29,468 research outputs found

    Building body identities - exploring the world of female bodybuilders

    Get PDF
    This thesis explores how female bodybuilders seek to develop and maintain a viable sense of self despite being stigmatized by the gendered foundations of what Erving Goffman (1983) refers to as the 'interaction order'; the unavoidable presentational context in which identities are forged during the course of social life. Placed in the context of an overview of the historical treatment of women's bodies, and a concern with the development of bodybuilding as a specific form of body modification, the research draws upon a unique two year ethnographic study based in the South of England, complemented by interviews with twenty-six female bodybuilders, all of whom live in the U.K. By mapping these extraordinary women's lives, the research illuminates the pivotal spaces and essential lived experiences that make up the female bodybuilder. Whilst the women appear to be embarking on an 'empowering' radical body project for themselves, the consequences of their activity remains culturally ambivalent. This research exposes the 'Janus-faced' nature of female bodybuilding, exploring the ways in which the women negotiate, accommodate and resist pressures to engage in more orthodox and feminine activities and appearances

    Exploring environmental concerns on digital platforms through big data: the effect of online consumers’ environmental discourse on online review ratings

    Get PDF
    By deploying big data analytical techniques to retrieve and analyze a large volume of more than 2.7 million reviews, this work sheds light on how environmental concerns expressed by tourists on digital platforms, in the guise of online reviews, influence their satisfaction with tourism and hospitality services. More specifically, we conduct a multi-platform study of Tripadvisor.com and Booking.com online reviews (ORs) pertaining to hotel services across eight leading tourism destination cities in America and Europe over the period 2017–2018. By adopting multivariate regression analyses, we show that OR ratings are positively influenced by both the presence and depth of environmental discourse on these platforms. Theoretical and managerial contributions, and implications for digital platforms, big data analytics (BDA), electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and environmental research within the tourism and hospitality domain are examined, with a view to capturing, empirically, the effect of environmental discourse presence and depth on customer satisfaction proxied through online ratings

    Learning to listen: downstream effects of listening training on employees' relatedness, burnout, and turnover intentions

    Get PDF
    Abstract: The present work focuses on listening training as an example of a relational human resource practice that can improve human resource outcomes: Relatedness to colleagues, burnout, and turnover intentions. In two quasi‐field experiments, employees were assigned to either a group listening training or a control condition. Both immediately after training and after 3 weeks later, receiving listening training was shown to be linked to higher feelings of relatedness with colleagues, lower burnout, and lower turnover intentions. These findings suggest that listening training can be harnessed as a powerful human resource management tool to cultivate stronger relationships at work. The implications for Relational Coordination Theory, High‐Quality Connections Theory, and Self‐Determination Theory are discussed

    Exploring the effects of spinal cord stimulation for freezing of gait in parkinsonian patients

    Get PDF
    Dopaminergic replacement therapies (e.g. levodopa) provide limited to no response for axial motor symptoms including gait dysfunction and freezing of gait (FOG) in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Richardson’s syndrome progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP-RS) patients. Dopaminergic-resistant FOG may be a sensorimotor processing issue that does not involve basal ganglia (nigrostriatal) impairment. Recent studies suggest that spinal cord stimulation (SCS) has positive yet variable effects for dopaminergic-resistant gait and FOG in parkinsonian patients. Further studies investigating the mechanism of SCS, optimal stimulation parameters, and longevity of effects for alleviating FOG are warranted. The hypothesis of the research described in this thesis is that mid-thoracic, dorsal SCS effectively reduces FOG by modulating the sensory processing system in gait and may have a dopaminergic effect in individuals with FOG. The primary objective was to understand the relationship between FOG reduction, improvements in upper limb visual-motor performance, modulation of cortical activity and striatal dopaminergic innervation in 7 PD participants. FOG reduction was associated with changes in upper limb reaction time, speed and accuracy measured using robotic target reaching choice tasks. Modulation of resting-state, sensorimotor cortical activity, recorded using electroencephalography, was significantly associated with FOG reduction while participants were OFF-levodopa. Thus, SCS may alleviate FOG by modulating cortical activity associated with motor planning and sensory perception. Changes to striatal dopaminergic innervation, measured using a dopamine transporter marker, were associated with visual-motor performance improvements. Axial and appendicular motor features may be mediated by non-dopaminergic and dopaminergic pathways, respectively. The secondary objective was to demonstrate the short- and long-term effects of SCS for alleviating dopaminergic-resistant FOG and gait dysfunction in 5 PD and 3 PSP-RS participants without back/leg pain. SCS programming was individualized based on which setting best improved gait and/or FOG responses per participant using objective gait analysis. Significant improvements in stride velocity, step length and reduced FOG frequency were observed in all PD participants with up to 3-years of SCS. Similar gait and FOG improvements were observed in all PSP-RS participants up to 6-months. SCS is a promising therapeutic option for parkinsonian patients with FOG by possibly influencing cortical and subcortical structures involved in locomotion physiology

    Examination of a Brief, Self-Paced Online Self-Compassion Intervention Targeting Intuitive Eating and Body Image Outcomes among Men and Women

    Get PDF
    Ideals for appearance and body image are pervasive in Western culture in which men and women are portrayed with unrealistic and often unattainable standards (Ferguson, 2013; Martin, 2010). Exposure and reinforcement have created a culture of social acceptance and internalization of these ideals, contributing to pervasive body image disturbance (i.e., body dissatisfaction; Fallon et al., 2014; Stice, 2001; Thompson & Stice, 2001; Thompson et al., 1999). Research has suggested that body dissatisfaction is expressed differently across sexes (Grossbard et al., 2008), with attention to thin ideals among women and muscular ideals among men. Body dissatisfaction has been linked to numerous poor outcomes, including dieting, unhealthy weight control behaviors, disordered eating, and increased psychopathology. Although dieting is one of the primary mechanisms employed to reduce body dissatisfaction (Thompson & Stice, 2001), research has shown that such efforts are contraindicated as dieting predicts weight gain over time (Pietiläinen et al., 2012) as well as preoccupation with food, disordered eating, eating disorders, emotional distress, and higher body dissatisfaction (Grabe et al., 2007; Johnson & Wardle, 2005; Neumark- Sztianer et al., 2006; Paxton et al., 2006; Tiggemann, 2005). Restrictive dietary behaviors suppress physiological cues to eat (e.g., hunger) that presents a vulnerability to eating in response to alternative cues, both internal (e.g., emotions) and external (e.g., availability of food). Intuitive eating is a non-restrictive approach to eating that encourages adherence to internal physiological cues to indicate when, what, and how much to eat (Tylka, 2006) and has demonstrated an inverse relationship with disordered eating, restrained eating, food preoccupation, dieting, body dissatisfaction, and negative affect (Bruce & Ricciardelli, 2016). Self-compassion, relating to oneself in a caring and supportive manner (Neff, 2003a), has been proposed as a pathway to increase intuitive eating and reduce body dissatisfaction (Neff & Knox, 2017; Schoenefeld & Webb, 2013; Webb & Hardin, 2016). Research has highlighted the efficacy of self-compassion interventions in addressing weight-related concerns (Rahimi-Ardabili et al., 2018) as well as brief experiential exercises for reducing body dissatisfaction (Moffitt et al., 2018). Additionally, there is a growing body of evidence supporting the efficacy of internet-based self-compassion interventions (Mak et al., 2018; Kelman et al., 2018; Nadeau et al., 2020). The purpose of the current study was to examine the effectiveness of a brief, self-paced online self-compassion intervention targeting body image and adaptive eating behaviors and potential mechanisms of change (e.g., self-compassion and psychological flexibility) among undergraduate men and women. This study also examined outcomes among men and women in the area of self-compassion, body dissatisfaction, and intuitive eating as research has highlighted the need to determine who benefits more from self-compassion interventions (Rahimi-Ardabili et al., 2018). The study compared a one-hour, self-guided online self-compassion intervention to an active control condition. The intervention was comprised of psychoeducation, experiential exercises, and mindfulness practice designed to increase self-compassion surrounding body image and eating behaviors. In contrast, the active control condition consisted of self-care recommendations and self-assessments for nutrition, exercise, and sleep. The study was administered over three parts (e.g., baseline, intervention, and follow-up) in which variables of interest were assessed at each time point. Outcome variables included self-compassion, intuitive eating, disordered eating, body appreciation, muscle dysmorphia, internalized weight bias, fear of self-compassion, and psychological inflexibility. Participants were randomized on a 2:1 intervention to control ratio at the second time point in order to make comparisons between groups while simultaneously having sufficient power for examining mediation and moderation within the treatment condition. Overall, 1023 individuals (64% women, Mage = 18.9, 67.4% white) signed informed consent and participated in at least one part of the study whereas 101 participants (71% women, Mage = 19.3, 71% white) completed all three study portions. As predicted, self-compassion was correlated with all variables of interest, and all study variables were correlated with each other (p < .01). In contrast to hypothesized outcomes, the self-compassion condition failed to demonstrate improvements across time or between conditions on all study outcomes. These results persisted when participants were screened for levels of intuitive eating as well. Contrary to prediction, internalized weight bias, muscle dysmorphia, and fear of self-compassion demonstrated increased levels within the intervention condition and decreases in the control condition. There were significant gender differences on multiple outcome variables, with men demonstrating higher levels of self-compassion and body appreciation whereas women endorsed higher levels of disordered eating, internalized weight bias, muscle dysmorphia, and psychological inflexibility. Additionally, there were significant gender interactions for internalized weight bias, body appreciation, and muscle dysmorphia. The interactions existed such that men demonstrated increased internalized weight bias and muscle dysmorphia across time whereas women displayed decreased weight bias and muscle dysmorphia. The opposite pattern was found within body appreciation; women demonstrated increased body appreciation across time while men reported decreased levels of body appreciation. Despite this study’s intent to examine underlying mechanisms of change, the condition in which participants were randomly selected did not have any relationship, positive or negative, with the outcome variables of interest. As such, mediation within the current study was not conducted as it would violate statistical assumptions required to examine this hypothesis. Finally, upon examining the moderating relationship of fear of self-compassion between self-compassion and outcome variables, there were main effects for self-compassion on intuitive eating, emotional eating, internalized weight bias, body appreciation, and psychological inflexibility as well as main effects of fear of self-compassion on psychological inflexibility. There were significant interactions for intuitive eating and emotional eating, such that as fear of self-compassion increased, the effect of self-compassion on intuitive eating decreased, and the effect of self-compassion on reducing emotional eating behaviors decreased. Overall, the brief, self-paced online intervention delivered in the current study did not prove to be an effective means for improving self-compassion, intuitive eating, body appreciation, disordered eating, muscle dysmorphia, and psychological inflexibility. Nevertheless, the relationships between self-compassion and outcome variables of interest throughout the study mirror that of the existing literature. Findings from this study, in general, were also consistent with differences between men and women despite a gap in the research for intervention outcomes. Although fear of self-compassion demonstrated a moderating effect on the relationship between self-compassion and intuitive eating as well as emotional eating, this does not account for the lack of significant findings. The context surrounding this study, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, provided a considerable challenge to examining the efficacy of the current intervention. However, the findings of this study suggest future research will likely need to identify ways to enhance the delivery of experiential exercises that encourage engagement, provide a safe and warm environment for participants, and create flexibility and willingness surrounding painful and difficult experiences in order to undermine internalized and socially accepted beliefs about body image and eating behaviors

    Identification of Hindbrain Neural Substrates for Motor Initiation in the hatchling Xenopus laevis Tadpole

    Get PDF
    Animal survival profoundly depends on the ability to detect stimuli in the environment, process them and respond accordingly. In this respect, motor responses to a sensory stimulation evolved into a variety of coordinated movements, which involve the control of brain centres over spinal locomotor circuits. The hatchling Xenopus tadpole, even in its embryonic stage, is able to detect external sensory information and to swim away if the stimulus is considered noxious. To do so, the tadpole relies on well-known ascending sensory pathway, which carries the sensory information to the brain. When the stimulus is strong enough, descending interneurons are activated, leading to the excitation of spinal CPG neurons, which causes the undulatory movement of swimming. However, the activation of descending interneurons that marks the initiation of motor response appears after a long delay from the sensory stimulation. Furthermore, the long-latency response is variable in time, as observed in the slow-summating excitation measured in descending interneurons. These two features, i.e. long-latency and variability, cannot be explained by the firing time and pattern of the ascending sensory pathway of the Xenopus tadpole. Therefore, a novel neuronal population has been proposed to lie in the hindbrain of the tadpole, and being able to 'hold' the sensory information, thus accounting for the long and variable delay of swim initiation. In this work, the role of the hindbrain in the maintenance of the long and variable response to trunk skin stimulation is investigated in the Xenopustadpole at developmental stage 37/38. A multifaceted approach has been used to unravel the neuronal mechanisms underlying the delayed motor response, including behavioural experiments, electrophysiology analysis of fictive swimming, hindbrain extracellular recordings and imaging experiments. Two novel neuronal populations have been identified in the tadpole's hindbrain, which exhibit activation patterns compatible with the role of delaying the excitation of the spinal locomotor circuit. Future work on cellular properties and synaptic connections of these newly discovered populations might shed light on the mechanism of descending control active at embryonic stage. Identifying supraspinal neuronal populations in an embryonic organism could aid in understanding mechanisms of descending motor control in more complex vertebrates

    Interactive Sonic Environments: Sonic artwork via gameplay experience

    Get PDF
    The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of video-game technology in the design and implementation of interactive sonic centric artworks, the purpose of which is to create and contribute to the discourse and understanding of its effectiveness in electro-acoustic composition highlighting the creative process. Key research questions include: How can the language of electro-acoustic music be placed in a new framework derived from videogame aesthetics and technology? What new creative processes need to be considered when using this medium? Moreover, what aspects of 'play' should be considered when designing the systems? The findings of this study assert that composers and sonic art practitioners need little or no coding knowledge to create exciting applications and the myriad of options available to the composer when using video-game technology is limited only by imagination. Through a cyclic process of planning, building, testing and playing these applications the project revealed advantages and unique sonic opportunities in comparison to other sonic art installations. A portfolio of selected original compositions, both fixed and open are presented by the author to complement this study. The commentary serves to place the work in context with other practitioners in the field and to provide compositional approaches that have been taken

    The applied psychology of addictive orientations : studies in a 12-step treatment context.

    Get PDF
    The clinical data for the studies was collected at The PROMIS Recovery Centre, a Minnesota Model treatmentc entre for addictions,w hich encouragesth e membership and use of the 12 step Anonymous Fellowships, and is abstinence based. The area of addiction is contextualised in a review chapter which focuses on research relating to the phenomenon of cross addiction. A study examining the concept of "addictive orientations" in male and female addicts is described, which develops a study conductedb y StephensonM, aggi, Lefever, & Morojele (1995). This presents study found a four factor solution which appeared to be subdivisions of the previously found Hedonism and Nurturance factors. Self orientated nurturance (both food dimensions, shopping and caffeine), Other orientated nurturance (both compulsive helping dimensions and work), Sensation seeking hedonism (Drugs, prescription drugs, nicotine and marginally alcohol), and Power related hedonism (Both relationship dimensions, sex and gambling. This concept of "addictive orientations" is further explored in a non-clinical population, where again a four factor solution was found, very similar to that in the clinical population. This was thought to indicate that in terms of addictive orientation a pattern already exists in this non-clinical population and that consideration should be given to why this is the case. These orientations are examined in terms of gender differences. It is suggested that the differences between genders reflect power-related role relationships between the sexes. In order to further elaborate the significance and meaning behind these orientations, the next two chapters look at the contribution of personality variables and how addictive orientations relate to psychiatric symptomatology. Personality variables were differentially, and to a considerable extent predictably involved with the four factors for both males and females.Conscientiousness as positively associated with "Other orientated Nurturance" and negatively associated with "Sensation seeking hedonism" (particularly for men). Neuroticism had a particularly strong association with the "Self orientated Nurturance" factor in the female population. More than twice the symptomatology variance was explained by the factor scores for females than it was for males. The most important factorial predictors for psychiatric symptomatology were the "Power related hedonism" factor for males, and "Self oriented nurturance" for females. The results are discussed from theoretical and treatment perspectives

    The company she keeps : The social and interpersonal construction of girls same sex friendships

    Get PDF
    This thesis begins a critical analysis of girls' 'private' interpersonal and social relations as they are enacted within two school settings. It is the study of these marginal subordinated worlds productivity of forms of femininity which provides the main narrative of this project. I seek to understand these processes of (best) friendship construction through a feminist multi-disciplinary frame, drawing upon cultural studies, psychoanalysis and accounts of gender politics. I argue that the investments girls bring to their homosocial alliances and boundary drawing narry a psychological compulsion which is complexly connected to their own experiences within the mother/daughter bond as well as reflecting positively an immense social debt to the permissions girls have to be nurturant and ; negatively their own reproduction of oppressive exclusionary practices. Best friendship in particular gives girls therefore, the experience of 'monogamy' continuous of maternal/daughter identification, reminiscent of their positioning inside monopolistic forms of heterosexuality. But these subcultures also represent a subversive discontinuity to the public dominance of boys/teachers/adults in schools and to the ideologies and practices of heterosociality and heterosexuality. By taking seriously their transmission of the values of friendship in their chosen form of notes and diaries for example, I was able to access the means whereby they were able to resist their surveillance and control by those in power over them. I conclude by arguing that it is through a recognition of the valency of these indivisiblly positive and negative aspects to girls cultures that Equal Opportunities practitioners must begin if they are serious about their ambitions. Methods have to be made which enable girls to transfer their 'private' solidarities into the 'public' realm, which unquestionably demands contesting with them the causes and consequences of their implication in the divisions which also contaminate their lives and weaken them

    Self-help/mutual aid groups in mental health : ideology, helping mechanisms and empowerment

    Get PDF
    In the last quarter of the twentieth century, self-help/mutual aid groups for mental health issues started to emerge in growing numbers, mainly in Western societies, offering and/or advocating for alternative non-traditional forms of support, and attracted the attention of many researchers and clinicians for their unique characteristics. Among the subjects of interest are typologies of groups, helping mechanisms and benefits from participation. However, there is lack of systematic research in the area and existing studies have been largely confined to the therapeutic value of these groups instead of acknowledging their socio-political meaning and subsequent psychosocial benefits for their members like personal empowerment. The present study was conducted during the transitional years from a Conservative to a newly elected Labour Government (1996 -1998), with subsequent policy shifts taking place in the welfare sector. The purpose of the study was to explore the potential of self-help groups as part of a broader new social movement, the service user movement, focussing on the English scene. It addressed this issue examining the relevance of a group typology based on political ideology and focus of change. To test the validity of this classification for members, a set of individual characteristics and group mechanisms as well as their change through time were examined. The sample consisted of fourteen mental health selfhelp/mutual aid groups from London and South East England, with a variety of structural and organisational features. The methodology used was a combination of both quantitative (self-completion questionnaires) and qualitative techniques (analysis of written material, participant observation and interviews). Measurements were repeated after a one-year interval (Time 1N=67, Time 2 N=56). Findings showed that, indeed, political ideology of self-help/mutual aid groups provided the basis of a meaningful typology and constitutes a comprehensive way of categorising them. Group ideology was related to specific helping mechanisms and aspects of personal empowerment. Specifically, conservative and combined group members reported more expressive group processes like sharing of feelings and self-disclosure, while radical group members were more empowered and optimistic. Group identification was also associated with specific helping activities and aspects of empowerment in the three group categories. The psychosocial character of group types and the beneficial outcomes for members remained stable through time. In general, prolonged participation was reflected in greater member identification with the group and resulted in improved mental wellbeing, increased social support, companionship and optimism for the future
    • …
    corecore