Psychology Commons^™

Planning And Developing School-Based Community Supports For Refugee Children, Peggy (Margaret) Nickels

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Despite the growing numbers of refugee families settling in Canada, there is little or no documentation on how to support the healing process of refugee children. The purpose of this study was to learn about planning and developing school-based community supports for these children by examining and documenting several school-based community initiatives in Kitchener-Waterloo. Data collected included three focus group interviews, seven key informant interviews, a document review, and a research process journal. Findings were organized around motivation, guiding values and principles, resources, processes, actions, partnerships, dynamics, and sustainability. Shared values and principles emerged as the passion and the glue …

Community Gardeners: Planting The Seeds Of A Sustainable Future, Janet Ann O'Reilly

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

My personal and academic journey with community gardening began in the spring of 1997, when I joined my first community garden and became involved in a local community group called the Community Gardening Network of Waterloo Region. It was during a graduate course that I first heard about community gardens and other community food projects. I had not been aware of the significant participation of citizens, like me, in such projects. In the classroom, we had discussed community food projects, like community gardens, as alternative settings in the context of broader social change considerations. Due in part to this exposure …

Participatory Action Research Learning Involving Women Who Have Developmental Challenges, Barbara Diane Weaver Zupko

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Participatory Action Research Learning (PARL) is both a logical and effective tool for addressing the issue of violence against women who have developmental challenges. Lack of power and lack of credibility have been identified as two important risk factors that make women with challenges more vulnerable to violence. Research that aims to address issues of violence and abuse therefore must also address issues of power and credibility. In this document I describe how a group of stakeholders, including four women who have developmental challenges, worked together on a project to create resources for prevention of, and education about, violence against …

Ondansetron Interferes With The Establishment And Expression Of Lithium-Induced Conditioned Rejection Reactions, Cheryl Lynn Limebeer

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Conditioned rejection reactions displayed in the taste reactivity test may reflect conditioned nausea in rats because they are exclusively produced by emetic agents. The present experiments demonstrated that pretreatment with the anti-nausea agent, ondansetron, interfered with the establishment of conditioned rejection reactions (Experiment 1) and interfered with the expression of previously established conditioned rejection reactions (Experiment 2). Ondansetron selectively interfered with conditioned nausea as reflected by conditioned rejection reactions because it did not modify the unconditioned rejection reactions elicited by unpalatable quinine solution (Experiment 2). Although ondansetron blocked the expression of the selective taste reactivity reaction of conditioned rejection, it …

An Examination Of The Creation And Impact Of A Supported Housing Program For Psychiatric Consumer/Survivors, Shannon Parkinson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Supported housing has existed for approximately a decade, but knowledge on the implementation of the approach and the impacts on consumer/survivors is scarce. The current qualitative study described a supported housing program in Winnipeg, Manitoba and determined a fit with the definition of supported housing developed by Parkinson, Nelson, and Horgan (1999). Information was presented regarding the implementation process of this program, including review of the program operations, implementation of the shift, remedying difficulties, and maintaining practice within the values of the community integration/empowerment paradigm As well, three individuals shared personal stories of their involvement in the program and the …

Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me: The Relationship Between Gay Men Living With Hiv And Their Physicians (Immune Deficiency), Adele Parkinson-Heyes

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In this thesis I examine the doctor-client relationship from the perspective of gay men living with HIV. I asked six gay men living with HIV the following open-ended question “Could you tell me about the relationship you have with your physician?” during in-depth interviews. I used narrative analysis to interpret the verbatim transcriptions of each interview. In the findings section I present each man’s story in his own words supplemented with my interpretative comments. The findings revealed that gay men living with HIV had both positive and negative experiences in their relationships with physicians. I identified two contrasting themes: connection …

Single Mothers, Income, And Health: An Analysis Of Risk And Protective Factors, Melanie Quickfall

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study examined the relationships between single mothers, income and health, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The purpose of the study was to determine the effects that certain risk factors (low income, stress, public housing, financial stress, education, home satisfaction, single parenting) and protective factors (neighbourhood satisfaction, social support, program participation, community integration) had on both the physical and mental health of single mothers. In the quantitative component, statistical analyses (a series of two-way mixed ANOVA’s and linear regressions) were conducted on interview data from 276 mothers who were involved in the Better Beginnings, Better Futures project in Highfield-Etobicoke, …

Perceiving And Feeling Personal Discrimination: Motivation Or Inhibition For Collective Action?, Mindi D. Foster, Kimberley Matheson

Psychology Faculty Publications

Relative deprivation and group consciousness theories differ in their predictions of how personal discrimination and personal discontent will be related to taking collective action. According to relative deprivation theory, assessments of personal status should be unrelated to taking collective action.

In contrast, group consciousness theories suggest that while perceiving personal discrimination is necessary for collective action to occur, feelings of personal discontent may inhibit it. Female students completed questionnaires assessing their perceptions of, and affective responses to personal discrimination, as well as their participation in collective actions. A hierarchical regression analysis found that personal discrimination and discontent interacted such that …

Changes In Environmental Context And The Mirror Effect In Recognition Memory, Craig Andrew Livermore

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The present study examined the effect of environmental context on the mirror effect in recognition memory. In seven experiments, participants studied either high (HF) and low-frequency (LF) or noun and nonnoun pairs of words followed in a old/new item recognition test by which proportion correct, response time, and confidence judgments were measured. Single item or word pair targets and distractors were presented in same- or different-context conditions. Context was defined as the unique combination of foreground and background colour and position on a computer screen for two experiments while position was removed as a context variable for five experiments due …

The Courage To Change: Salvadoran Stories Of Personal And Social Transformation (El Salvador), Audrey Celeste Rosa

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Through a humanist, socialist, and feminist lens this study is an exploration of the process of social change. Using a grounded-theory and narrative approach, and a mix of qualitative methods (field study, in-depth and informal interviews, and participant observation), eleven in-depth interviews were generated from the sociocultural and political context of El Salvador: a country which has chosen a revolutionary path to social change. The present study focuses on the personal and social transformation processes of eight exemplary individuals, six of whom the author has known through an extensive history of solidarity work and social action. The resulting narratives are …

Effects Of Cholinergic And Dopaminergic Drugs On Number And Time Processing In Rats, Romina Coppa

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study describes the effects of cholinergic and dopaminergic drugs on time and number processing by rats. Rats were trained to discriminate discrete sound sequences. On number trials, the duration of the sound sequence was a constant 4 seconds and the number of sounds was 2 or 8. On time trials, the number of sounds was held constant at 4, and the duration of the sound sequence was either 2 or 8 seconds. Psychophysical functions for number and time were obtained by presenting unreinforced sequences of intermediate number and duration. Accuracy of performance was greater with temporal signals than with …

Assessing The Separate Contributions Of Recollection And Familiarity For The Mirror Effect: A Process Dissociation Approach, Elvin Dobani

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In four separate experiments, we employed Jacoby's (1991) process dissociation procedure (PDP) to evaluate the extent to which the mirror effect in recognition memory can be accounted for by recollection and In the first experiment, participants listened to two study lists of words, one in a female voice and the other in a male voice. Their memory for one set of words was gauged via an inclusion test, while their recognition of the other set was gauged via an exclusion test As predicted, a significant mirror effect was observed for both the inclusion and exclusion conditions, and the PDP recollection …

Making Connections: Greek And Sri Lankan Tamil Perceptions Of Mental Health, Ways Of Coping, And Help-Seeking, Margaret Douglin

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis explores the perceptions of mental health, mental health problems, depression, and the coping and help-seeking behaviour of Greeks and Sri Lankan Tamils in Toronto. The study was undertaken in collaboration with a community mental health agency located in the Toronto community council area of East York. The information from this study will be used to help the agency, "Alternatives," develop a strategy for reaching more members of diverse ethnic communities. In this study data were collected through interviews with Greek and Tamil service-providers and focus groups with lay community members using a qualitative, culturally sensitive, and participatory action …

A Voice For Our Future: High-Risk Adolescents' Perceptions And Experiences About Help And Healing Interventions, Cameron Dale Norman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This critical ethnography examines the perceptions of adolescents at-risk with respect to their experiences of help, both formal and informal. Ten (10) adolescents who had been involved with the Bridges psychoeducational program, an interagency partnership intervention for high-risk youth in the Waterloo region, were interviewed about their experience with the programs and people who attempt to support them. Placing great importance on using the adolescent’s words to speak to their own needs and experiences, this study's main findings suggest that adolescents are not given voice by many helpers; most help agents fail to truly help these adolescents in a meaningful …

Evaluating Elaborative Interrogation's Efficacy With Expository Text, Rhonda Leah Boudreau

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study investigated whether elaborative interrogation would be an effective learning strategy with lengthy expository text. One hundred undergraduates (65 females and 35 males) comprised the study’s 5 groups: a) naturalistic elaborative interrogation, b) self-study, c) repetition, d) elaborative interrogation with pre-underlined main ideas; and, e) elaborative interrogation with pre-underlined main ideas plus structured ‘why’ questions. The expectation was that elaborative interrogation would prove to be a potent learning strategy relative to lower-order strategies (e.g., repetition); and that, when using expository text, students may require some supports to maximize the strategy’s gains. All students read an eight page passage on …

Gender Differences And Similarities In Moral Orientations: A Narrative Approach To Moral Socialization Within The Family, Susan M. Hilbers

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Some research suggests that adults as parents, in particular, may orient their moral reasoning and socialization of children differentially by gender (Lollis, Ross, & Leroux, 1996; Pratt, Amold, & Hilbers, 1998; Pratt, Golding, Hunter, & Sampson, 1988). The present study investigates the extent to which mothers and fathers differ in their moral orientations with respect to socializing young children, specifically in their use of a narrative or storytelling mode. The present study also examines the extent to which gender of the child influences the orientation of parents’ socialization narratives told to and about their young children. Thirty married couples, whose …

The Relations Of Parenting Characteristics And Parents' Levels Of Care Reasoning To Preschoolers' Prosocial Reasoning, Stacey Tzavelas

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Past research examining parenting variables in relation to the development of prosocial reasoning in children has been minimal. Here, 27 two-parent families with a first-born four-and-one-half-year-old child were studied. Children’s prosocial reasoning was measured using Eisenberg’s Prosocial Reasoning Task. Aspects of a model of socialization proposed by Darling and Steinberg (1991) which includes parenting values, styles and practices were used here to generate predictions regarding preschoolers’ socialization. Parents’ authoritativeness of style was measured based on Baumrind’s paradigm (1971). Also measured were the values parents chose as being important for their children, and parents’ moral orientation (care versus justice) in the …

Attentional, Instructional, And Depth Effects On Retrieval Estimates, Jennifer Vonk

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Much evidence has been presented in support of the view that deeper levels of processing (DOP) during encoding lead to substantial increases in explicit memory performance. The effects of DOP on implicit memory performance have been much more controversial. We attempted to find evidence to support the idea that deeper processing may influence automatic retrieval processes and that contradictory findings from the process dissociation procedure (PDP) may have resulted from the underestimation of automatic retrieval. This underestimation would result when automatic (A) and conscious retrieval (C) processes are positively correlated rather than independent as the PDP model suggests. We found …

Supporting Community Innovators: An Evaluation Of The Sexual Offender Program Of Community Justice Initiatives, Kitchener, Ontario, Stephanie Campbell

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis is an utilization-focussed evaluation of the Sexual Offender Program of Community Justice Initiatives (CJI) of Kitchener, ON. The evaluation was guided by a steering committee consisting of program stakeholders. The main goals of the study were to examine whether the program offers services which correspond to the program’s three newly stated outcome objectives and to gain program participants’ and volunteers’ suggestions to improve the program services. The study is also aimed to examine how well participants achieved the three program objectives. Information for the evaluation was gained through focus group interviews with program participants, telephone interviews with support …

Achieving Diversity (Sciences, Relativism, Compassion), Erich John Knerr

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis is about achieving diversity in our society and in our world. In it I examine attributes of relativism as well as understandings of our existence in order to develop a model for achieving diversity. I examine our present model of science and the approach of romanticism and conclude that our sciences today are really about control and domination. I propose that the goals of our sciences should not be about domination, and therefore neither should our methods of science. Further, I propose that attributes of relativism represent a necessary beginning in achieving diversity and in bringing compassion into …

The Comprehensive Organizational Social Support Tool: Cosst Assessment, Amanda Kroger

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis describes the development of an instrument (the Comprehensive Organizational Social Support Tool (COSST)) designed to assess the extent to which organizations foster socially supportive interactions amongst their employees. Research indicates that the support that individuals receive from their co-workers in the workplace can have a significant impact on their physical and emotional health, and their commitment to, and performance within, an organization. Organizations can do much to foster these kinds of supportive interactions. However, in order for an organization to determine the strategies it should employ in enhancing support, it is necessary to assess what it is currently …

Mk-801 Interferes With The Acquisition Of Amphetamine- And Lithium-Induced Place Conditioning, Jonathan Francis Toth

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The place conditioning paradigm was used to assess the ability of the noncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonist, M- 801 to interfere with drug-place associations. MK-801 (0.1 mg/kg, ip) attenuated a place preference produced by 10 mg/kg, but not by 3 or 5 mg/kg of amphetamine. MK-801 alone produced neither a place preference nor a place aversion. Interference with amphetamine place preference learning was not the result of state-dependent learning produced by MK-801. Furthermore, MK-801 did not interfere with the expression of a previously established amphetamine place preference. Pretreatment with MK-801 also interfered with lithium-induced conditioned place aversion learning. These results suggest …

Pentobarbital-Induced Place Aversion Learning, Gilbert Lew

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Pentobarbital is self-administered by rats, but has also been reported to produce a conditioned place aversion. Since the self-administration and place preference paradigms both are considered to assess drug reward, we further examined the hedonic properties of pentobarbital using place conditioning. In Experiment 1, a dose of 15 mg/kg (ip) of pentobarbital produced a conditioned place aversion following 4 conditioning trials of various durations (5, 15, 30 or 60 min). Since rats are typically drug-experienced in the self-administration paradigm. Experiments 2 and 3 examined the effect of drug history on pentobarbital-induced place conditioning. Although preexposure to pentobarbital attenuated the place …

Value Dilemmas In Striving For Social Justice: A Case Study Of The Working Centre (Ontario), Stephen Orr

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study examines the Working Centre, a self-help resource centre for the unemployed in Kitchener, and how it has responded to the changing nature of work. It explores the growth of global capitalism and the impact of new technologies on the workplace. The study also examines how economic restructuring leads to high levels of unemployment and part-time work. The thesis reviews the Working Centre’s mission, goals and objectives, and how these have been translated into action in the Centre’s early years and today. Finally, this study discusses the Centre’s efforts to pursue a social justice agenda in a rapidly changing …

Barely A Whisper In The System: Parents' Perspectives On The Prevention Of Foster Care Placement, Tammie O. Belliveau

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Despite an abundance of literature stressing the need to prevent child maltreatment and foster care placement, information related to the prevention of foster care placement and child maltreatment from a parent's perspective is virtually nonexistent. This research utilized qualitative research techniques to elicit parental perspectives on the prevention of foster care placement and child maltreatment. Results were analyzed utilizing Belsky's (1980) ecological framework for child maltreatment and a risk and protective framework. Results are discussed in terms of theoretical, research, practical and personal implications. Practical implications stress the importance of creating interventions which (a) strive to build self-esteem, (b) provide …

A Case Study Of Partnerships In Practice, Heather Lorraine Macgillivary

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Despite calls for partnership from government, human service organizations, researchers, consumers and providers, there is very little literature about partnership. This research attempts to better understand the concept of partnership through a case study of Waterloo Regional Homes for Mental Health Inc., an organization which is implementing partnership oriented practices. Data collected included 11 key informant interviews, a review of documents, and process notes. Findings were organized around definition, facilitative and impeding factors, and outcomes of partnership. Defining values of partnership which emerged were collaborative interaction, power-sharing, shared decision-making, stakeholder involvement, resource sharing, shared responsibility, and equality. Facilitative and impeding …

Cross-Cultural Differences In Parenting And Moral Development In Late Adolescence: A Narrative Approach, Wanna E. Mar

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study investigated differences in parenting and late adolescents’ moral development in two cultural groups: Chinese-Canadian and European-Canadian Measures of parental authoritativeness and degree of parental influence on moral values were administered to a sample of 62 European-Canadian and 40 Chinese-Canadian university students, aged 17-26 years. The participants were then compared with respect to two outcome measures, one assessing the degree to which they internalized and represented parents’ viewpoints (“voice”) in narratives about moral socialization, and the other assessing level of moral reasoning development. Results indicated that reported parental authoritativeness was positively related to the degree of parent “voice” displayed …

Social Support, Campus Involvement, And The Adjustment To University, Krista Martin

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis sought to assess the relationships between students’ involvement in campus life and their adjustment to university. Additionally, the study examined some of the possible determinants of involvement in campus activities (i.e., living in residence, past involvement in school activities, and parental community involvement). Ninety-eight introductory psychology students completed a questionnaire containing measures of campus involvement, social support, residential status, students’ past involvement in school activities and their parents’ involvement in community organizations. Results indicated that students who were involved in campus organizations and activities were better adjusted to university social life. In addition, there was some evidence that …

A Qualitative, Participatory Study Of The Process Of Becoming An Advocate For Nonhuman Animals, Angela Kathleen Raithby

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis begins with an overview of some published works concerning oppression, its alleviation and the interconnectedness of its various forms, as they relate to the diverse area which is loosely referred to as ‘animal rights’. In general terms, the ultimate goal of choosing to do this thesis in the area of animal rights is to further the defence of nonhuman animals. The purpose of this specific project is to document, compare, and contrast a range of examples of the process of changing relationships and becoming an advocate for other animals. These examples, the experiences and life stories of five …

Application Of The Remember/Know Judgement Paradigm To Eyewitness Stimuli, P. Michael Appavoo

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The ability to gauge the accuracy of eyewitnesses’ recall of a crime scene is of great investigative importance. Previous research has shown that outright confidence judgements may not be a very reliable method of assessing witnesses’ recall accuracy. The purpose of the present research was to apply the Remember/Know judgement paradigm to eyewitnesses’ recall in the hopes of finding a more effective technique for judging accuracy. In this paradigm individuals are asked to make judgements about each recalled item in terms of whether they specifically Remember the item (including context and time of presentation), as opposed to simply having a …