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The Relationship Between Different Dating Violence Profiles, Mental Health Problems And Mental Well-Being Among Canadian Youth, Kelsey E. Macdonald

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The current study examined the relationships among teen dating violence, mental health problems and mental well-being in 338 adolescents aged 14-21 (54% female). Secondary data were retrieved from an evaluation of a small groups healthy relationship program. Participants were grouped into four different dating violence profiles based on self-reported perpetration and victimization: not involved, perpetrators, victims and combined. Generalized Linear Models were used to examine the similarities and differences across types on depression, anxiety, mental well-being and binge drinking. Results suggested that the victims and combined profiles experienced greater mental health problems and decreased mental well-being compared to other profiles. …

Bullying Experiences Among First Nations Youth: Identifying Effects On Mental Health And Potential Protective Factors, Caely I. Dunlop

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Bullying represents a substantial issue facing Canadian youth, and is associated with negative outcomes across domains of function throughout the lifespan. Despite significant literature examining bullying involvement among adolescents in Canada, a paucity of research explores the bullying experiences of First Nations, Metis and Inuit (FNMI) youth. This is particularly concerning, as these youth may be at higher risk for bullying and its related consequences due to the cultural marginalization and systemic inequalities experienced by Indigenous peoples nationwide. The present study aims to address this gap in the literature, examining the bullying experiences of FNMI youth, the effects of these …

Should I Stand By Or Stand Up? Differences In Bullying Bystander Decision Making, Lyndsay Masters

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Over 80% of students have been a bystander to bullying at school. Bystanders who witness bullying may choose to “stand up” against the bully and support the victim personally, encourage intervention from peers or adults, join in with the bullying or “stand by” passively without involvement. These decisions may be influenced by a variety of personal, social and environmental factors. This study proposes that bullying bystanders differ across specific factors according to their decision to intervene or not intervene. Archived data from a culturally-representative sample of 482 middle-school students were used and analyzed from a person-oriented approach. Data represented the …

The Impact Of Prior Experience Employees’ Perceptions And Beliefs About Workplace Policies And Practices, Michael D. Saxton

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Domestic violence (DV) is associated with negative consequences for victims, children, families, and even national economies. More recently, research has demonstrated that DV also has a serious impact on workers and workplaces. Less is known about Canadians’ beliefs toward the impact DV has on workers or the extent to which individuals are able to identify co-workers’ experiences of DV. Using data from a pan-Canadian sample of 7,834 men and women, the current study examined: 1) how prior experiences with DV relates to beliefs toward the impact DV has on workers, 2) how gender and age relates to beliefs toward DV’s …

Teachers’ Mental Health: The Relevance Of Emotional Intelligence In Burnout And Quality Of Life, Rebecca Hsiang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Increasing emotional labour demands in the educational profession have negatively impacted teacher’s mental health resulting in high levels of stress, burnout, and subsequently leaving the profession altogether. The desire to improve the mental health well-being and retention rates in educators has given rise to research efforts examining individual factors that may assist in buffering the effects of an adverse occupational environment. Of particular research interest were the potential effects of self-perceived competence in emotional intelligence and individuals’ appraisal of their quality of life, on coping with occupational stressors. The current research was designed as a correlational descriptive field study to …

An Examination Of Risk Factors For Adolescent Engagement In Directly And Indirectly Self-Injurious Behaviours, Janell A. Klassen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Research identifying similar and dissimilar risk factors for directly and indirectly self-injurious behaviours among adolescents is scarce. Due to the wide range of physical and mental health difficulties that may result from self-injurious behaviours, understanding differential risks is important to support at-risk adolescents. To address this gap in the literature, 541 clinically referred children and youth (ages 11-18 years old) were assessed using the interRAI Child and Youth Mental Health Assessment (ChYMH) and Adolescent Supplement. Logistic regression analyses revealed that older adolescents were at an increased risk for both direct and indirect self-injury. Moreover, adolescents who experienced high levels of …

An Exploration Of Service Needs For Adults Who Live With Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Armush Salahadin

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Families who care for children with disabilities feel that supports are essential. However, little is known about the support needs of adults who live with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, and few specialized services exist to meet their needs. This study examined caregivers' perceived support needs for their children when they grow into adults. Sixteen caregivers of children aged 10 years or older with FASD participated in telephone interviews. Participants provided responses to the following two questions: “What do caregivers need to help young adults live as independently as possible?” and “What services would help young adults live as independently as …

Promoting Resiliency And Managing Behaviour: Evaluation Of An On-Line Foster Parent Training Program, Laura Bonnell

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this study was to examine the experience of foster parents using a four component online training module and to assess the effectiveness of each module as an effective and relevant educational resource. The study focused on the content of modules one and three which discussed, respectively, promoting resiliency in children and dealing with challenging behaviours. Participants included thirty three experienced foster parents from southern Ontario. Foster parents participated in semi-structured interviews as part of the evaluation. Analysis of the content of the interviews revealed eight themes reflecting both the content of the training modules and the participants’ …

Foster Parents Experiences With Conflict And Grief, Nadine L. Bilawski

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Abstract

The study explored foster parent experiences of completing an online training program about the challenges of foster parenting in order to gain a greater understanding of how these challenges affect foster parent mental health and retention, and how they could be aided though online training. Thirty foster parents completed the four modules of the training program, and then completed a telephone interview about their experience of completing the course, and their experience with fostering in general. This study focused on two of the modules, the ‘Four Tools for Conflict Resolution” and “Reactions to Grief and Loss”.

The results suggest …

Resiliency And Well-Being: Trajectories Of Change Over Time, Matthew Mclarnon

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Resiliency is often considered an attribute that can assist an individual in overcoming adversity. The predominant theme in the literature is that resiliency is positively related to achieving positive outcomes after a challenging experience. For example, stemming from Luthans and colleagues’ work on Psychological Capital (Luthans, Youssef, & Avolio, 2007), resiliency has been positively linked to psychological well-being, job satisfaction, and job performance. However, scant research is available on the processes behind resiliency and the mechanisms that promote well-being in the face of adversity. Therefore, the two studies comprising this dissertation aimed to address focal research questions around a) why …

Aggression Among Children And Youth: An Examination Of Service Allocation For Subtypes Of Aggression, Kari-Ann Clow

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

To date, there is a paucity of research examining service utilization in relation to aggression in youth, particularly when addressing the typologies of reactive and proactive aggression. This study aimed to determine how subtypes of aggression (reactive, proactive or comorbid) present for service allocation and cost. Participants consisted of 1283 youth receiving care in the province of Ontario, Canada. Bivariate and multivariate analyses using logistic regression were used. Results revealed significant associations between age and aggression type with service utilization. In particular, service complexity was most present for those with comorbid aggression. Those who were identified as reactive were significantly …

Factors Associated With Disclosure Of Domestic Violence At The Workplace, Laura Olszowy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Workplaces have been increasingly recognized as an important venue for supporting and building safety for domestic violence victims. It is important to understand factors that are associated with disclosure of domestic violence at the workplace. This study utilized data from a pan-Canadian online survey on domestic violence and the workplace as the basis for an analysis of sociodemographic variables and situational variables that may be associated with the likelihood that a victim discloses domestic violence at their workplace. Results revealed that over 40% of victims disclosed in the workplace, with varying disclosure rates according to sociodemographic characteristics and the experience …

An Evaluation Of The Determinants Of Job Satisfaction In Canadian Family Physicians, Jana L. Malhotra

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Physicians as a group appear to be satisfied with their work. However, there are some gaps in our current understanding of the determinants that impact the job satisfaction of Canadian family physicians. This thesis examined determinants of family physician job satisfaction using in-depth interviews with family physicians to achieve a broad perspective on their job satisfaction. This was complemented by a multivariate analysis that examined the professional and work-life balance satisfaction of physicians across this country. The findings from this research confirm the significance of a number of factors to the professional and work-life balance satisfaction of family physicians. Novel …

Teachers’ Help-Seeking Perceptions And Workplace Psychological Safety, Sheila M. Linseman

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This objective of this study was to investigate teacher mental health, attitudes toward psychological help-seeking, and perceptions of psychological safety within schools. Findings from this study of 600 Canadian educational professionals revealed a higher frequency and severity of distress than in the general population, warranting intervention. Attitudes toward psychological help-seeking were generally positive, though less favorable than comparable published studies. Overall, participants rated their workplaces as “somewhat” psychologically safe. However, there were low ratings of work-life balance and respectful treatment of mental illness by leadership. Implications and recommendations of these findings were discussed.

Smoking And Exercise: Mechanisms And Effects During Simulated And Genuine Quit Attempts, Stefanie De Jesus

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Cigarette smoking is a leading agent for premature morbidity and mortality among the global community. Most individuals surrender to tobacco use disorder due to the inability to cope with cravings and withdrawal symptoms. Exercise appears to provide acute relief. Currently, it is unclear how exercise attenuates these reductions. Furthermore, the available evidence has focused on acute outcomes besides smoking behaviour and is limited to simulated quit attempts. Three experimental studies were designed to address these outstanding issues. Not surprisingly, a bout of moderate intensity exercise was found in study 1 (chapter 2) to reduce cravings associated with a temporary period …

Mathematical Modeling Of Stress Management Via Decisional Control, Matthew J. Shanahan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Engaging the environment through reason, humankind evaluates information, compares it to a standard of desirability, and selects the best option available. Stress is theorized to arise from the perception of survival-related demands on an organism. Cognitive efforts are no mere intellectual exercise when ontologically backed by survival-relevant reward or punishment. This dissertation examines the stressful impact, and countervailing peaceful impact, of environmental demands on cognitive efforts and of successful cognitive efforts on a person’s day-to-day environment, through mathematical modeling of ‘decisional control’. A modeling approach to clinical considerations is introduced in the first paper, “Clinical Mathematical Psychology”. A general exposition …

The Use Of Exercise Self-Talk By Female Adolescents, Sadie Puddister

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Already below recommended levels, physical activity participation in female youth is known to decline throughout adolescence. Self-talk, a form of self-regulation has been demonstrated to influence behaviour in both sport and exercise settings. The purpose of the present research was to explore the exercise related self-talk of teen girls (aged 14-18) with the intent of uncovering reoccurring themes and attributes in the self-talk of both low frequency exercisers (LFEs) and high frequency exercisers (HFEs). Participants were teen girls (N=28, M_age=15.56, SD_age=1.47) recruited from A. B. Lucas Secondary School in London, Ontario. Physical activity …

Social Networking Sites And Personnel Selection: An Initial Validity Assessment, Travis J. Schneider

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The purpose of this dissertation was to add to the literature on the use of social networking sites (SNSs) for personnel selection. The first goal was to evaluate whether SNSs have the potential to be used as a valid source of information for selection. Specific SNS Indicator scales were created to test whether they have better validity evidence than the more traditionally-used Global SNS Rating. In a study of 141 undergraduate students at a large Canadian university, the Specific SNS Indicators demonstrated fairly weak evidence of interrater reliability, but some evidence of structural validity, and construct validity (convergent and discriminant). …

Exploring And Training Spatial Reasoning Via Eye Movements: Implications On Performance, Victoria A. Roach

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation sought to determine if eye movements could serve as an indicator of success in spatial reasoning, and if eye movements associated with successful completion could be applied to strategically improve spatial reasoning.

Using the line images of Shepard and Metzler, an electronic test of mental rotations ability (EMRT) was designed. Two versions of the test were created, allowing for both a timed (6 seconds per question) and untimed testing environment. Four experiments were designed and completed to relate mental rotation ability (MRA) scores from the EMRT, to patterns in chrononumeric and visual salience data. In each experiment, participants …

An Examination Of Daily Humour Styles And Relationship Satisfaction In Dating Couples, Sara Caird

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Humour can be both beneficial and harmful to romantic relationships. Research indicates that affiliative humour is associated with higher levels of relationship satisfaction, whereas aggressive humour is associated with lower levels of relationship satisfaction. However, past research is limited by its reliance on cross-sectional designs and general measures of humour use. Furthermore, little research has examined potential mediators that may account for the observed relationships between humour styles and relationship satisfaction. The current daily diary studies were the among the first to examine daily within-person associations between humour styles (specifically in the context of romantic relationship), relationship satisfaction, and positive …

Striving For Teaching Success: Enhancing Emotional Intelligence In Pre-Service Teachers, Ashley K. Vesely-Maillefer

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Research has confirmed job dissatisfaction, and high levels of occupational stress and burnout resulting from the emotional demands of teaching. This dissertation focuses on a potential solution to support teachers’ psychological wellbeing in their paramount role to society: training in emotional intelligence. Recent research has demonstrated not only the positive role of emotional intelligence (EI) in enhancing stress management, coping skills, psychological wellbeing, and resilience, but that EI can be developed through EI training. Empirical evidence has recently shown support for EI training specifically within the teaching population. However, there remains a dearth of applicable empirically-based training programs aimed at …

Effects Of Motion Pattern Characteristics On The Perception Of Visual Acceleration, Alexandra S. Mueller

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The ability to perceive visual motion is one that we use every day to perform goal-directed activities, such as intercepting or avoiding objects. As objects and observers rarely move at constant velocities, it is important to be able to detect changes in velocity. However, little attention has been paid to how we perceive visual acceleration in the literature. This thesis explored the influence of real world-relevant motion pattern characteristics on visual acceleration perception. Observers rarely see object motion with an unlimited field of view, and therefore we first examined how physically constraining the horizontal distance over which a stimulus can …

Factors Influencing Continuity Of Attachment Quality In Early Childhood, Ya F. Xue

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Although the study of attachment continuity has flourished over the last several decades, gaps remain in the literature. These include a dearth of studies that have examined: 1) how children differ in their patterns of continuity in attachment quality; 2) factors that underlie these patterns; and 3) the roles that infant characteristics, such as children’s levels of susceptibility to parenting influences, have in shaping attachment stability. Correspondingly, this dissertation aimed to identify children’s patterns of continuity in attachment quality across early childhood, and to elucidate the processes that influence the development of these different patterns. Using Latent Class Analysis (LCA), …

The Sixties Scoop Among Aboriginal Veterans: A Critical Narrative Study, Munira Abdulwasi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study explored the experience of Aboriginal Veterans adopted and/or fostered during the Sixties Scoop using critical narrative inquiry. The objectives were to: 1) understand the lived experience of Aboriginal veterans adopted and/or fostered during the Sixties Scoop, 2) explore any health needs expressed by Aboriginal veterans adopted and/or fostered during the Sixties Scoop, and 3) provide recommendations for the implementation of health services and programs to assist this group of Aboriginal veterans with their health needs. Eight individual interviews were conducted with participants in Kitchener-Waterloo, London, Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. All interviews were audio-taped, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using …

Neural And Behavioural Responses To Rewards And Losses In Early Development: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study, Niki Hosseini-Kamkar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the neural and behavioural correlates of learning from rewards and losses in children. Greater blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) responses in the ventral striatum (VS) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) were found when participants received rewards compared to when they missed out on an opportunity to receive rewards. In contrast, greater BOLD responses in the anterior insula (AI) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were found when participants received losses compared to when they avoided losing. The BOLD response to rewards in the VS and VMPFC correlated positively with the tendency to …

The Impact Of The Operational Environment On The Commitment Profiles Of Canadian Armed Forces Soldiers, Christina L. Eastwood

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The aim of this study was to use latent profile analysis to determine whether commitment profiles found in previous studies could be replicated in a deployed Canadian military sample. This study examined antecedents contributing to the development of the profiles, outcomes associated with profile membership and stability of profiles solutions. A total of 4254 (pre-deployment) and 2365 (post-deployment) military personnel completed surveys related to affective (AC), normative (NC) and continuance (CC) organizational commitment, unit climate, operational preparedness, psychological distress, and intention to stay. Four commitment profiles (e.g., high AC- dominant, low CC/NC-dominant, Moderately and Weakly committed) emerged across both samples. …

Prosody: An Important Cue To Word Learning, Monica Dasilva

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Infants rely on cues from their environment during language acquisition. Prosodic features of words are one such cue and involve changes in stress and rhythmic patterns within speech. Studies have examined prosody’s influence on word segmentation and have found it to be a useful cue for detecting word boundaries (Johnson & Seidl, 2009). What is less understood is how prosody helps infants form associations between novel labels and their referents during word learning. The present thesis investigated the influence of prosodic cues on word learning. The looking times were recorded of 13 infants (19-25 months) exposed to object-label pairings that …

The Role Of Androgens In Life History Theories Of Attachment, Janani S. Sankar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Life history theories (LHTs) of attachment address how attachments to caregivers in infancy/childhood and to romantic partners in adulthood are used to negotiate mating and reproductive choices. Greater insecure-avoidant attachment has been suggested to be associated with the adoption of a low-investment, short-term reproductive strategy. The role of sex hormones, including the androgen testosterone (T), in the development of attachment-related reproductive strategies has been speculated in some LHTs. This research tested an integrated-LHT model of early environment, attachment, and reproductive strategies in men, using structural equation modeling. Androgen-related effects were hypothesized to occur prenatally and/or in adulthood, consistent with various …

"She Will Drive The ____": Verb-Based Prediction In Individuals With Parkinson Disease, Kelsey G. Santerre

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Cognitive changes in Parkinson disease (PD) affect language processing, including sentence comprehension impairments, difficulties with processing verbs, and discourse impairments. In many theories of language comprehension, efficient language processing depends on successful implicit prediction of upcoming concepts and grammatical structures. Such prediction processes, in part, may be regulated by the neural dopaminergic system, which is markedly impaired in PD. In non-language tasks, persons with PD (PwPD) are impaired in prediction, sequencing, and probabilistic learning. However, the contributions of these dopaminergic-mediated prediction and probabilistic learning processes to language processing impairments in PD remain unexplored. We tested whether PwPD are impaired in …

Congruent Familiar Size Relationships Decrease Size Contrast Illusion, Margarita Maltseva

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

We examined the effect of familiar size of objects on size perception. Participants matched the size of a target image to the perceived size of a central image in the Ebbinghaus illusion. The central image was identical throughout all trials (a 25-mm-wide dog), but the annuli varied in physical size (12 mm vs. 37 mm), semantic category (animate vs. inanimate), and familiar real-world size (cat vs. horse for the animate category; shoe vs. car for the inanimate category). Importantly, the familiar size relationship between the center and the annuli was either congruent (e.g., dog surrounded by small shoes or large …