en viss grad overens, men resultatene indikerte behovet for videre studier med kliniske utvalg for å validere EDI mot SEDs. Målsetningen med Artikkel VI var å studere utløsende faktorer relatert til episoder med overspising blant kvinner, samt konsekvenser av overspising. Resultatene viste at faktorer knyttet til start og stopp av overspising ser ut i stor grad å være av emosjonell og fysiologisk art. Relatert til forebygging og behandling vil Artikkel VI kunne bidra med viktige elementer i forhold til self-management strategier blant pasienter. Denne avhandlingen kan være et bidrag til en bedre forståelse av det kompliserte forholdet mellom fysisk aktivitet, forstyrret spiseadferd, personlighetstrekk og kjønn i befolkningen.

En majoritet bland ledare i olika organisationer har en bakgrund som storasyskon eller ensambarn (Hudson, 1990). Denna studie genomfördes för att få svar på om personer med ledaransvar skiljer sig åt gällande syskonplats och locus of control jämfört med de personer som inte har ledaransvar. Ledare och medarbetare på en statlig myndighet svarade på en enkät gällande plats i syskonskara, erfarenhet av ledarskap och locus of control. Resultatet visade att sistfödda i detta urval hade en högre grad av intern locus of control än förstfödda vilket kan tyda på en annan typ av sistfödd på denna myndighet. Urvalet var dock bristfälligt (N = 48) och slutsats kunde inte dras utan att riskera ett felaktigt resultat.

This study re-examines whether a new instrument, Child Problematic Traits Inventory, can assess core traits of psychopathy in children. A sample of 309, 3-5 year olds, (mean age 4 ), were recruited from 3 medium sized Swedish communities. Results show that items from the test load in three dimensions: Grandiose/Deceitful, Callous/Unemotional and Impulsivity, Need for stimulation. They are related to symptoms of Conduct- and Oppositional Defiant Disorder, fearlessness, proactive- and relational aggression. The study presents evidence that psychopathic like traits can be meaningfully studied in young children and that the Child Problematic Traits Inventory is a valid instrument for assessing these traits. Future longitudinal research is needed to see whether this construct is stable and predictive for future psychopathic disorder. / Studien replikerar om ett nytt instrument, Child Problematic Traits Inventory, kan mäta grundläggande psykopatiska personlighetsdrag hos barn, 3-5 år. Försökspersonerna bestod av 309, 3-5 åringar (medelålder 4) från tre medelstora svenska kommuner. Resultat visar att frågor från Child Problematic Traits Inventory laddar och formar tre dimensioner, en Grandiose/Decieteful en Callous/Unemotional och en Impulsivity/Need for Stimulation. Dessa tre dimensioner är relaterade till symptom av trotssyndrom, uppförandestörning, oräddhet samt proaktiv och relationell aggression. Studien visar att psykopatiliknande drag kan bli meningsfullt studerande i barn och att Child Problematic Traits Inventory är ett bra instrument för att mäta detta. Framtida longitudinell forskning är nödvändig för att undersöka om psykopati liknande personlighetsdrag är stabila över tid samt predicerar psykopati.

This search was conducted to focus on the effect of upward influence behavior on manager¡¦s leadership , and find out if Employee¡¦s personality traits affect the relationship. Based on the result of statistical analysis on 575 questionnaires from the employees in the technology industry, the following findings were obtained: 1.By using the factor analysis, there are four different types of upward influence behavior ¡GRational Persuasion, Tricking and Impeding , Image Management, Ingratiating . 2. a. The upward influence behavior of rational persuasion with gender, marital status, job level, age and educational background has significantly effect. b. The upward influence behavior of ingratiating with marital status, job level, age and educational background has significantly effect. 3. a. Manager¡¦s transformational leadership affects the usage of employee¡¦s the upward influence behavior of rational persuasion and ingratiating. b. Manager¡¦s transactional leadership affects the usage of employee¡¦s the upward influence behavior of rational persuasion and ingratiating. 4. a. Employee¡¦s personal traits change the effect of upward influence behavior of tricking and impeding on manager¡¦s transformational leadership. b. Employee¡¦s personal traits change the effect of upward influence behavior of tricking and impeding on manager¡¦s transactional leadership.

¡@¡@Owing to the entry into WTO, which requires an open insurance market, and the legislation of the six ¡§Financial Holding Company Acts¡¨ that allows cross deals across different financial sections and multi-channeled selling, Taiwan¡¦s insurance market, of which the ratio of life insurance arrived at 182% in 2006, is squeezing the marketing space of the local life insurance agents, frustrating and driving them away. ¡@¡@This research aims primarily to investigate the relationships of the specific personality traits of a life insurance agent, his/her attributional style of rejection and selling performance, and hopefully to offer tools in selecting potential life insurance agents. At the same time, this research hopes to render stimulating, training and helpful devices for the practicing agents of various types of personality. ¡@¡@The measurement scales in this research paper consist of five questionnaires about personality traits and attributional style of rejection, and the voluntary participants are agents working for a life insurance company of which annual performance is among the top five, according to the database of the Taiwan Insurance Institute, while collecting their annual performance data as the dependent variable. Three hundred copies of the questionnaires are distributed and there are 125 effective copies returned, at a ratio of 42%. The statistical approaches applied are correlation analysis and regression analysis in support of the hypothesis. ¡@¡@By correlation analysis and regression analysis, the conclusions reached are: 1, The extroversion construction in the ¡§Five-Factor of Personality Traits¡¨ interacts positively with the policy sale and the first-year premium collection, which reaches the level of significance. It shows that the better an agent¡¦s extroversion construction is, the better performance of his/her policy sale and first-year premium collection will be. 2, The stability of an agent¡¦s attributional style of rejection interacts negatively with his/her policy sale and first-year premium collection, which reaches the level of significance. It shows that the more stable an agent¡¦s attributional style of rejection is, which means he/she takes the rejection of the client as something normal, the worse performance of his/her policy sale and first-year premium collection will be. ¡@¡@The managerial implications and the following researching suggestions are also discussed in this research paper. Key words: The Five-Factor of Personality Traits, the Attributional Style of Rejection,Performance

This research links the relationship among entrepreneurial traits, business strategies and the success of the firm. Such relationship presents that the person who stands behind the success of SME is entrepreneur. Entrepreneur plays an important role in SME as a key player to control the direction of the SME. Also, the business strategies used by the entrepreneur can build competitive advantage for the firm. This research focuses on network and innovation strategies as the main strategies and presents the entrepreneurial characters that are important for utilizing these two strategies effectively. Network strategy will be efficiently used by the person who possesses the extraversion trait with social and team characters while innovation strategy will be efficiently used by the person who possesses the openness to experience trait with creativity and advantage characters.

This paper examines the effect of psychological traits on earnings and furthermore whether it helps explain the gender wage gap. Public-use data collected from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health is used to evaluate the impact on earnings on seven psychological factors: masculine traits, self esteem, analytical problem solving approach, willingness to work hard, impulsiveness, problem avoidance, and self-assessed intelligence. Findings show that gender differences in psychological traits are significant and returns to observable characteristics differ somewhat by gender as well. Among the young sample of U.S. employees evaluated in this study, I find that up to 21 percent of the gender wage gap can be explained, with psychological factors specifically explaining up to 1.5 percent of this gap.

Personality has been reported in a large variety of animal species, but it is not obvious why animals have personality. Variation in physiological traits, such as growth rate, should theoretically affect variation in behaviours and thus can explain why we observe variation in personalities. Growth rate is, theoretically, positively correlated with active personality types. Empirical studies have reported this pattern in different fish species, but there are not yet many studies on endothermic animals. I have therefore scored behaviours of 100 red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) chicks in four personality assays; novel arena, novel object, tonic immobility, and a proactive-reactive test, together with recording variation in growth rate of these individuals. The chicks individual growth rate (% day-1) were calculated and the relationship between personality and growth rate investigated. There was significant difference in growth rate between the sexes, where males grew faster than females, detected already at one week of age. However, no significant correlations between behavioural traits and growth rate were observed, indicating that personality seem to be independent of growth rate. Further studies should therefore investigate the generality of this finding, and alternative underlying mechanisms for variation in personality should be explored.

The aim with this study was to further understand the art of character design, in order to get a better understanding of how visual attributes - especially shape - can be purposely used in order to communicate aspects of a character's personality. The first step was to investigate the subject of character design through relevant material and literature. From this investigation, a total of four character designs have been developed - two"good" and two "evil" - within two different game titles of different graphical styles: One that is more cartoony/stylized and one that is more realistic. Prior to the production a number of work processes - production pipelines - used by artists in the game and movie industry were investigated. From this, the pipeline for the study was compiled. To end the study a survey was conducted, in order to obtain outside feedback for the character designs regarding their style and what personality traits they were associated with. The results show that the majority of the participants perceived the characters in the way that was intended, while the perception of graphical style was a lot more varied.