This is a comparative study of the self-esteem of Pakistani (minority) and indigenous children in Scotland. The study examines: (1) whether there is any difference in the level of self-esteem of the Pakistani minority and the indigenous children; (2) what is the relationship bet…
The thesis takes as its starting point the explanation by David Lockwood of clerical anti-unionism in terms of a 'prestige' model of society, and of manual pro-unionism in terms of a 'class' model of society. The present author attempts to gather information about how clerks and…
This thesis is concerned with the relationships between physiological changes and subjective and behavioural responses to stress. The effects of noise stress were examined under laboratory conditions, and retrospective studies of stress induced by life events were also carried o…
Eyewitnesses frequently mistake innocent people for the perpetrator of an observed crime. Such misidentifications have led to the wrongful convictions of many people. Despite this, no reliable method yet exists to determine eyewitness accuracy. This thesis explored two new exper…
Low-intensity parenting programmes play a key role in a public health approach to parenting support and are designed to be a cost-effective intervention for child conduct problems. Several studies that have evaluated a single topic-specific Triple P–Positive Parenting Program Di…
Cannabis remains the most commonly used illicit substance during adolescence, yet little is understood about the influences on changes in use patterns. There has been more focus on risk as compared to resilience in assessments of cannabis and psychopathology. This thesis aimed t…
The combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) is a powerful method for investigating brain function, with multiple MVPA methods being applied to the task including Logistic Regression, Support Vector Machines, Neural Net…
Background: Sexual relations are fundamental to physical and emotional well-being. The present study aimed to explore women’s experiences of sexual intimacy in the early postnatal period following physical birth trauma (defined as either a second-degree tear or an episiotomy), c…
Binge drinking (BD) is a pressing social and public health concern in the United Kingdom, especially among university students. Several psychological constructs have been associated with BD behaviour in student populations, including adult attachment style, dispositional mindful…
This thesis defines and extends the psychological concept of ‘decision inertia’: the redundant deliberation of choice for no positive gain. The concept was developed following observation in the real-world that emergency incidents were most often criticised, not because of poor …
Haematological cancers are often unpredictable, leaving clinical decisions to be made throughout the trajectory of the illness. In this context, the way patients make sense of complex clinical information becomes particularly important. The study aimed to understand the ways in …
Leadership potential is now one of the most desirable traits in candidates applying for a job or promotion (Church, 2014), and experimental evidence proposes that leadership potential is preferable to previous leadership performance in leadership candidates (Tormala, Jia, & Nort…
Within social psychology, little attention is given to group processes occurring outside of adult populations. The development of these group processes is rarely discussed or otherwise is assumed to be identical to that of the adult processes observed in the literature. Developm…
This thesis surveys some of the implications of the presented collection of publications, all of which address the phenomenon of stimulus equivalence. Stimulus equivalence (SE) is first operationally defined in terms of Sidman’s trio of criteria: symmetry, transitivity, and refl…
Children aged four to seven years, experience social and cognitive changes and may exhibit a variety of aggressive (Monks, Smith, & Swettenham, 2003), prosocial (Sebanc, 2003) and solitary behaviours (Coplan & Ooi, 2014), which are related to positive and negative outcomes. Rese…
This thesis outlines the novel theoretical approach of social context mismatch theory (SCMT). SCMT outlines how changes in context can lead to mismatches between motives and their surrounding environment. For example, the basic human desire to care for others has become problema…
Volume one of this thesis (the research component) includes a systematic literature review and an empirical study. The literature review evaluates the existing research on the relationship between illness perceptions and psychosocial outcomes in female cancer patients. Psychosoc…