| 1. |
- Jukkala, Tanya, 1981-
(författare)
-
Suicide in Russia : A macro-sociological study
- 2013
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This work constitutes a macro-sociological study of suicide. The empirical focus is on suicide mortality in Russia, which is among the highest in the world and has, moreover, developed in a dramatic manner over the second half of the 20th century. Suicide mortality in contemporary Russia is here placed within the context of development over a longer time period through empirical studies on 1) the general and sex- and age-specific developments in suicide over the period 1870–2007, 2) underlying dynamics of Russian suicide mortality 1956–2005 pertaining to differences between age groups, time periods, and particular generations and 3) the continuity in the aggregate-level relationship between heavy alcohol consumption and suicide mortality from late Tsarist period to post-World War II Russia. In addition, a fourth study explores an alternative to Émile Durkheim’s dominating macro-sociological perspective on suicide by making use of Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social systems. With the help of Luhmann’s macro-sociological perspective it is possible to consider suicide and its causes also in terms of processes at the individual level (i.e. at the level of psychic systems) in a manner that contrasts with the ‘holistic’ perspective of Durkheim. The results of the empirical studies show that Russian suicide mortality, despite its exceptionally high level and dramatic changes in the contemporary period, shares many similarities with the patterns seen in Western countries when examined over a longer time period. Societal modernization in particular seems to have contributed to the increased rate of suicide in Russia in a manner similar to what happened earlier in Western Europe. In addition, the positive relationship between heavy alcohol consumption and suicide mortality proved to be remarkably stable across the past one and a half centuries. These results were interpreted using the Luhmannian perspective on suicide developed in this work.
|
|
| 2. |
- Jurkane-Hobein, Iveta, 1984-
(författare)
-
I Imagine You Here Now : Relationship Maintenance Strategies in Long-Distance Intimate Relationships
- 2015
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Today, individuals can relatively easily meet and communicate with each other over great distances due to increased mobility and advances in communication technology. This also allows intimate relationships to be maintained over large geographical distances. Despite these developments, long-distance relationships (LDRs), i.e. intimate relationships maintained over geographical distance, remain understudied. The present thesis aims to fill this knowledge gap and investigates how intimate partners who live so far away from each other that they cannot meet every day make their relationship ongoing beyond face-to-face interaction.Theoretically, this study departs from a symbolic interactionist viewpoint that invites us to study phenomena from the actor’s perspective. Conceptually, the thesis builds on the recent development in sociology of intimate lives that sees intimacy as a relational quality that has to be worked on to be sustained, and that focuses on the practices that make a relationship a relationship. Empirically, the thesis is based upon 19 in-depth interviews with individuals from Latvia with long-distance relationship experience.The thesis consists of four articles. Article I studies the context in which LDRs in Latvia are maintained, focusing on the normative constraints that complicate LDR maintenance. Article II analyses how intimacy is practiced over geographical distance. Article III examines how long-distance partners manage the experience of the time they are together and the time they are geographically apart. Article IV explores the aspect of idealization in LDRs. Overall, the thesis argues for the critical role of imagination in relationship maintenance. The relationship maintenance strategies identified within the articles are imagination-based mediated communication (creating sensual/embodied intimacy, emotional intimacy, daily intimacy and imagined individual intimacy); time-work strategies that enable long-distance partners to deal with the spatiotemporal borders of the time together and the time apart; and creating bi-directional idealization. The thesis is also one of the few works in the field of intimate lives in Eastern Europe and analyses the normative complications that long-distance partners face in their relationship maintenance in Latvia.
|
|
| 3. |
- Achermann, Sheila
(författare)
-
Prediction in Typical and Atypical Development
- 2020
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Forming predictions about what is going to happen next is a crucial ability that develops early in life. Theory and some empirical evidence suggest that predictive abilities may be impaired in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The overarching aim of this thesis is to investigate early measures of prediction in relation to concurrent and later outcomes in typical and atypical development, with a particular focus on ASD and related behavioral problems.In Study I, we used motion capture technology to examine prospective motor control and its relationship to executive functions in typically developing 18-month-olds. Our findings showed that motor control is associated with executive functioning in infancy.Study II investigated motor control in infants at low and elevated likelihood for ASD and examined how these measures relate to later development. We found group differences as well as similarities in motor control in 10-months-olds with and without a familial history of ASD. Early motor measures were related to general developmental level, but not ASD symptomatology in toddlerhood.Using eye tracking, Study III examined how infants with later ASD and neurotypical infants form predictions about visual object motion. Our findings indicated that infants with later ASD were able to form predictions about object motion and adapt to simple changes in motion patterns, and that their performance did not differ from the performance of neurotypical infants.In Study IV, we surveyed parents about their experiences during participation in an infant sibling study of ASD as a first step to understanding the benefits and risks associated with this type of research. Parents were generally positive about their experiences both from their own perspective as well as, the child’s perspective.This thesis illustrates the potential of using advanced technology, such as motion tracking and eye tracking, to study and compare prediction in typical and atypical development. It points to the important role of prediction and motor control for child development, but fails to find a specific link to ASD.
|
|
| 4. |
- Adolfsson, Päivi
(författare)
-
Food Related Activities and Food Intake in Everyday Life among People with Intellectual Disabilities
- 2010
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis was to study food, eating and meals in the everyday life of 32 women and men with intellectual disabilities (IDs) who require varying levels of supervision. They lived in supported living (rather independently) or group homes in community-based home-like settings. Observations during 3 days, assisted food records and anthropometric measurements were used to collect data. Dietary intake on the group level showed a varied diet and sufficient intake of all micronutrients, but a low dietary fibre intake. On the individual level, inadequate intake of micronutrients was observed, with many participants being obese, overweight or underweight. Everyday support with food, eating and meals was seen in four praxis: foodwork by oneself for oneself, foodwork in co-operation, foodwork disciplined by staff and foodwork by staff. These four practices resulted in large variations in dietary intake. The first praxis entailed more convenience food and less vitamins, the second and third, more fresh ingredients and high energy intake, and the fourth, low energy intake but rather high intake of vitamins. Sharing of meals was least common in supported living and more common in group homes and daily activity centres. The participants’ social eating spheres consisted mostly of other people with ID and staff members, and seldom other people. Whereas some preferred solitary eating, many participants considered eating together as important, but required staff support in establishing commensality. However, disturbing behaviour, as determined by the staff, could result in solitary eating. In conclusion, supporting the group rather than the individual sometimes created less favourable dietary, eating and meal outcomes. This problem needs to be addressed in order to establish food security at the individual level. In addition, actions should be taken to ensure that people with intellectual disabilities receive sufficient support to meet their individual needs and aspirations.
|
|
| 5. |
- af Wåhlberg, Anders, 1965-
(författare)
-
The Prediction of Traffic Accident Involvement from Driving Behavior
- 2006
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the studies was to predict individual traffic accident involvement by the quantification of driving style in terms of speed changes, using bus drivers as subjects. An accident database was constructed from the archives of the bus company whose drivers were used as subjects. The dependent variable was also discussed regarding whether responsibility for crashes should be included, and what time period to use for optimal prediction. A new theory was constructed about how accidents are caused by driver behavior, more specifically the control movements of the driver, i.e. all actions taken which influence the relative motion of the vehicle in a level plane when v>0. This theory states that all traffic safety related behavior can be measured as celerations (change of speed of the vehicle in any direction of a level plane) and summed. This theoretical total sum is a measure of a person's liability to cause accidents over the same time period within a homogenous traffic environment and a similarly homogenous driving population. Empirically, the theory predicts a positive correlation between mean driver celeration behavior and accident record. The theory was tested in three empirical studies. The first tested equipment and methods, the second studied the question whether driver celeration behavior is stable over time. Celeration behavior turned out to be rather variable between days, and repeated measurements were therefore needed to stabilize the measure. In the third study, a much larger amount of data brought out correlations of sizes sufficient to lend some credibility to the theory. However, the predictive power did not extend beyond two years of time. The reported results would seem to imply that the celeration variable can predict accident involvement (at least for bus drivers), and is practical to use, as it is easily and objectively measured and semi-stable over time.
|
|
| 6. |
- Ahlén, Anton
(författare)
-
Managing migration in modern welfare states : Essays on the development, causes, and effects of policies regulating family immigration
- 2022
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Being the main channel of migration into advanced industrial democracies, family migration has been the subject of increasing contestation in political debate. While previous studies have noted that many OECD countries have introduced more restrictive policies on family immigration during the last few decades, we still know little about how cross-country policy configurations in this area have evolved and varied over time, or about how policies affect inflows and why they differ between countries. This dissertation addresses these research gaps by presenting a set of integrated analyses of variations and changes in family-immigration policies across periods and countries.Essay I presents a typology for analysing policy configurations and changes therein. It finds that admission policies on average became more restrictive over time, although there were some notable exceptions. Uncovering patterns of congruence and deviation in a more detailed way than previous research has done, this paper qualifies previous expectations about convergence, a ‘race to the bottom’, and a ‘civic turn’ in family-immigration policies. Essay II develops and tests different theories of what causes policy changes. It finds that the restrictive effects of certain risk factors on family-immigration policies, such as growing immigration and worsening economic distress, have been conditioned by the type of welfare regime. Essay III investigates whether and how much family-immigration policies have influenced patterns of family immigration in European states. While restrictive admission policies have led to falling overall levels of family immigration, the analysis reveals stratifying implications, whereby the effect have been greater where the sponsor is a non-EU citizen than where he/she is an EU citizen.With its three-stage approach, this thesis contributes to the study of comparative migration policies. It presents new findings on the interplay between welfare states and migration policies, on the methods with which states regulate international migration, and on the differential impact of different policies on the size and composition of migrant inflows. It also adds insights on increasingly conditional forms of migration management in modern welfare states.
|
|
| 7. |
- Ahlskog, Rafael, 1987-
(författare)
-
Essays on the collective action dilemma of vaccination
- 2017
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Vaccines famously possess positive externalities that make them susceptible to the collective action dilemma: when I get vaccinated, I protect not only myself, but also those who I might otherwise have infected. Thus, some people will have an incentive to free ride on the immunity of others. In a population of rational agents, the critical level of vaccination uptake required for herd immunity will therefore be difficult to attain in the long run, which poses difficulties for disease eradication.In this doctoral dissertation, I explore different implications of the collective action dilemma of vaccination, and different ways of ameliorating it. First: given that coercion or force could solve the dilemma, and democracies may be less likely to engage in policies that violate the physical integrity of citizens, democracies may also be at a disadvantage compared to non-democracies when securing herd immunity. In essay I, I show that this is, empirically, indeed the case. Barring the use of extensive coercion therefore necessitates other solutions.In essay II, I highlight the exception to individual rationality found in other-regarding motivations such as altruism. Our moral psychology has likely evolved to take other's welfare into account, but the extent of our prosocial motivations vary: a wider form of altruism that encompasses not just family or friends, but strangers, is likely to give way to a more narrow form when humans pair-bond and have children. This dynamic is shown to apply to the sentiments underlying vaccination behavior as well: appeals to the welfare of society of getting vaccinated have positive effects on vaccination propensity, but this effect disappears in people with families and children. On this demographic, appeals to the welfare of close loved ones instead appears to have large effects.In essay III, I investigate whether the prosocial motivations underlying vaccination behavior are liable to be affected by motivation crowding - that is, whether they are crowded out when introducing economic incentives to get vaccinated. I find that on average, economic incentives do not have adverse effects, but for a small minority of highly prosocially motivated people, they might.
|
|
| 8. |
- Akrami, Nazar, 1967-
(författare)
-
Prejudice: The Interplay of Personality, Cognition, and Social Psychology
- 2005
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Three main theoretical approaches to the study of the causation of prejudice can be distinguished within psychological research. The cognitive approach suggests that prejudice is a function of cognitive processes where stereotypic information about social groups, stored in memory, is automatically activated and affects people’s judgements and behavior toward members of the target group. The personality approach suggests that prejudice is a function of people’s personality characteristics. Finally, the social psychological approach emphasizes people’s group membership and group identification as the as major source of causation.Previous research has almost entirely focused on only one approach of causation at a time. The focus has also shifted periodically – with attention paid to one approach at each period of time. The present thesis is an attempt to integrate these approaches and suggests an integrative model where the relative contribution of each approach could be assessed. The underlying assumption is that all three approaches are meaningful and that prejudice is a complex phenomenon that is best explained by taking into account all approaches jointly.Examining the cognitive approach, Paper I revealed that people are knowledgeable of the cultural stereotypes and that stereotypic information is automatically activated and affects people’s judgments. Paper II (and Paper III) supported the personality approach and revealed that prejudice is highly related to primary personality characteristics and, in line with a central idea in this approach, different types of prejudice (ethnic prejudice, sexism, homophobia, and prejudice toward disabled people) are highly correlated. The results of Paper III revealed the importance of group membership and group identification, supporting the social psychology approach.The findings are discussed in relation to previous research and the necessity to integrate various approaches and disciplines to explain psychological phenomena in general and prejudice in particular. Also, implications of the findings for prejudice prevention are discussed.
|
|
| 9. |
- Akrawi, Narin Khalida
(författare)
-
Bridging the Gap between Learning and Teaching by Using Knowledge-Based Systems
- 2011
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of this thesis was to enhance the learning and teaching in educational organizations by using knowledge-based systems. In the last few decades, considerable interest has been exhibited in applying information and communication technologies in educational settings in an attempt to enhance the process of learning and teaching. Surprisingly, however, a modest amount of attention has been directed towards supporting active learning and to accommodating different learning styles. Different knowledge and reasoning strategies have been studied to determine, whether, and how they could satisfy users’ learning styles. Moreover, on the basis of the pedagogical aspects identified, a knowledge-based system was designed to help students to learn about the subject actively and in the way they prefer. Through this system, students are able to choose different representation forms of the domain knowledge and can evaluate their understanding through the differentiated feedback given by the system. In conjunction with the development of new information and communication technologies, the demands on teachers’ didactical skills are also increasing. Adopting a student-centered approach can require teachers to reevaluate their teaching strategies and their leadership style because teacher takes on a different role to that of traditional teaching. Two knowledge-based systems have been designed to provide teachers with differentiated feedback enabling them to reflect on their current teaching strategies and leadership style in an active and individualized way. The result of the research is the design of knowledge-based systems to bridge the gap between learning and teaching using knowledge-based systems. A conceptual map united all the important pedagogical aspects related to student-centered learning in making it possible to visualize these aspects and the relation between them. This conceptual map makes a meaningful contribution to designer’s understanding of the way the systems support students’ learning and, therefore, can be used as a guide when designing knowledge-based systems for learning. Students and teachers can also benefit from it by obtaining a common understanding of learning and some of its underlying concepts. This kind of awareness can bridge the gap between teaching and learning, and also advance educational organizations in the move towards the adoption of student-centered learning environments.
|
|
| 10. |
- Al-Adili, Lina
(författare)
-
The evaluation process of nutrition interventions for patients at risk of malnutrition : From a person-centred perspective
- 2023
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is aimed at exploring the process of evaluating nutrition interventions for patients at risk of malnutrition from a person-centred perspective. An explorative cross-sectional study was conducted based on data from the International Nutrition Care Process and Terminology Implementation Survey (INIS). Associations between the reported documentation of goals and outcomes and the reported implementation of the nutrition care process and its terminology, demographic factors, and factors associated with the workplace were explored. Responses were received from 347 Scandinavian dietitians. Strong associations were found between the implementation of nutrition monitoring and evaluation terminology and the documentation of goals and outcomes. Standardisation may support the documentation of goals and outcomes, and improve nutrition monitoring and evaluation. Focus group interviews were held with Swedish dietitians working in hospital and primary healthcare settings. The dietitians’ reflections on the process of nutrition monitoring and evaluation (Paper II) and the goal-setting process (Paper III) with patients at risk of malnutrition in nutrition intervention were explored. A lack of routine and structure in the process of evaluation and a lack of shared decision-making (SDM) in goal-setting was found. Dietitians described qualitative subjective outcomes as being most important to patients but that these are only implied in the nutrition intervention. They highlighted discrepancies between their clinically oriented goals and the patients’ own goals. The clarification of patients’ perspectives in the evaluation process is necessary to promote person-centredness, improve communication, and support the evidence-informed practice of nutrition intervention.An interview study with patients at risk of malnutrition was conducted. Patients’ experiences, perspectives and needs concerning goals in nutrition intervention were explored. Patients rarely reflected on goals in nutrition interventions, instead they described striving towards increased strength and energy. Goal-setting is part of the dietitian’s structured way of working, while the patient’s life-world is complex and unstructured. Elucidating patients’ goals may counteract the discrepancies between the dietitians’ clinically oriented goals and patients’ perspectives.In summary, this thesis highlights the need for tools and strategies for the improvement of the evaluation process in nutrition intervention. The person-centred practice of the evaluation process is described in this thesis as key to improving this process. This can be achieved through exploring what matters to patients in terms of perspectives, goals, and priorities, creating partnerships through involving patients in goal-setting and communicating feedback, and documenting and evaluating outcomes that are meaningful to patients.
|
|
