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TITLE: The personality of the individual in the process of attaining social status - from social reproduction to identification of the sources for intergenerational upward social mobility. AUTHOR: Tereza Bariekzahyová DEPARTMENT: Department of Psychology SUPERVISOR: Doc. PhDr. Karel Hnilica, CSc. ABSTRACT: The thesis, in which the view through the sociological prism is enhanced by the lens of psychology, theoretically and empirically examines non-cognitive personality traits and characteristics ('Big Five', Self-esteem, Locus of Control, Willpower), within the context of the social and psychological aspects of attaining social status (influences by one's family, peers and teachers, and others), with a specific focus on intergenerational upward mobility and the identification of its sources. Research for this paper was designed as a combination of (primarily) representative questionnaire surveys among the adult population in the Czech Republic, and qualitative interviews with selected individuals who have shown intergenerational upward mobility. The results show that, aside from cognitive skills, the statistically less relevant and hitherto somewhat neglected non-cognitive traits and characteristics of individuals do play a role in the process of attaining social status. The author has been able to...

Many women struggle to move up the career ladder. Women aspiring to executive positions in community colleges within the United States may face gender barriers, family-work life barriers, and barriers regarding their leadership ability. The problem studied was a gap in knowledge of how women succeeded in attaining executive positions in community colleges. The purpose of this study was to examine ways that female leaders at Southern California community colleges assumed executive-level roles at their institutions and the barriers they faced to attain those positions . The theory of upward mobility and the concept of self-efficacy comprised the study's conceptual framework. The research questions in this qualitative case study focused on barriers to women's upward mobility and ways that women overcame these barriers. Face-to-face structured interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample of 12 women who held positions of vice president or above at 8 Southern California community colleges within 2 counties. Interview data were coded using clustering and classification and resulted in 3 themes per research question. The results suggested that executive leaders must demonstrate communication savviness to address difficult situations, engage in active information searching and empower others through helpful communication. Findings of the study suggest formal mentorship was crucial for women in their quest for leadership roles. Prospective female leaders in higher education may be able to use the study results in navigating their careers. Positive social change may result with the greater visibility of women in executive leadership roles, thereby leading to reduced gender disparities and women achieving their highest potential in the workplace.

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The Information Age is revolutionizing the way we communicate, acquire knowledge, and perform work. Society is shifting from occupations rooted in industrial production to those associated with knowledge and information, requiring the development of new skills for changing occupations and updating old educational methods. Educators need to be aware of economic and social changes and have a vision for how to design career education to respond to those changes. Individuals must also be prepared to learn on their own as careers evolve and change. The training necessary to adapt to the changing career culture needs to be made available to everyone, regardless of social class and background. In order to learn how to help students prepare for life, it is necessary to understand their views on careers. There is a critical and acute need to understand the perceptions of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, such as Upward Bound participants (identified by the U.S. Department of Education as part of the TRIO Program for low-income and first generation college students). This study used Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) to access representations of students' thinking by means of a repertory-test grid methodology. Using the traditional constructivist repertory-test method, a custom designed instrument called the WOAR (Weingarten Occupational Awareness Rep-test) was used by students in a Utah Valley State College Upward Bound group to generate constructs for personally identified occupations. These constructs provided the data for a qualitative content analysis designed to better understand how marginalized students construct careers and the world of work. The resulting analysis reflected the students' perceptions about (a) what their life experiences were, (b) what they had in common with one another, and (c) what they had in common with the rest of the population at large, in terms of career knowledge. The findings showed that the students were influenced by people they knew such as doctors, teachers, church leaders and so on, as indicated by the career choices they identified. They were also affected by their unique experiences such as identifying drug dealing and other illegal means as a way of earning money. The collective responses identified sixteen common career themes among the students.

Social media use is ubiquitous, especially among young adults. Negative consequences of social media use has been associated with engaging in upward social comparisons with others on social media. The current paper presents a series of two studies that seek to understand the nuances of social comparisons as they occur while browsing social media. In Study 1 (N = 161) we tested whether upward social comparisons would be less harmful when the comparer focuses on the similarities, rather than differences, with the comparison target. We observed a marginal interaction indicating that when thinking about similarities with the target, upward comparisons were slightly less detrimental to self-evaluations, than when thinking about differences. Study 2 (N = 320) tested other potential moderators of upward social comparisons suggested by traditional theories of social comparison to see if they would apply to a social media context. We predicted when a participant rates the comparison target to be more similar (vs. different) and distant (vs. close) and the domain to be more attainable (vs. less attainable), upward social comparisons will be less harmful to self-evaluations. Neither similarity nor closeness were significant moderators. Multilevel models showed a significant interaction between upward comparisons and attainability on self-evaluations (p < .001). Simple slopes indicated viewing the domain as attainable amplified the harmful effects of upward social comparisons on self-evaluations compared to viewing the domain as less attainable. These results are contrary to our predictions and suggest that traditional theories of social comparisons may not apply to a social media context. We also investigated how the target of the social comparison would impact the experience of the social comparison and its impact on self-evaluations. Results from Study 2 showed that participants who made comparisons with distant others (celebrities/strangers) were more likely to have higher upward social comparison scores, lower levels of similarity and closeness and view the domain as less attainable. These results display when we could expect harmful consequences following making a social comparison with a celebrity or stranger while viewing Instagram, posts. Study limitations and advantages are discussed along with future research to be explored.

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