| 1. |
- Wentz, Kerstin, 1958
(author)
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Fibromyalgia and self-regulatory patterns : development, maintenance or recovery in women
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Aims: The overall aim of this thesis was to elucidate psychological processes and development, maintenance or recovery related to fibromyalgia based on in depth interviews. In a next step women with fibromyalgia, women without long-lasting pain and women with long-lasting pain were compared using psychometric instruments selected or developed based on qualitative results. Methods: Twenty-one women with fibromyalgia and 8 women recovered were interviewed. Their narrations were analysed using Grounded Theory. Tentative theory was built. The I Myself Scale (IMS) was constructed to mirror self-regulation prior to onset of symptoms and complemented with an instrument on current self-regulation: Structural Analysis of Social Behaviour (SASB) and SF-36 mirroring health related quality of life, regarding the two pain groups. The groups were compared using analysis of variance, principal components analysis paired with discriminant analysis and profile analysis. Results: Analyses of the interviews resulted in core concepts of an “unprotected self” (current fibromyalgia) or a “strong but not enough to be weak” self (recovery). Data patterns indicated that the women as children were unprotected in relation to stimuli and affects. Relationships with the parents were characterised by strain and low levels of support. The recovery group had as children simultaneously been able to develop obvious competence and capability to receive help. Psychological vulnerability was in adult life compensated for through pronounced helpfulness and dissociation/repression including intense activity. An increase in mental load such as localised pain or psychosocial crisis preceded onset of fibromyalgia accompanied by impaired cognitive functioning. The state of fibromyalgia meant maintained high levels of mental load such as difficulties of the selfstructures, impaired cognitive functioning and somatic symptoms. The recovery group experienced substantial social support and often used mastering strategies to ease symptoms. A decrease in strain as improved life conditions and cease of overexertion preceded recovery. Health was thereafter maintained through careful management as seeking low levels of strain and pacing of activity. Recovery ‘on parole’ also meant personal growth and use of efficacious defences. Psychometrical testing confirmed qualitative data patterns of self-regulation connected to fibromyalgia. Impaired selfreference/ understanding of health needs and others not being asked for help and advice was reported before onset of symptoms. Dissociation or repression including intense activity and self-loading were also employed. SASB and SF-36 indicated that women with fibromyalgia experienced higher levels of mental “load” than the other pain group. Conclusion: Qualitative data indicated that life prior to onset of fibromyalgia and current fibromyalgia held qualities of impaired self-regulation in relation to mental and physical load. The state of recovery relied on improved self-regulation allowed by conditions of life. Quantitative data patterns confirmed qualitative results on impaired self-protection before onset of fibromyalgia and a specifically high level of mental load during the state of fibromyalgia. Psychological disregulation is discussed and hypothesised to cause but also later in the process parallel alterations in somatic homeostatic functions. Recovery could mean that biological regulation regarding strain is replaced with more of “psycho-social” regulation as careful pacing of work. Implications for treatment are suggested.
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| 2. |
- Friman, Margareta
(author)
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Effects of critical incidents on consumer satisfaction
- 2000
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Satisfaction is assumed to be an important cause of attitude change by mediating between preexposure and postexposure attitudes. A number of factors account for whether one is satisfied or not with a specific product or service. One factor is expectations, another performance of the product or service, and a third disconfirmation of expectation. Another possible factor that influences satisfaction is the affective reaction to product/service performance. The present thesis aimed at investigating satisfaction with public transport services. More specifically, the role of critical incidents in satisfaction was examined. In Studies I and IV the characteristics of critical incidents in public transport services were analyzed. Three different methods were in Study I applied to explore perceptual/cognitive experiences of negative critical incidents. The results suggested that employee behavior, reliability, simplicity, and design constitute perceived quality attributes in public transport services. Study IV investigated how individuals respond affectively to and evaluate satisfaction after such encounters. The results showed as expected that the critical incidents varied in both valence (positive-negative feelings) and activation (arousal). Study II confirmed the quality attributes found in Study I by means of further analyses of the covariances of rated frequencies of remembered negative critical incidents as well as of ratings of attributes-specific satisfaction. Some explanations of how frequencies of remembered negative critical incidents are coded in memory were tested in Studies II and III. The results showed that frequency of negative critical incidents, defined as disconfirmation of expectations, negatively affected overall satisfaction with public transport. The relationship was however not direct but mediated by attribute-specific satisfaction. Furthermore, the results obtained in Study IV showed that difference in satisfaction caused by different types of critical incidents were related to the affective reactions to the incidents
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
- Gurdal, Sevtap, 1976-
(author)
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Children and Parents : Attributions, Attitudes and Agency
- 2015
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Children and parents are both part of children’s development and research on children and on parenting are both areas that, in some way, have changed in recent decades. These changes are related to the new way of seeing children and that children are no longer seen as ‘becomings’ or adults in the making; rather, children are insteadregarded – and seen – as more active in their development and as social agents. With a new way of viewing children and childhood there is also a new way of explaining or understanding parenthood. The general aim of this thesisis to learn more about how parents think about their parenting and how this can be related to children’s agency. Inaddition, children’s own beliefs about their agency are studied. The aim of Study I was to investigate mothers’ and fathers’ (77 participants from each group) attributions and attitudes in Sweden. The results revealed thatSwedish parents are more polarized in their attitudes than in their attributions. Regarding attitudes, mothers and fathers reported more progressive than authoritarian attitudes. Fathers reported higher adult-controlled failure and child-controlled failure attributions than mothers. In Study II the aim was to assess whether mothers’ and fathers’self-reports of acceptance-rejection, warmth, and hostility/rejection/neglect of their children differ in the nine countries. A total of 1996 parents (998 mothers and 998 fathers) participated in the study. Mothers and fathers reported high acceptance and warmth and low rejection and hostility/rejection/neglect (HRN) of their children inall nine countries. Despite the high levels of acceptance and low levels of rejection across all countries, some systematic differences between countries emerged. In Study III Swedish mothers’ and fathers’ warmth towards their children was examined in relation to their children’s agency. It also studied the longitudinal relation between agency and children’s externalizing, internalizing, and school achievement. Swedish children’s parents (N = 93) were interviewed at three time points (when children were 8, 9, and 10 years old) about their warmth towards their children, children’s agency, children’s externalizing and internalizing behaviors and school achievement. Results from this study indicate that Swedish parents’ warmth is directly related to children’s subsequent perceptions of their agency, which in turn are related to subsequently lower child externalizing and internalizing problems and higher academic achievement. Personal agency is studied in Study IV and the aim of this study was to examine how 10-year-old children perceive their agency in three different contexts, family, school and peer-situations. Interviews were conducted with 103 ten-year-old Swedish children. Vignettes concerning three different situations were presented to the children and their answers were written down for subsequent thematic analysis. The resultsshowed that children perceive their agency differently depending upon which context they find themselves in. The difference is not in how they think adults or peers would react to their agency, but in how they themselves would act if their agency was suppressed. It is mainly with other children that they would show assertiveness and try to find a solution together, while they would be more emotional and powerless with adults.In summary, parents in the studies report higher similarity about parenting in some cases, for example concerning acceptance and warmth and hostility/rejection/neglect, but lower in others, such as the Swedish parents’ reports about attributions. It is also revealed that parents’ warmth is related to children’s agency,and that children’s perceptions of their agency depend on whether they interact with adults or other children. Apossible contribution of this thesis is to generate additional knowledge about parental cognitions and the implications that parenting can have on child agency, but also the shedding of light on the ways in which, depending on the context, children’s beliefs of their agency differ.
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| 5. |
- Boe, Ole, 1964
(author)
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Factors Affecting Integration of Outcomes of Concurrent Decisions
- 2000
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Boe, O., 2000. Factors affecting integration of outcomes of concurrent decisions.Department of Psychology. Göteborg University, Sweden.When outcomes of concurrent decisions are evaluated, they may either be integrated orsegregated. The present studies investigated when and how integration occurs. The aim ofStudy I was to investigate whether an integration principle (the loss-sensitivity principle)could be extended to account for the integration of outcomes of concurrent decisions. Thisprinciple has been shown to hold for integration of prior outcomes with future outcomes.It was then expected that only the loss outcomes of concurrent decisions would beintegrated. The two experiments conducted in Study I validated previous resultsconcerning integration of prior outcomes, but did not show that the principle generalizedto integration of the outcomes of concurrent decisions. Participants were in bothexperiments presented with fictitious non-context gambles. Study II was conducted withthe primary aim of investigating how casually relatedness, in the form of means-endrelations between consumer products, affects integration. Another aim was to investigatethe effect of uncertainty. The results showed that participants integrate means-end relatedalternatives as well as that uncertainty of outcomes of concurrent decisions counteractsintegration. The experiment conducted in Study III demonstrated an attentional bias in thatcausally related outcomes of concurrent decisions are not evaluated and therefore notchosen although more attractive than single outcomes. Finally, Study IV furtherinvestigated the attentional bias. Participants were asked to make fictitious choices ofstores located at different distances where they could purchase the same consumerproducts at different prices. Attitudes toward driving were independently assessed bymeans of a questionnaire. A supporting finding was that participants with a more positiveattitude toward driving chose more frequently to drive to stores within walking distancethan participants with a less positive attitude towards driving who more frequently choseto walk to stores at driving distances.Key words: Decision making, concurrent decisions, integration.Ole Boe, Department ofPsychology, Göteborg Universi&, Box 500, S-40530 Gothenburg, Sweden. Phone(voice): +46 31 773 4284, fkx): +46 31 773 4628. Email: Ole.Boe@psy.gu.seISSN 1 lOl-718X ISRN GU/PSYK/AVH-72-SEISBN 91-628-4231-5
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| 6. |
- Grip, Karin, 1973
(author)
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The Damage Done - Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence and their Mothers: Towards empirically based interventions in order to reduce negative health effects in children
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Abstract Title: The Damage Done, Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence and their Mothers - Towards empirically based interventions in order to reduce negative health effects in children. Author: Karin Grip Key words: Intimate partner violence (IPV), evaluation, clinical significance, children, mothers Distribution: University of Gothenburg, Dept.of psychology, Box 500, S-405 30 Gothenburg. ISBN: 978-91-628-8527-4 ISSN: 1101-718X ISRN: GU/PSYK/AVH--265-SE Electronic: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/30153 The data presented in this thesis comes from a national project evaluating the support available to children exposed to IPV and to their mothers, and from an earlier pilot project. Client-focused research is lacking in the evaluation of interventions for children exposed to IPV and their mothers. Hence, the primary aim of the three evaluation studies was to measure the clinical significance of the service provided. A related aim was to explore possible factors related to outcome effects. The majority of studies with children exposed to IPV have primarily focused on pathogenic reactions and children’s perceived quality of life and its possible associated factors were therefore another area of interest in the thesis. Paper I: Effects of a group-based intervention on psychological health and perceived parenting capacity among mothers exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV): A preliminary study. This study examined the self-rated mental health and perceived parenting capacity of mothers subjected to IPV after they attended 15-week group support program. At the group level of analysis mothers improved their mental health, but not their perceived parenting capacity following support. At the individual level of analysis (clinical significance), the treatment effects were more uncertain since many mothers with clinical levels of trauma and mental health symptoms were unchanged. Paper II: Maternal report on child outcome after a community-based program following intimate partner violence, evinced reduced behavioral problems in children after they and their children attended concurrent 15-week group support programs. The effects were not related to the amount of IPV exposure or the mothers’ changes in trauma symptoms following support. At the individual level of analysis the effects were more modest and point to the need to monitor treatment progress in order to detect those who are unchanged or even worsened during treatment. Paper III: Children exposed to IPV and the reported effects of psychosocial interventions. Using a repeated measures design post-traumatic stress, psychological and behavioral problems significantly decreased following intervention in children exposed to intimate partner violence, with use of traditional group analyses. Analyses using the Reliable Change Index, however, revealed that few children were improved or recovered. Positive changes in children’s behavioral problems were related to the mother’s improvement of their own mental health. Direct victimization by the perpetrator was not associated with treatment changes, but with higher symptom levels at study entry. Paper IV: Attachment, emotion regulation, and emotionality: health and quality of life in children exposed to intimate partner violence. Children evinced low attachment security to mothers and fathers, high levels of recurrent health complaints, and low quality of life. However, there was great variability among children. When controlled for socioeconomic status recurrent health complaints were associated with higher IPV exposure and negative emotionality, whereas quality of life was associated with attachment security, higher capacity for emotion regulation, and lower negative emotionality.
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| 7. |
- Veisson, Marika, 1949
(author)
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Disabled Children - The psychological status of parents and the social network of siblings
- 2000
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In the present dissertation I survey the results of research carried out in Estonia andSweden regarding the personality characteristics, self-esteem, emotional states anddepression symptoms in parents of disabled children. Social relations and self-esteem of siblings of disabled children are also investigated. The general aim of thecurrent study was to investigate the situation of the parents and siblings ofintellectually disabled children. The first aim was to measure personalitycharacteristics and self-esteem in parents of disabled children and parents of non-disabled children in Sweden and in Estonia. The second aim was to comparepersonality characteristics of parents of disabled children with Estonian norms forthe general population. The third aim was to tind out if there were any differencesbetween parents of disabled children and non-disabled children with reference fodepression symptoms and emotional states. The fourth aim of this study was to findout whether siblings of disabled children differ with respect to social relations, atschool and at home, personality and self-esteem compared to a control group.The methods used in the tirst study were the Adjective Check List (ACL) by Goughand Heilbrun (1983), Eysenck Personality Inventory; EPI (1987) and Self-EsteemInventories, Adult form (SEI) by Coopersmith (1990). In the second study I used ative-factor personality inventoq (NEO-PI). The third investigation was carried outin Estonia and focused on depressive symptoms and emotional states. BeckDepression Inventory (Beck et al., 1961) and emotional states scale by Leskinen(1994) were used. In the fourth investigation sixty siblings of disabled children and acontrol group of sixty siblings of normally developed children aged 12 to 14 werestudied. A questionnaire developed by Andersson (1997) was used.Comparisons of the two parent groups did not give any statistically significantdifferences with respect to EPI and SE1 in the Swedish-Estonian study (Lawenius, &Veisson, 1996). However, the results of the Estonian study showed that parents ofdisabled children were significantly more introvert than parents of non-disabledchildren. Comparisons of personality characteristics between the two groups gavethe following results: 1) mothers and fathers of disabled children have a signiticantlylower Extraversion and Openness level compared to the Estonian norms for womenand men; 2) in Neuroticism mothers of disabled children score higher than theEstonian women s norm, but fathers score higher only in some Neuroticism facets;3) concerning Agreeableness, neither mothers nor fathers differ from Estoniannorms; 4) in Conscientiousness fathers of disabled children score higher than thenorms for men, but the data of mothers do not differ. The results of the third studyshowed that parents, especially mothers of disabled children, had signiticantly morenegative emotional states and also significantly more depressive symptoms thanparents in the control group. Signiticant differences in depression symptoms betweenthe disabled and control parent groups were found in most cases. In the siblinginvestigation (fourth study) the results showed that there were a number ofsignificant differences bemeen the two groups.Key words: Parents, children, mental retardation, siblings of disabled children,personality traits, depression symptoms, emotional states, siblings social relations.Marika Veisson, Tallinn Pedagogical University, Narva Road 25, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia. Fax: 372 6409118, E-mail: veissonm@tpu.ee.ISSN 11O1-718X ISRN GU/PSYK/AVH--78--SE
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Allard, Karin, 1972
(author)
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Toward a Working Life. Solving the work-family dilemma
- 2007
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis aims at identifying factors important in employees’ strive toward combining work and family in a satisfying way. The thesis relies on four papers that focus on the use of parental leave, experiences of work-family conflict and experiences of work-personal life harmonization. Papers I, II and III are based on several surveys of fathers working at private companies in Sweden. Paper IV is based on data from a survey of employed mothers and fathers working for Swedish national governmental authorities. Paper I examines the effects of organizational culture on fathers’ use of paid parental leave benefits. Paper II aims at examining fathers’ experiences of work-family conflict and their perceived extent of family-supportive organizational culture. The association between a family-supportive organizational culture and work-family conflict was also explored. Paper III explores managerial fathers’ flexible working arrangements and experiences of work-family conflict. The aim of Paper IV was to examine parents’ self-reported health and their experiences of work-personal life harmonization. The results of the present investigations suggest that: a) Men’s use of parental leave is affected by the company’s commitment to caring values, level of father-friendliness and support for women’s equal employment opportunities, as well as fathers’ perceptions of support from top managers, and of work-group norms that reward task performance vs. long hours at work; b) Employed fathers who experience their work organization as family-supportive will likely be better able to combine work and family; c) Managerial fathers experience high levels of work-family conflict despite high access to flexible working arrangements; d) Gender egalitarianism in the family and flexible working arrangements are important factors in managerial fathers’ experience of work-family conflict; e) Work-personal life harmonization is positively related to parents’ self-reported health. This thesis contributes to the discussion concerning how the work-family dilemma should be solved. The results reveal employees’ needs for gender equality and informal flexible working arrangements, as well as to work in organizational cultures based on values supporting employees’ efforts to combine work and personal life in a harmonized way. The thesis concludes that work organizations have to assume their responsibility and make efforts that challenge traditional values. If they have the courage to do this, their employees are likely to have better self-reported health and better possibilities for a life that works.
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| 10. |
- Andersson Arntén, Ann-Christine, 1954
(author)
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Partnership Relation Quality modulates the effects of Work-stress on health
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The present studies included 884 participants in total, in five different studies referred to in the four articles. All five studies observed participants from different types of occupation in order to obtain a distribution and a diversified group of individuals. These occupations, that are representative, cover both private and public sectors and occupations that require longer as well as shorter educational backgrounds. Moreover, both ‘blue-collar’ and ‘white-collar’ personnel are included. The over-all conclusion is that partner relation quality and sexual life satisfaction may function as a buffer against the negative effects that work-related stress have upon health. Moreover, the results indicate that affective personality is associated with health variables such as depression, anxiety, general stress, energy, and psychological and somatic subjective stress reactions. Furthermore, the results indicate gender differences concerning affective personality, partnership relations quality, sexual life satisfaction and work-related stress that will eventually require deeper examination. Taken together, the consensus of these finding indicate the very real advantages present in partnership relation described by tenderness and understanding and sparked by a ‘nutmeg of passion’.
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