1,720,998 research outputs found
Strategic displays and evaluations of Irish national identification: A mixed methods investigation
No full textThe nation has often been viewed as a unifying force (Anderson, 1981); however, groups are rarely, if ever, completely united (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001). The national group is no exception, yet the social identity literature has largely ignored intra- and subgroup variability within the same nation. In order to challenge this pervasive image of the nation, a mixed methods approach was applied to consider variations that exist within the same national category. The first phase qualitative investigation applied a discursive approach to examine how Irish Travellers and Irish students negotiated their national identity in interaction. The findings suggested that individuals within the same interactional context displayed and constructed their national identity in different ways. Importantly, these divergent displays may also have had interactive consequences, as they marked individuals as being inside or outside of the national category. Additionally, ‘banality’ (Billig, 1995) was identified as a discursive resource mobilised by individuals in interaction as a marker of their entitlement to exclude others from the national group.
The discursive findings informed the subsequent quantitative investigations; the first of which considered the effect of experimentally manipulated perceived prototypicality on evaluations of displays of Irishness. The findings indicated that participants displayed a degree of distance between themselves and the national group in their evaluations of displays. The second set of studies manipulated both participants\u27 perceived prototypicality and that of a target group member. The effects of the manipulation on participants\u27 assignment of national attributes and similarity judgements in both an intra- and intergroup comparative context were then considered. The findings indicated that prototypical and peripheral group members adjusted their distance to the national group, relative to other subgroups occupying different positions within the nation. The implications for discursive understandings of identity, the study of intra-national relations and policies of inclusion were then discussed
Feeling our feedings: mindfulness and body dissatisfaction in the relationship between attachment style and disordered eating in an adult population
No full textAims: Attachment insecurity has been associated with disordered eating
behaviours (DEBs; e.g., restrained eating, emotional eating and uncontrolled eating).
There is a growing prevalence of such problematic behaviours in our society, yet
DEBs have remained poorly researched and clinically misunderstood phenomena.
The primary aim was to examine the relationships between insecure attachment
styles, DEBs, dispositional mindfulness and body dissatisfaction. These relations
were investigated in a sample of healthy individuals, in individuals seeking treatment
for mental health difficulties and individuals seeking treatment for obesity. This study
also examined whether mindfulness and body dissatisfaction are mechanisms
underlying the relationship between attachment insecurity and greater DEBs.
Method: Data were collected from a convenience sample of 851 individuals
in the general population, 65 individuals attending an adult mental health hospital and
43 individuals attending a weight management service for obesity. A cross-sectional,
survey-based design was employed and regression, correlational statistics and
mediation analyses were utilized to examine the data.
Results: The results suggest that compared to a general healthy sample and
those with mental health difficulties; individuals with obesity reported significantly
greater uncontrolled and emotional eating but no difference was found in restrained
eating. Overall, dispositional mindfulness and body dissatisfaction mediated the
relationship between insecure attachment and DEBs. Specifically, lower levels of
dispositional mindfulness predicted higher body dissatisfaction, which predicted more
DEBs and explained the relationship between insecure attachment styles and DEBs.
Conclusion: The findings from the current study offer a more clinically
representative understanding of insecure attachment styles and DEBs and how they
differ among a clinical, non-clinical and obese population. Two psychological
constructs in which insecure attachment leads to DEBs were also highlighted. The
limitations, clinical implications and directions for future research are considered in
detail in the discussion section of this thesis
A community approach to suicide and mental ill-health : the role of stigma, help-seeking and group identification
No full textOur lives, and the events that punctuate them, do not play out within a vacuum. Rather, we are all part of an intrinsically connected network of people that cumulatively influence our thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Even the seemingly individualistic act of taking one’s own life is irrefutably linked to the social environment in which it occurs. With over 800,000 lives lost each year, the equivalent of one death every 40 seconds (World Health Organisation (WHO), 2014), suicide is recognised as a major global health issue. A dominant research theme across multiple disciplines is thus the prevention and prediction of future suicidal behaviour. The research outlined in this thesis will add to this growing body of literature by exploring, through the lens of the social identity approach, how social determinants may enhance or exacerbate protective and risk factors linked to suicidal behaviour in community settings. For the purpose of this thesis, these factors are stigma of mental ill-health, help-seeking, and well-being in those bereaved by suicide. Four empirical papers, as follows, are presented in this body of work:
Paper 1 demonstrates how, within a university community (N = 493) in which there are high levels of stigma of mental-ill health, students that identity more highly with the university group exhibit greater reluctance to avail of on-campus mental health services.
Paper 2 examines the relationship between identification and stigma of mental illhealth. Mediation analysis shows how higher identification with a community group (N = 626) results in perceiving lower levels of stigma amongst group members, via increased perceptions of social support. This effect is amplified when participants identify highly with more than one group.
Paper 3 tracks measures of stigma and attitudes towards mental ill-health and helpseeking before and after community-based mental health services were introduced in two towns in Ireland (N = 1074). All measures evidence positive change after these services were introduced, demonstrating how the arrival of such services, and the subsequent increased visibility of the issue of mental ill-health, can help alter public perceptions of both mental illhealth and help-seeking.
Paper 4, the final paper in this thesis, examines a measure of well-being in those bereaved by suicide before and after taking part in a community-based suicide awareness event (N = 3716). This event serves a dual purpose of acting a fundraiser, whilst also drawing attention to the immense issue of suicide and bringing together those who may have previously been isolated in their grief. Results show a significant increase in well-being amongst individuals who have lost a loved one to suicide after partaking in the event, and this effect can be explained through identification with other participants who may have experienced a similar loss.
Cumulatively, this thesis makes a substantial theoretical contribution by demonstrating, first, that identification with a community group can have a significant impact on well-being, the stigma of mental ill-health and help-seeking, and how this impact can be either positive or negative depending on the context and group in question. Second, it evidences that measures of stigma, attitudes, and well-being amongst community respondents are subject to change based on the visibility of the issue of mental ill-health and suicide in local environs, with resultant practical and applied implications for the provision of services and tackling the stigma of mental ill-health in community settings
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
An exploration of midwives’ and obstetricians’ perceptions of risk in relation to care practices for low risk women and normal childbirth
No full textThis thesis explores how midwives’ and obstetricians’ perceptions of risk affect care
practices for low-risk women and normal childbirth. Four academic papers are
incorporated into the thesis. The research aims to provide an understanding of how
perceptions of risk may contribute to intervention during birth. Areas investigated
include factors that contribute to midwives and obstetricians feeling safe or unsafe when
facilitating birth, their trust in physiological birth and their attitudes towards the
importance of achieving normal birth
A systematic integrative review was undertaken (Paper 1), synthesising data from 13
studies, identified on the basis of a pre-determined search strategy. This review
highlighted an assumption of abnormality in the birthing process. Following this, a
discussion paper (Paper 2) was published that presented an over-view of the current
structures and processes of maternity care, incorporating preliminary results from the
primary qualitative study into the discussion. The primary qualitative study (Papers 3
and 4) involved analysing data gathered from semi-structured interviews with 16
midwives and nine obstetricians recruited from hospitals, midwifery-led units and the
community. The findings highlight that in the current climate of risk management and
intense surveillance of birth, midwives’ professional identity as promoters and
protectors of normal birth is in jeopardy. Fear of litigation and implication in adverse
outcomes and an increased focus on risk management duties are contributing factors.
Apparent is that outcomes, particularly infant and maternal mortality rates, take
precedent over compassionate, holistic care where the former are the quality markers
currently used to assess maternity care.
This thesis concludes that midwifery must become more pro-active in supporting
physiological birth. There must be a refocus on how maternity care is organised and
reflection on the hierarchy of outcomes if services are to become more woman-centred.
Implications of the findings of this thesis on maternity practice and policy are discussed
in the final chapter
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
