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1
Wilding, Sarah Elizabeth. "The question-behaviour effect in risk behaviours." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2017. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/17829/.
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The question-behaviour effect (QBE) refers to the finding that asking individuals questions about their cognitions and/or behaviour or to predict future behaviour, can influence subsequent behaviour performance. Health risk behaviours are those behaviours that should be discouraged to produce favourable health outcomes such as smoking, excessive alcohol use and unhealthy eating. The current thesis aimed to investigate the influence of the QBE over health risk behaviours. It provides an original contribution to the literature in its focus on the QBE in these types of health behaviour. A comprehensive systematic review of the QBE literature demonstrated a small, significant effect of the QBE in general, however only 16 previous studies had been conducted investigating health risk behaviours and the majority of these focused on assessing behaviour at baseline. These previous studies produced a non-significant reduction in health risk behaviours as a result of the QBE. The systematic review identified a number of moderators of the QBE including setting. Seven empirical studies are presented here, conducted in a range of settings (field, online, and lab). The data presented show mixed evidence of the QBE for risk behaviours. A mini meta-analysis of the studies presented demonstrated an overall small and non-significant effect of the QBE on risk behaviours. The individual studies demonstrated that the QBE has the potential to increase and reduce these behaviours. Three lab studies demonstrated an increase in unhealthy snacking as a result of questioning intentions relating to behaviour. This was also supported in one of the online studies, where smoking tended to be greater in individuals questioned on this behaviour compared to control, although the difference in conditions was not significant in all measures of behaviour. However one online study demonstrated a significant reduction in multiple health behaviours (risk and protection), when the QBE was combined with a dissonance manipulation. The QBE has the potential to have a small influence over health risk behaviours and the studies presented here demonstrate that asking about these behaviours has the potential to increase them. The QBE may need to be combined with further manipulation focusing on motivation or dissonance to reduce these behaviours consistently.
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Ledgerwood, David M. "The attitude-behaviour link, planned behaviour, self-monitoring, behavioural variability, and condom use." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp01/MQ30951.pdf.
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Weidlich, Matthias. "Behavioural profiles : a relational approach to behaviour consistency." Phd thesis, Universität Potsdam, 2011. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2011/5559/.
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Business Process Management (BPM) emerged as a means to control, analyse, and optimise business operations. Conceptual models are of central importance for BPM. Most prominently, process models define the behaviour that is performed to achieve a business value. In essence, a process model is a mapping of properties of the original business process to the model, created for a purpose. Different modelling purposes, therefore, result in different models of a business process. Against this background, the misalignment of process models often observed in the field of BPM is no surprise. Even if the same business scenario is considered, models created for strategic decision making differ in content significantly from models created for process automation. Despite their differences, process models that refer to the same business process should be consistent, i.e., free of contradictions. Apparently, there is a trade-off between strictness of a notion of consistency and appropriateness of process models serving different purposes. Existing work on consistency analysis builds upon behaviour equivalences and hierarchical refinements between process models. Hence, these approaches are computationally hard and do not offer the flexibility to gradually relax consistency requirements towards a certain setting.
This thesis presents a framework for the analysis of behaviour consistency that takes a fundamentally different approach. As a first step, an alignment between corresponding elements of related process models is constructed. Then, this thesis conducts behavioural analysis grounded on a relational abstraction of the behaviour of a process model, its behavioural profile. Different variants of these profiles are proposed, along with efficient computation techniques for a broad class of process models. Using behavioural profiles, consistency of an alignment between process models is judged by different notions and measures. The consistency measures are also adjusted to assess conformance of process logs that capture the observed execution of a process. Further, this thesis proposes various complementary techniques to support consistency management. It elaborates on how to implement consistent change propagation between process models, addresses the exploration of behavioural commonalities and differences, and proposes a model synthesis for behavioural profiles.Das Geschäftsprozessmanagement umfasst Methoden zur Steuerung, Analyse sowie Optimierung von Geschäftsprozessen. Es stützt sich auf konzeptionelle Modelle, Prozessmodelle, welche den Ablauf zur Erreichung eines Geschäftszieles beschreiben. Demnach ist ein Prozessmodell eine Abbildung eines Geschäftsprozesses, erstellt hinsichtlich eines Modellierungsziels. Unterschiedliche Modellierungsziele resultieren somit in unterschiedlichen Modellen desselben Prozesses. Beispielsweise unterscheiden sich zwei Modelle erheblich, sofern eines für die strategische Entscheidungsfindung und eines für die Automatisierung erstellt wurde. Trotz der in unterschiedlichen Modellierungszielen begründeten Unterschiede sollten die entsprechenden Modelle konsistent, d.h. frei von Widersprüchen sein. Die Striktheit des Konsistenzbegriffs steht hierbei in Konflikt mit der Eignung der Prozessmodelle für einen bestimmten Zweck. Existierende Ansätze zur Analyse von Verhaltenskonsistenz basieren auf Verhaltensäquivalenzen und nehmen an, dass Prozessmodelle in einer hierarchischen Verfeinerungsrelation stehen. Folglich weisen sie eine hohe Berechnungskomplexität auf und erlauben es nicht, den Konsistenzbegriff graduell für einen bestimmten Anwendungsfalls anzupassen. Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt einen Ansatz für die Analyse von Verhaltenskonsistenz vor, welcher sich fundamental von existierenden Arbeiten unterscheidet. Zunächst werden korrespondierende Elemente von Prozessmodellen, welche den gleichen Geschäftsprozess darstellen, identifiziert. Auf Basis dieser Korrespondenzen wird ein Ansatz zur Konsistenzanalyse vorgestellt. Jener basiert auf einer relationalen Verhaltensabstraktion, dem Verhaltensprofil eines Prozessmodells. Die Arbeit führt verschiedene Varianten dieses Profils ein und zeigt wie sie für bestimmte Modellklassen effizient berechnet werden. Mithilfe von Verhaltensprofilen werden Konsistenzbegriffe und Konsistenzmaße für die Beurteilung von Korrespondenzen zwischen Prozessmodellen definiert. Weiterhin werden die Konsistenzmaße auch für den Anwendungsfall der Konformität angepasst, welcher sich auf beobachtete Abläufe in Form von Ausführungsdaten bezieht. Darüber hinaus stellt die Arbeit eine Reihe von Methoden vor, welche die Analyse von Verhaltenskonsistenz ergänzen. So werden Lösungen für das konsistente Übertragen von Änderungen eines Modells auf ein anderes, die explorative Analyse von Verhaltensgemeinsamkeiten, sowie eine Modellsynthese für Verhaltensprofile vorgestellt.
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Buss, Keno. "Behavioural patterns for the analysis of creative behaviour." Thesis, De Montfort University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2086/4938.
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Analysing human creativity has always been a difficult undertaking. The reason for this is the vagueness of the term creativity itself. Philosophers and Researchers have tried to unveil the secrets behind creativity since centuries. Besides some principles e.g. defined by Finke, Ward, and Smith, there is no holistic understanding about term creativity and there will always be discussions between researchers of different disciplines about how creativity is achieved. Current approaches try to understand creativity through studying the creative artifact or the creative human himself. These approaches have not lead to any promising results. Instead of focussing on creativity itself, it is more promising to look at the creative process of creators. Through this, it is possible to analyse what happened during the creation of an artefact. The aim of the analysis is the identification of certain behaviours within the creative process, which lead to very creative results or in opposite hinder creativity. The gained knowledge is used for the creation of patterns, describing this specific behaviour. The analysis of the creative process is not only interesting for artists, but also for engineers, researchers, students and many others. Important target groups for this approach are schools and universities. Being able to early recognise problems in the learning curve of a student will enable a directed support, in order to improve the student's performance. Until now, the main problem for analysing the creative process of a creator is the lack of information on how an artefact was created. Most creators tend not to make many notes during their creative phase, even if there are famous exemptions like Beethoven who left behind a huge amount of notices and marked changes in his work. Hence, the challenge is the development of a powerful framework, which can cope effectively with the recording and presentation of this creative process, in order to enable detailed analyses. Modern computer technology fosters the recording of the creative process of a person. Much of today's creative work is achieved with computers and powerful software applications. Computer networks and the internet enable new ways of collaboration. The creation of a flexible, collaborative tool-set is the ideal approach for the mapping and analysis of the creative process. A novel approach, based on these ideas, was developed by the members of the Creative Technologies Research Programme at the Software Technology Research Laboratory (STRL). The central aim of the approach is the mapping of the human creativity with so-called creativity maps. A creativity map is basically transition system, which allows to store and represent the creative process as well as to hold each version of the artefact. The developed De Montfort Creativity Assistant (DMCA), is a collaborative, web-enabled state-of-the-art software framework, realising the theoretical concepts. This thesis represents a substantial contribution to the research project. The focus of the presented work lies on the analysis and the support of the creative process. Several novel techniques for the analysis of massive data sets have been developed. The presented techniques enable a domain-independent analysis and support of the creative process. This is huge improvement over previous concepts, which are highly specialised and focus on the creative artefact itself. The presented approach required the development of several novel techniques. The major contributions of the presented research are: - Behavioural Patterns Enable the description of constructs inside the creativity map. These constructs represent the creative behaviour of the creator. - Techniques for a Computer-supported Information Extraction A pattern description language enables the computer-supported information extraction from creativity maps. - Knowledge Repository Knowledge, gained through the analysis processes, is stored centrally and shared with other creators in order to stimulate further growing of knowledge. - Concepts for the Analysis and Support of the Creative Process Novel concepts allow the structured analysis and support of the creative process, regardless of the creator's domain. All developed techniques have been implemented in several tools, which aim to enrich the DMCA with the ability of a computer-supported analysis and support of the creative process.
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Walth, Anja. "Applied behaviour analysis and student recycling behaviour." Thesis, University of Ulster, 2012. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.587477.
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With the introduction of European Union (EU) regulations on waste targets, the UK is committed to reducing waste, recycling and reusing policies. Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) techniques have been used to alter pro-environmental behaviour with varying success Antecedent Strategies such as information, goal setting and modelling aim to influence factors that may affect behaviours before they occur. Consequence or reinforcement strategies mainly offer rewards for the performance of a pro-environmental behaviour - for example prizes and monetary incentives, and also feedback in the form of continuous information upon recycling. Studies were carried out in 6 student villages with a total population of approximately 900 students, over a period of two academic years. Multiple baseline designs were used and after baseline measurements different interventions were introduced for groups of households. The research aim of this thesis was to identify the key behavioural components that make up recycling in students and to test possible Applied Behaviour Analysis techniques to adjust these behaviours. The research identified three key behavioural components that make up appropriate recycling. These are the correct sorting of targeted items from non-targeted items also known as contamination; the ongoing output of these targeted items, to make up a large percentage of the waste produced, also known as the amounts produced and the movement of the bin to get these items collected by the waste collecting authorities. The study investigated the effects of information, prompts, social interventions, continuous feedback and incentives on these three key behavioural components. The schemes such as information and door-stepping, currently used by the Borough Council, were tested and found not suitable for students.
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Dahl, Torbjørn Semb. "Behaviour based learning : evolution inspired development of adaptive robot behaviours." Thesis, University of Bristol, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.251543.
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Molland, Richard. "Extending reactive behaviour through the use of behavioural memory." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2000. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.325726.
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Spier, Emmet. "From reactive behaviour to adaptive behaviour : motivational models for behaviour in animals and robots." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1997. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.364107.
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Whiting, Philip. "Can Changes to Product Behaviour Alter Consumer Behaviour?" Thesis, Griffith University, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/366234.
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Is it possible to alter the nature of consumer behaviour towards social responsibility and desirable sustainable products through the design of the “behaviour” of consumer-based -products using an ontological design process? That is using styling or a look and feel design methodology that was originally developed during the 1940’s with the advent of Industrial Design in the United States of America to counter under-consumption.
The look & feel of a product provides a perceived expectation with regards to what the ‘product’ does and its meaning, that is to say we have certain expectations when we first view a product, beyond simply being aesthetic and pleasing to the eye. The sophistication of the service based design industry today to create desirable products is greater than ever, however these ‘throw away products’ has created an attitude of a ‘throw-away’ consumer society at the same time.
The hypothesis is that product behaviour is related to product performance or the ability of a designed product to do what it is supposed to do, including its ease of use, intuitiveness, the reliability and quality of the product and the materials from which it is constructed. In addition what the design of a product as shape and form means to the consumer on different levels. Product behaviour is also about meaning, social and otherwise and functions at a much deeper level than that of superficial two-dimensional graphic branding as used for marketing and advertising. This is called three-dimensional branding or coding, where product behaviour is not simply restricted to its actual performance, but also has a direct influence upon the consumer response to product in terms of desire, need and want.
Can the design of product and product behaviour be redeployed to address the crisis in over-consumption?Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Queensland College of Art
Arts, Education and Law
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Martínez, Bárbara, and Sara Pérez. "Consumer Behaviour." Thesis, Halmstad University, School of Business and Engineering (SET), 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-1595.
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The aim of this work is to understand the consumer behaviour. The research is going to be focus on the factors that influence the consumers behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to know the different aspects that the consumers have into account when they decide to use a certain product.
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Uitenbroek, Daan Gerard. "Exercise behaviour." [S.l. : [Groningen] : s.n.] ; [University Library Groningen] [Host], 1995. http://irs.ub.rug.nl/ppn/141156163.
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Hanratty, Marcus. "Design for Sustainable Behaviour : a conceptual model and intervention selection model for changing behaviour through design." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2015. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/19548.
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This thesis is based in the research area of Design for Sustainable Behaviour (DfSB), a field which seeks to reduce the social and environmental impact of products in the use phase of their life cycle. There has been significant theoretical development in this area in recent years, leading to a proliferation of intervention strategies and design methodologies. However, there has been a recognised lack of a reliable means of selecting which intervention strategy to use in a given situation, and a lack of real world intervention case studies generating measurable medium-to-long term reductions in energy consumption. Addressing these gaps was a central focus of this research. This thesis documents four distinct research phases; an extensive literature review, an in-depth user study of existing energy consuming behaviours and motivations, the development and trialling of design interventions, and the evaluation of the generated theories as a tool for designers. Literature on domestic energy consumption, human behaviour, and approaches to changing behaviour was reviewed to establish the current level of thinking and to identify opportunities for further research. This guided the undertaking of the user study with a number of families in the East Midlands of the UK, which illuminated the relevant motivational goals, and highly routinized nature, displayed in many energy consuming behaviours. Over the course of this phase of the research journey a new conceptual model of behaviour in context was developed, and refined to create the Behavioural Intervention Selection Axis (BISA). These theoretical developments were then applied to the generation of DfSB intervention concepts, one of which was selected and developed to a functional prototype stage. These prototypes were trialled in situ in family homes for an extended period, and achieved a significant change in behaviour and related energy consumption. Further evaluation of the BISA as a tool to guide designers was performed through a series of workshops with design students, which ascertained its usefulness in this respect. Both the intervention development and trialling and the design workshops showed the conceptual model and BISA to be successful in providing designers with a reliable and useful means of selecting appropriate intervention strategies to change behaviour. In addition the intervention trial provided a wealth of qualitative insight into the way in which DfSB can effect behaviour, and the range of new motivational goals it can engender.
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Hollmann, Claudia. "A cognitive human behaviour model for pedestrian behaviour simulation." Thesis, University of Greenwich, 2015. http://gala.gre.ac.uk/13831/.
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Pedestrian behaviour simulation models are being developed with the intention to simulate human behaviour in various environments in both non-emergency and emergency situations. These models are applied with the objective to understand the underlying causes and dynamics of pedestrian behaviour and how the environment or the environment’s intrinsic procedures can be adjusted in order to provide an improvement of human comfort and safety. In order to realistically model pedestrian behaviour in complex environments, the specific human behaviour patterns which govern their behaviour need to be represented. It is thereby of importance to understand the causal chains between the surrounding conditions and the pedestrians’ behaviours: the impact of the environment’s purpose and facilities as well as the pedestrians’ individual goals on the pedestrians’ planning and route choice behaviour; the influence of emergent stimuli on the pedestrians’ plans and environment usage; the influence of the pedestrians’ environment usage under normal usage conditions on the pedestrians’ behaviour in response to a potential alarm event. In this thesis, a framework is developed for modelling advanced individual pedestrian behaviours and especially purpose-driven environment usage. The framework thereby aims to assist building and facility planners in improving a building’s layout in terms of pedestrian experience and walking routes. In this thesis, a comprehensive review on how individual pedestrian behaviour and the pedestrians’ environment usage are realised in current pedestrian behaviour simulation models has been undertaken. In addition, current theories on human decision making, goal-driven behaviour and emotion modelling have been surveyed from the research fields of artificial intelligence, virtual reality simulation, human psychology and human behavioural sciences. From this survey, theories suitable for this thesis’ cause have been identified and combined for the proposed Cognitive Pedestrian Agent Framework (CPAF). The proposed framework contains a sophisticated human decision making model, a multi-faceted individual knowledge representation, a model to realise situational and contextual awareness, and a novel realisation of a human path planning heuristic. The proposed framework has been demonstrated in the simulation of a building usage-cycle use case. Further, it has been outlined how the proposed framework could be used to model experiential alarm response behaviour.
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Fraser, Sydney Gordon. "Cognitive and behavioural strategies in the management of suicidal behaviour." Thesis, University of Leicester, 1987. http://hdl.handle.net/2381/34655.
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Study One of this research aimed to assess interpersonal problem-solving ability in individuals who evidenced suicidal behaviour. Suicide attempters were compared with mixed psychiatric outpatients and normal controls on a measure of means-ends problem-solving. The results of Study One suggested that suicidal individuals produced significantly fewer relevant means, story directed responses and sufficient narratives compared to both normal and psychiatric subjects. On qualitative indices of introspection, emotional relevant means and on time and obstacle recognition suicidals were significantly more deficient than control groups. Amongst suicidal subjects greater social dysfunction, stress and affective disturbance was associated with poorer interpersonal problem-solving. A model for the development of suicidal behaviour which suggested possible points of entry for intervention was proposed. In Study Two three treatment strategies for suicidal behaviour - Cognitive Therapy, Problem-solving Training and Psychiatric After Care were compared. In general the results suggested that all treatments were having some positive effects. The most significant changes in problem-solving skills occurred in the group receiving such training but improvement in this area was also noted in the Cognitive Therapy Group. It was proposed that aspects of Cognitive Therapy may have direct influence on problem-solving behaviour. Affective change seen at the end of eight weeks of treatment followed a different time course compared to cognitive change and the maintenance of such change to follow-up was shown to be dependent upon skills learnt during Cognitive Therapy and Problem-solving Training. Problem-solving Training had the most significant impact in improving social dysfunction and all treatments were shown to reduce suicidal ideation but at differing rates. One episode of suicide attempt occurred in the Psychiatric After Care Group representing a 6.25 percent rate of reoccurrence. It was concluded that the acquisition of interpersonal and cognitive skills held implications for the prophylaxis of suicidal behaviour. Suggestions for early primary intervention within the family and education systems were proposed.
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au, drbonser@starwon com, and David John Bonser. "Behavioural fluency for young children with autism." Murdoch University, 2002. http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/adt/browse/view/adt-MU20040210.104430.
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Fluency is functionally defined by: skill retention after a period without practice; skill endurance over longer intervals than encountered during practice; skill stability in the face of distraction; a performance that can be effortlessly applied to new environments; and a skill that adduces easily with other skills to form new repertoires (RESAA). Precision Teachers have found that fluency can be promoted by building the frequency of an accurate response to high rates.
Young children with autism often fail to achieve RESAA outcomes from accuracy-based discrete trial training and may benefit from frequency-building instruction. However, a lack of published empirical support has meant that many behavioural educators have resisted adopting these strategies. The purpose of the current study was to determine if frequency-building procedures will promote the fluent skill development of tasks encountered on many early intervention programs for 12 young children with autism.
The data showed that imitation, line tracing, drawing, simple addition, and phoneme reading skills taught to young children with autism achieved RESAA outcomes and responded to frequency building procedures in ways that were consistent with non-autistic populations. Secondly, frequency-building imitation to a rate-based fluency aim produced far greater gains on measures of generalised, imitation than using discrete trial training to an accuracy-based mastery criterion alone. Thirdly, increases in the rate of performance under frequency-building conditions positively predicted increases in the quality and quantity of applications, adductions, and skill generalisation for most skills. Fourthly, more exemplars are preferable to few during frequency-building practice. Fifthly, gross motor imitation, a controlled-operant task by definition, was modified and practiced to rates high enough to achieve RESAA criteria. Finally, discrete trial training was as effective as frequency-building when matched for reinforcement and practice, however was less efficient and rated less enjoyable by 5 children without developmental disabilities.
The findings were consistent with behavioural fluency predictions and support the inclusion of frequency building strategies to promote skill fluency for young children with autism.
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Tyska, Carvalho Jônata. "Adaptive behaviour in evolving robots." Thesis, University of Plymouth, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/10547.
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In this thesis, the evolution of adaptive behaviour in artificial agents is studied. More specifically, two types of adaptive behaviours are studied: articulated and cognitive ones. Chapter 1 presents a general introduction together with a brief presentation of the research area of this thesis, its main goals and a brief overview of the experimental studies done, the results and conclusions obtained. On chapter 2, I briefly present some promising methods that automatically generate robot controllers and/or body plans and potentially could help in the development of adaptive robots. Among these methods I present in details evolutionary robotics, a method inspired on natural evolution, and the biological background regarding adaptive behaviours in biological organisms, which provided inspiration for the studies presented in this thesis. On chapter 3, I present a detailed study regarding the evolution of articulated behaviours, i.e., behaviours that are organized in functional sub-parts, and that are combined and used in a sequential and context-dependent way, regardless if there is a structural division in the robot controller or not. The experiments performed with a single goal task, a cleaning task, showed that it is possible to evolve articulated behaviours even in this condition and without structural division of the robot controller. Also the analysis of the results showed that this type of integrated modular behaviours brought performance advantages compared to structural divided controllers. Analysis of robots' behaviours helped to clarify that the evolution of this type of behaviour depended on the characteristics of the neural network controllers and the robot's sensorimotor capacities, that in turn defined the capacity of the robot to generate opportunity for actions, which in psychological literature is often called affordances. In chapter 4, a study seeking to understand the role of reactive strategies in the evolution of cognitive solutions, i.e. those capable of integrating information over time encoding it on internal states that will regulate the robot's behaviour in the future, is presented. More specifically I tried to understand whether the existence of sub-optimal reactive strategies prevent the development of cognitive solutions, or they can promote the evolution of solutions capable of combining reactive strategies and the use of internal information for solving a response delayed task, the double t-maze. The results obtained showed that reactive strategies capable of offloading cognitive work to the agent/environmental relation can promote, rather than prevent the evolution of solutions relying on internal information. The analysis of these results clarified how these two mechanisms interact producing a hybrid superior and robust solution for the delayed response task.
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Wiggs, Luci. "Sleep problems and daytime behaviour in children with severe learning disabilities." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.320113.
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Guan, Jie Qi. "Dysfunctional auditing behaviour : a research on auditors' behaviour in Macau." Thesis, University of Macau, 2009. http://umaclib3.umac.mo/record=b1950712.
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Adams, J. R. "Young people and road user behaviour : attitudes, judgements and behaviour." Thesis, Cranfield University, 1992. http://hdl.handle.net/1826/4179.
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The problem of the disproportionately high accident and
offence rate of young drivers is a major area for concern
in the field of road safety (Cameron, 1982,1983; Jonah,
1986). Research suggests that young drivers have a
propensity to become involved in risk-taking behaviours
and that this may be due to both motivational factors
(Schuman, et al, 1967; MacMillan, 1975; Wilde, 1982;
Jessor, 1987), and the components of risk perception
(Quenault et al, 1968; Quimby and Watts, 1981; Finn and
Bragg, 1986; Mathews and Moran, 1986).
The present study employed two distinct methodologies
(surveys and the relatively novel technique of
interactive video) in order to examine the attitudes,
judgements and behaviours of a sample of young drivers
(17-19 years) and pre-drivers (11-18 years).
The questionnaire surveys and the Interactive Video
Driving Programme (I. V. D. P. ) revealed that distinct
attitudes towards driving are held as early as 11 years of
age, and that there are several attitudinal, judgemental
and behavioural dimensions along which the sexes and/or
the developmental groups within the driver and pre-driver
sample, could be discriminated. These dimensions related
to perceptions of driving offences, risk-taking attitudes
and behaviours, hazard perception and evaluation, and road
environment awareness.
The use of the I. V. D. P. allowed the examination of driving
behaviours and judgements in simulated decision
situations. Results indicated that there were some
differences in the results produced by the two
methodologies. Results tend to suggest that the more
interactive and pictorial modes of information
presentation may be more successful in assisting young
people to develop more accurate mental representations of
the road traffic environment.
The results are discussed in terms of their implications
for the design and implementation of school-based
pre/driver education programmes. Specifically, issues
such as information content and presentation, and the
targeting of information at young people of different
developmental stages are addressed.
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Francis-McLaren, Edna. "Familial factors in behaviour disorders in children : (family and behaviour)." Thesis, Cardiff University, 1988. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.278699.
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Sun, Ao Ph D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Singular behaviour and long time behaviour of mean curvature flow." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2020. https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/126938.
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Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mathematics, May, 2020Cataloged from the official PDF of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 125-130).
In this thesis, we investigate two asymptotic behaviours of the mean curvature flow. The first one is the asymptotic behaviour of singularities of the mean curvature flow, and the asymptotic limit is modelled by the tangent flows. The second one is the asymptotic behaviour of the mean curvature flow as time goes to infinity. We will study several problems related to the asymptotic behaviours. The first problem is the partial regularity of the limit. The partial regularity of mean curvature flow without any curvature assumptions was first studied by Ilmanen. We will follow the idea of Ilmanen to study the partial regularity of other asymptotic limit. In particular, we introduce a generalization of Colding-Minicozzi's entropy in a closed manifold, which plays a significant role. The second problem is the genericity of the tangent flows of mean curvature flow. The generic mean curvature flow was introduced by Colding-Minicozzi. Furthermore, they introduced mean curvature flow entropy and use it to study the generic tangent flows of mean curvature flow. We study the multiplicity of the generic tangent flow. In particular, we prove that the generic compact tangent flow of mean curvature flow of surfaces has multiplicity 1. This result partially addresses the famous multiplicity 1 conjecture of Ilmanen. One key idea is defining a local version of Colding-Minicozzi's entropy. We also discuss some related results. These results include a joint work with Zhichao Wang and a joint work with Julius Baldauf.
by Ao Sun.
Ph. D.
Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mathematics
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Stadler, Sophia. "Child disruptive behaviour problems, problem perception and help-seeking behaviour." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/26942.
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Disruptive behaviour problems in early childhood are found to be associated with many negative long-term outcomes, such as antisocial behaviour, adolescent delinquency, and substance abuse (Kellam, Werthamer-Larsson & Dolan (1991), as cited in Butler, 2005:1). Even after adolescence this arises, for, as Vogel (2008:16) states the 'frequency of behavioural problems or challenging behaviour among the youth of today often predicts the size of our future prison population'. These findings clearly highlight the importance of early identification of behavioural problems, adequate preventative intervention (Butler, 2005:1) and the necessity for early intervention to prevent their continuity, since behaviour problems are found to worsen without treatment (Loeber, 1982, cited in Butler, 2005:1). The goal of this study is to gain an understanding of disruptive behaviour in primary school learners. To achieve this goal, the objectives of this are to explore the nature of child disruptive behaviour problems; to explore parents and teachers' problem perception of child disruptive behaviour; to explore the problem threshold of parents and teachers toward child disruptive behaviour; and to explore their help-seeking behaviour. The study's aim, therefore, is to better understand and gain more insight in child disruptive behaviour problems before a threshold is reached by parents and teachers and help is sought from social service professionals. The study uses an exploratory qualitative research design to gain insight into child disruptive behaviour problems, problem perceptions and help-seeking behaviour in the Southern Cape Karoo District in the Western Cape. Child disruptive behaviour patterns were analysed along a three-point continuum (from less severe - 'preventative'; to moderate - 'early intervention'; and most severe - 'statutory') based, on problem perceptions of parents, teachers and social service professionals. In addition, the present study examines parents and teachers' problem thresholds to identify help-seeking behaviour and sources. A purposive sampling technique was used to select the participants according to appropriation and availability. Parents and teachers were contacted to participate voluntarily in the research from schools in the area - Acacia Primary School, Baartmansfontein Primary School, Buffelsriver Private Primary School and Matjiesfontein Primary School. The social service professionals who participated consisted of social workers, social auxiliary workers and police officials from the Department of Social Development, Child Welfare SA and the South African Police Service. The study consisted of a broad range of child ages and parental ages. Parent participants also included biological and foster parents. Data was gathered by means of a semi-structured interview schedule administered during 24 individual interviews. The schedule is based on information obtained from the literature review relevant to the models and theories selected. Previous research done by Jessica Hankinson in 2009 in America on child psychopathology, parental problem perception, and help-seeking behaviours was used as a reference for creating the data collection tool, since she also focused on child behavioural problems and used similar models in the theories. This tool was created in such a way as to be relevant to the South African context. The findings confirmed the serious nature of child disruptive behaviour amongst primary school learners, including abusive behaviour, assault, bullying, fighting, swearing, theft, criminal involvement, substance abuse, truancy and school dropouts. The participants were found to be able to perceive their child's problem behaviour and to perceive themselves to be competent parents in dealing with disruptive behaviour. Child disruptive behaviour was found to have a significant effect on classroom learning. Despite legislation banning this, the participants still resort to punitive corrective measures. Stigma related to professional services and the privacy of the family are found to be very relevant in help-seeking efforts. This lead to the conclusion that child disruptive behaviour may become a normal and acceptable phenomenon, and thus leads to late reporting - and social services being contacted only as a last resort. The most important recommendation resulting from the study indicates that there is a need for prevention and early intervention services for child disruptive behaviour. This should address the escalation of the behaviour that later results in the need for statutory services. The study further indicates that various sectors (social workers, teachers, community structures and the departments) need to collaborate and form partnerships in order to enhance the early reporting of children in need and the accessibility and availability of services rendered in rural areas. This could enhance the early identification, reporting and service delivery in order to find problem resolutions.
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Tantam, Grace. "Directly observed parenting behaviours and their effect on child literacy and behaviour." Thesis, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.521764.
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Sandilands, Victoria. "Preening behaviour in laying hens : its control and association with other behaviours." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.368600.
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Sprague, Daniel Alexander. "Modelling health behaviour." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2015. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/77458/.
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Many diseases can be prevented or mitigated through behaviour change, but we lack a quantitative model that can accurately predict these changes and inform policies designed to promote them. Here we introduce a quantitative model of health behaviour that takes into account individual-level barriers, the health system, and spread between individuals. We investigate limits of the model where each of these determining factors is dominant, and use them to predict behaviour from data. We apply the model to individual-level geographic barriers to mothers giving birth in a health facility, and find evidence that ease-of-access is a major determinant of delivery location. The geographic barriers allow us to explain the observed spatial distribution of this behaviour, and to accurately predict low prevalence regions. We then apply the model to the role of the health system in determining health facility usage by mothers of sick children. We show that local health facility quality does predict usage, but that this predictive power is significantly less than that gained by including unaccounted-for spatial correlation such as social influence. We also show evidence that results-based funding, rather than traditional input-based funding, increases usage. We develop a psychologically-motivated ‘complex contagion’ model for social influence and incorporate it into a general model of behaviour spread. We apply this model to short-lived behavioural fads, and show that ‘nudges’ can be very effective in systems with social influence. We successfully fit the model to data for the online spread of real-world behaviour, and use it to predict the peak time and duration of a fad before the peak occurred. Finally, we discuss ways to incorporate disease state into the model, and to relax the limits used in the rest of the thesis. We consider a model which links health behaviour to disease, and show that complex contagion leads to a feature that is not present in traditional models of disease: the survival of an epidemic depends non-trivially on the initial fraction of the population that is infected. We then introduce two possible models that include both social influence and an inhomogeneous population, and discuss the type of data that might be required to use them predictively. The model introduced here can be used to understand and predict health behaviours, and we therefore believe that it provides a valuable tool for informing policies to combat disease.
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Couzin, Iain D. "Collective animal behaviour." Thesis, University of Bath, 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.301544.
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I investigate collective behaviour using a wide range of theoretical and experimental approaches. Individual-based (Lagrangian) computer modelling is used extensively to reveal how individual movement and interactions result in group characteristics. This technique is used to gain insight into the structured patterns of movement within human crowds and the development of trail networks by ants. These models reveal the importance of interactions among individuals to density-dependent group behaviour. A simulation of animal groups in three-dimensional space reveals the existence of several robust collective patterns. Simulated groups show similar group-level behaviour and internal structure to natural groups. The model also reveals how differences among individuals influence group structure, and how individuals employing simple, local rules of thumb, can accurately change their relative position within a group (for example, to move to the centre, or to the periphery) without necessitating information regarding their current position within the group. New techniques in computer vision are introduced that can facilitate the automatic analysis of collective motion. This software can simultaneously track and analyse the movement of a large number (hundreds) of organisms. Computer vision is used to reveal the spatio-temporal patterns of activity in ant colonies for the first time. I also show how it can record detailed aspects of individual behaviour, including the movement of, and production of honeydew and offspring by, aphids. This technique is used in a detailed analysis of ant exploratory behaviour, revealing temporal and spatial information about the movement patterns of individual ants, and the relationship between individual behaviour and collective exploration. Simultaneous digital tracking of organisms is a powerful technique that in the future is likely to provide insight into the behaviour of many animal groups.
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Theodoulou, Stella. "Construing economic behaviour." Thesis, London Metropolitan University, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.297586.
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Padula, Mario. "Household investment behaviour." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.252203.
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Sebastian, Maria Treesa. "Modelling Bitcell Behaviour." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Statistik och maskininlärning, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-166218.
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With advancements in technology, the dimensions of transistors are scaling down. It leads to shrinkage in the size of memory bitcells, increasing its sensitivity to process variations introduced during manufacturing. Failure of a single bitcell can cause the failure of an entire memory; hence careful statistical analysis is essential in estimating the highest reliable performance of the bitcell before using them in memory design. With high repetitiveness of bitcell, the traditional method of Monte Carlo simulation would require along time for accurate estimation of rare failure events. A more practical approach is importance sampling where more samples are collected from the failure region. Even though importance sampling is much faster than Monte Carlo simulations, it is still fairly time-consuming as it demands an iterative search making it impractical for large simulation sets. This thesis proposes two machine learning models that can be used in estimating the performance of a bitcell. The first model predicts the time taken by the bitcell for read or write operation. The second model predicts the minimum voltage required in maintaining the bitcell stability. The models were trained using the K-nearest neighbors algorithm and Gaussian process regression. Three sparse approximations were implemented in the time prediction model as a bigger dataset was available. The obtained results show that the models trained using Gaussian process regression were able to provide promising results.
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Poulton, D. A. "Quantum circuit behaviour." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.342504.
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Dee, Hannah-Mary. "Explaining visible behaviour." Thesis, University of Leeds, 2005. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1338/.
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This thesis presents a novel approach to the problem of behaviour modelling within computer vision. This technique is not based upon statistical measures of typicality, but upon building an understanding of the way people navigate towards a goal. Representing movement through the scene in terms of the known goals and obstacles and interpreting people's behaviour as representative of underlying intentions enables behaviour to be explained in terms of these previously defined goals. A family of related algorithms for performing this goal-directed analysis of behaviour are presented and evaluated, alongside a number of metrics for measuring how well the computed explanation matches the observed behaviour. These measurements can be interpreted as measurements of goal-directedness or intentionality. The system is evaluated using a novel methodology which involves comparing the algorithmic output with the performance of humans engaged in a visual surveillance task. An application of this technique is demonstrated within the visual surveillance domain, providing classification of behaviour patterns as explicable or inexplicable. The advantages of such an approach are multiple: it handles the presence of movable goals (for example, parked cars) with ease, and trajectories which have never before been presented to the system can be classified as explicable. The output of the system (for example �Agent n is heading towards goal m� with an associated score indicating how good this explanation is) are easily interpreted. The systems described in this thesis could also in principle be extended to handle richer varieties of scene, moving obstacles, and more complicated systems of goals.
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Giles, Christopher G. "Motorcycle steering behaviour." Thesis, University of Leeds, 1985. http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/8167/.
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The thinking behind the choice of a data recording method that will be used to gather information on the frequency responses of motorcycles is discussed. The design and development of a microcomputer based data acquisition system (including transducers and signal conditioning circuitry) is described, along with the test and data processing strategies to be used. A new theoretical model is developed which includes a frame flexibility that allows the rear wheel of the motorcycle to yaw and camber about an inclined axis. The effects of changes in axis position and stiffness are investigated, and stability results are presented for the straight-running condition. The measurement of this stiffness (and that relating to a flexibility involving the front frame) for a large motorcycle, by both static and dynamic methods, is described. The nature of the flexibility involving the front wheel assembly is examined, and conclusions are drawn regarding the validity of theoretical models and the use of appropriate stiffness measurement methods. Theoretical frequency responses of a motorcycle to steering torque inputs are calculated for the straight-running condition. An attempt is made to interpret the responses by studying the effects on them of various motorcycle parameter alterations, and comparing these with the changes in handling performance as predicted by riders' experiences with real machines. The common notion that there exists a trade-off between stability and responsiveness is examined. Two new theoretical models, each representing a motorcycle towing a type of trailer, are developed and the stability results are presented. The effects of trailer parameter variations are described and recommendations relating to the design and use of the combinations are made. A description is given of the design and development of a microcomputer controlled, modal motion simulator, which employs stepper motors driving a scale model motorcycle. The simulation strategy and software are discussed and improvements are suggested.
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DE, MAIO GABRIELE. "Risk-taking behaviour." Doctoral thesis, Università degli studi di Pavia, 2022. http://hdl.handle.net/11571/1452758.
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The environment we interact with constantly confronts us with challenges that may cause us potential harm or provide a reward depending on our choices. The ability to evaluate and weigh the trade-off between a potential win and a harmful loss is called risk-taking ability. This Thesis aims to better clarify some of the many unknown aspects regarding this function. As an index of real-life risk-taking tendencies, we chose to use the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART).
This Thesis is divided into two chapters. The first chapter describes the effects on risk-taking behaviour of 2 techniques of vestibular stimulation: Caloric Vestibular Stimulation (CVS) and Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS). More in detail, contrary to our predictions, results in Study 1 show how the CVS can selectively increase risk tendencies only for bodily-related stimuli, implying that the CVS is not sufficient to modify risk-taking behaviour as a whole, but a biologically salient and bodily-related stimulus is necessary to allow the effects of the CVS on the representation of the body to interfere with the decision regarding dangerous situations. As a continuation, Study 2 directly deals with the influence of the vestibular input on risk-taking. To assess that, the BART is administered to subjects undergoing GVS. A significant reduction of hazardous tendencies is reported during L-GVS when compared with the opposite polarity, highlighting the vestibular contribution to high cognitive functions, risk-taking in particular, with a polarity specific effect that mainly excites the activity of the right hemisphere.
In continuity with the previous, chapter 2 shows the effects on risk-taking of more ecological and natural tools. More precisely, Study 3 reports our findings regarding short-term alterations of the gravitational signals to the brain and how they influenced the willingness to take risks. Our results demonstrated an effect of head orientation on risk propensity, where an upright head position showed behavioural patterns directed towards more conservative and less risky choices compared to a downward head position (i.e. “bed rest”). A coherent and well-integrated vestibular input to the brain is needed to properly cope with different environmental situations.
Lastly, Study 4 displays an attempt to detect possible changes in risk-taking after the prolonged time spent in isolation during the Covid-19 lockdown. No significant modification in risk tendencies was found as the time spent in isolation increased.
Together, these results highlight the importance of a preserved ability to judge risk situations and have the ability to cope with challenging environments. In particular, the understanding of the neurocognitive substrates underpinning this function is of primary importance in order to begin to sort out the many unknown sides of this topic.The environment we interact with constantly confronts us with challenges that may cause us potential harm or provide a reward depending on our choices. The ability to evaluate and weigh the trade-off between a potential win and a harmful loss is called risk-taking ability. This Thesis aims to better clarify some of the many unknown aspects regarding this function. As an index of real-life risk-taking tendencies, we chose to use the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). This Thesis is divided into two chapters. The first chapter describes the effects on risk-taking behaviour of 2 techniques of vestibular stimulation: Caloric Vestibular Stimulation (CVS) and Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS). More in detail, contrary to our predictions, results in Study 1 show how the CVS can selectively increase risk tendencies only for bodily-related stimuli, implying that the CVS is not sufficient to modify risk-taking behaviour as a whole, but a biologically salient and bodily-related stimulus is necessary to allow the effects of the CVS on the representation of the body to interfere with the decision regarding dangerous situations. As a continuation, Study 2 directly deals with the influence of the vestibular input on risk-taking. To assess that, the BART is administered to subjects undergoing GVS. A significant reduction of hazardous tendencies is reported during L-GVS when compared with the opposite polarity, highlighting the vestibular contribution to high cognitive functions, risk-taking in particular, with a polarity specific effect that mainly excites the activity of the right hemisphere. In continuity with the previous, chapter 2 shows the effects on risk-taking of more ecological and natural tools. More precisely, Study 3 reports our findings regarding short-term alterations of the gravitational signals to the brain and how they influenced the willingness to take risks. Our results demonstrated an effect of head orientation on risk propensity, where an upright head position showed behavioural patterns directed towards more conservative and less risky choices compared to a downward head position (i.e. “bed rest”). A coherent and well-integrated vestibular input to the brain is needed to properly cope with different environmental situations. Lastly, Study 4 displays an attempt to detect possible changes in risk-taking after the prolonged time spent in isolation during the Covid-19 lockdown. No significant modification in risk tendencies was found as the time spent in isolation increased. Together, these results highlight the importance of a preserved ability to judge risk situations and have the ability to cope with challenging environments. In particular, the understanding of the neurocognitive substrates underpinning this function is of primary importance in order to begin to sort out the many unknown sides of this topic.
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Church, E. Robert. "Smoking behaviour : determinants of puffing parameters, and behavioural and electrocortical correlates." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.330168.
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Mantzari, Eleni. "Financial incentives for health-behaviour change : assessing behavioural and cognitive consequences." Thesis, King's College London (University of London), 2013. https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/financial-incentives-for-healthbehaviour-change(b4ca355a-4c2e-4456-9133-16703ce878e8).html.
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Offering individuals financial incentives for changing their health-related behaviour is one possible strategy for improving health and reducing morbidity and premature mortality. However, several important aspects of the behavioural and cognitive consequences of this type of intervention remain unclear. First, there is uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of financial incentives in achieving sustained changes in repeated health behaviours, as well as of the factors that might modify any effects. Second, the variables that might confound the impact of incentives on health-related behaviours remain unexplored. Third, the speculated unintended consequences of financial incentives on cognitive processes, including information processing and decision-making, have yet to be examined systematically. This thesis addresses these uncertainties. Study 1 is a systematic review and meta-analysis aiming to estimate the effectiveness of financial incentives in achieving sustained change across repeated health-behaviours (smoking cessation, healthier eating, including reduced alcohol consumption and increased physical activity) and to examine the factors that modify any impacts. Findings indicate that although financial incentives changed repeated health-behaviours, their role in reducing non-communicable disease burden is potentially limited, given effects were not sustained beyond three months after incentive removal. Results also highlight the role of recipients’ deprivation level in modifying incentive impacts on behaviour overall, as well as that of incentive value in modifying impacts on smoking cessation. Study 2 is a qualitative study exploring the variables that might confound the impact of financial incentives on health-related behaviours. The study describes and compares the stop-smoking experiences of pregnant smokers’ who were incentivised for smoking cessation with those of women who were not. Results highlight the need to be cautious about attributing the effects of financial-incentive schemes to incentives per se. Given that incentive schemes are complex behavioural interventions, their impacts could derive from indirect influences, mediated by changes to some aspects of the process involved in their delivery, including the provision of increased support. Study 3 is a randomised controlled trial aiming to estimate further the effectiveness of financial incentives in changing health-related behaviours, by assessing their impact on uptake of the HPV vaccinations. The study also aims to examine the modifying role of recipients’ deprivation level and to addresses the uncertainty regarding the speculated unintended consequences of incentives on decision-making processes. Results indicate that although incentives increased vaccination completion rates, impacts were not modified by recipients’ deprivation level and uptake remained lower than the national target, necessitating consideration of other ways of achieving it. The quality of decisions to get vaccinated was unaffected by the offer of incentives. Knowledge of the vaccination’s side-effects, however, was not assessed in this study. Findings therefore, are not conclusive about the impact of incentives on the processing of risk-relevant information. Study 4 is a web-based experiment addressing the uncertainty regarding the speculated unintended consequences of financial incentives on information processing. It aims to determine the impact of incentives on the processing of risk-relevant information associated with an incentivised behaviour with potential adverse effects, as assessed by participants’ perceived risk related to engaging in the behaviour and their knowledge of its side-effects. The findings provide no evidence for the unintended consequences of incentives on the processing of risk-information. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the main findings and related implications for practice, policy and future research.
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Gonzalez, de Miguel Ana Maria. "Explorations into the behaviour-oriented nature of intelligence : fuzzy behavioural maps." Thesis, Sheffield Hallam University, 2003. http://shura.shu.ac.uk/19699/.
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This thesis explores the behaviour-oriented nature of intelligence and presents the definition and use of Fuzzy Behavioural Maps (FBMs) as a flexible development framework for providing complex autonomous agent behaviour. This thesis provides a proof-of-concept for simple FBMs, including some experimental results in Mobile Robotics and Fuzzy Logic Control. This practical work shows the design of a collision avoidance behaviour (of a mobile robot) using a simple FBM and, the implementation of this using a Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC). The FBM incorporates three causally related sensorimotor activities (moving around, perceiving obstacles and, varying speed). This Collision Avoidance FBM is designed (in more detail) using fuzzy relations (between levels of perception, motion and variation of speed) in the form of fuzzy control rules. The FLC stores and manipulates these fuzzy control (FBM) rules using fuzzy inference mechanisms and other related implementation parameters (fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic operators). The resulting FBM-FLC architecture controls the behaviour patterns of the agent. Its fuzzy inference mechanisms determine the level of activation of each FBM node while driving appropriate control actions over the creature's motors. The thesis validates (demonstrates the general fitness of) this control architecture through various pilot tests (computer simulations). This practical work also serves to emphasise some benefits in the use of FLC techniques to implement FBMs (e.g. flexibility of the fuzzy aggregation methods and fuzzy granularity).More generally, the thesis presents and validates a FBM Framework to develop more complex autonomous agent behaviour. This framework represents a top-down approach to derive the BB models using generic FBMs, levels of abstraction and refinement stages. Its major scope is to capture and model behavioural dynamics at different levels of abstraction (through different levels of refinement). Most obviously, the framework maps some required behaviours into connection structures of behaviour-producing modules that are causally related. But the main idea is following as many refinement stages as required to complete the development process. These refinement stages help to identify lower design parameters (i.e. control actions) rather than linguistic variables, fuzzy sets or, fuzzy inference mechanisms. They facilitate the definition of the behaviours selected from first levels of abstraction. Further, the thesis proposes taking the FBM Framework into the implementation levels that are required to build BB control architecture and provides and application case study. This describes how to develop a complex, non-hierarchical, multi-agent behaviour system using the refinement capabilities of the FBM Framework. Finally, the thesis introduces some more general ideas about the use of this framework to cope with some, current complexity issues around the behaviour-oriented nature of intelligence.
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Nye, Elizabeth. "Classroom behaviour management to support children's social, emotional, and behavioural development." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:cbf8fc9e-e095-42b7-a983-eedfdc407aa1.
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Introduction: Children's social, emotional, and behavioural difficulties are associated with reduced academic performance, stressed teacher-child relationships, and other negative academic and life outcomes. The Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management (IY TCM) programme is one intervention developed to address problematic behaviours via training teachers to use positive and proactive management strategies. The overall aim of this DPhil is to use the Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management programme as a case study for applying mixed methods at the systematic review level to ascertain what is known about both the programme's effectiveness and how people experience the course, and subsequently to use the systematic review's findings as a springboard (rather than as an end goal) for more exploratory research into 'for whom' the programme might work. Method: Study One is a mixed methods systematic review of IY TCM. It applied multilevel meta-analysis to RCT outcome data and grounded theory meta-synthesis to interview and focus group data on stakeholders' experiences of IY TCM. Quantitative and qualitative findings were cross-synthesised and mapped using an integrative grid. Study Two moves the field forward by filling a gap in the evidence base, as identified in Study One. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with special educational needs coordinators (SENCos) across Devon, exploring the acceptability and appropriateness of expanding IY TCM to the subgroup of children with special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream schools. Data were analysed thematically and mapped onto IY TCM content. Results: In Study One, nine studies reported across 14 papers met inclusion criteria for either quantitative or qualitative strands of this systematic review. Multilevel meta-analysis of RCTs (n=4) indicated that the programme produced teacher- and child-level results in the desired directions. Clear trends across all measured outcomes favoured the intervention group over the treatment-as-usual comparison. Qualitative meta-synthesis (n=5) illuminated a cyclical learning process and broader conceptualisation of teacher and child outcomes than was evident in the quantitative evidence. Notably, RCT data on teacher outcomes were limited to self-reported or observed behaviours, while teachers described other benefits from IY TCM including increased knowledge and emotional well-being. Cross-synthesis of findings from the two review strands highlighted harmony across the RCT and qualitative evidence but also a number of areas in which constructs that were prioritised by one type of research were not integrated into the other. Study Two generated classroom management strategies from SENCos, which aligned closely with strategies taught in IY TCM, indicating that IY TCM would be both acceptable and applicable (if not sufficient) for use when working with children identified with SEN and behavioural difficulties in schools. Discussion: Based on the positive effects of implementing IY TCM despite very few studies to power analyses, the programme appears to offer tangible benefits to both teachers and children. It is possible that results are underestimated due to limited types of outcomes measured and absence of experiential data from additional stakeholders (e.g., parents). Depending on current provision of special educational needs services, schools operating inclusion models are likely to find these strategies beneficial for children identified with SEN, and this subgroup should be explicitly examined in future IY TCM studies.
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Williams, Deirdre. "Cognitive functioning in children with language impairment and/or hyperactivity." Thesis, University of East Anglia, 1996. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.320779.
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Russell, Avery L., Sarah J. Morrison, Eleni H. Moschonas, and Daniel R. Papaj. "Patterns of pollen and nectar foraging specialization by bumblebees over multiple timescales using RFID." NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/622868.
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The ecological success of social insects is frequently ascribed to improvements in task performance due to division of labour amongst workers. While much research has focused on improvements associated with lifetime task specialization, members of colonies can specialize on a given task over shorter time periods. Eusocial bees in particular must collect pollen and nectar rewards to survive, but most workers appear to mix collection of both rewards over their lifetimes. We asked whether bumblebees specialize over timescales shorter than their lifetime. We also explored factors that govern such patterns, and asked whether reward specialists made more foraging bouts than generalists. In particular, we described antennal morphology and size of all foragers in a single colony and related these factors to each forager's complete foraging history, obtained using radio frequency identification (RFID). Only a small proportion of foragers were lifetime specialists; nevertheless, >50% of foragers specialized daily on a given reward. Contrary to expectations, daily and lifetime reward specialists were not better foragers (being neither larger nor making more bouts); larger bees with more antennal olfactory sensilla made more bouts, but were not more specialized. We discuss causes and functions of short and long-term patterns of specialization for bumblebee colonies.
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Blandon, Peter. "Forecasting investment behaviour : the felling behaviour of Japanese private forest owners." Thesis, Bangor University, 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.358017.
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Raveendiraraj, Arunasalam. "Coupling of mechanical behaviour and water retention behaviour in unsaturated soils." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2009. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/717/.
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Previous research has shown coupling of mechanical behaviour and water retention behaviour in unsaturated soils at a constitutive level, with degree of saturation (in addition to suction) influencing mechanical behaviour and volumetric strains influencing water retention behaviour. An innovative elasto-plastic modelling framework incorporating coupling of mechanical behaviour and water retention behaviour has been proposed by Wheeler, Sharma and Buisson (2003) for isotropic stress states. These authors presented a single constitutive model for both mechanical behaviour and water retention behaviour. They did not, however, fully validate the model against experimental results. The objectives of the current research included undertaking an experimental programme specifically designed to investigate the coupling between mechanical behaviour and water retention behaviour, and using experimental results to investigate the validity of the Wheeler et al. (2003) model. Developments and refinement of the model were also to be explored An experimental programme of suction-controlled testing was carried out on one-dimensionally compacted samples of speswhite kaolin in a single steel-walled triaxial cell and an isotropic cell. In addition to standard stress paths, such as isotropic loading, unloading, wetting, drying and shearing, many non-standard stress path tests were also performed. These produced a unique data set, providing evidence of aspects of behaviour never previously studied. In terms of constitutive model development, the Wheeler et al. (2003) model was extended to triaxial stress states, to include the role of deviator stress. In addition, bounding surface plasticity concepts were used to develop simple realistic water retention models for rigid or deformable unsaturated soils, and a new bounding surface plasticity version of the Wheeler et al. (2003) model was developed. However, a problem of theoretical inconsistency in the Wheeler et al. (2003) model was identified, which occurs if plastic volumetric strains are predicted while the soil is fully saturated. A simple, but rather unsatisfactory, solution to this inconsistency was identified, and further research is required to identify a more satisfactory solution. Codes were developed for stress point simulations with the original version of the Wheeler et al. (2003) model, the new bounding surface plasticity version of the model and the conventional Barcelona Basic Model. Simulations were performed of all the experimental tests performed in the current research, to explore the performance of the different models. Comparison of model simulations with experimental results showed that the Wheeler et al. (2003) model was able to represent basic concepts of the mechanical behaviour of unsaturated soils, but sometimes not with the same level of accuracy or flexibility as the Barcelona Basic Model. The Wheeler et al. (2003) model was however able to capture features of mechanical and water retention behaviour that could not be represented by the Barcelona Basic Model or by other conventional models for mechanical or water retention behaviour. The bounding surface plasticity version of the Wheeler et al. (2003) model sometimes produced improved predictions. There remained, however, specific aspects of behaviour that were not well matched by either versions of the Wheeler et al. (2003) model. Some of these may be solved in the future by refinement of specific constitutive equations within the Wheeler et al. (2003) model, but others appear more likely to be insoluble without a major change to the proposed modelling framework.
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Karlsson, Johanna. "Correlation between owner-assessed behaviour characteristics and stress behaviour in dogs." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Biologi, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-120553.
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Stress in dogs can contribute to behavioural problems which may lead to rehoming or euthanasia of the dog. The aim of this study was to investigate how dog characteristics correlated to stress, whether it is possible to detect behavioural problems in order to treat the dogs. Twenty-two dogs were evaluated according to their behavioural problem by a veterinarian and a dog trainer. The dogs participated in a behavioural and physiological test, and the results were compared to characteristics gathered by a Canine Behavioural Assessment and Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ), filled in by the dogs’ owners. The result showed that the total amount of stress related behaviour correlated positively to the C-BARQ score for attachment and attention-seeking behaviour and had a tendency of positive correlation to energy level and owner-directed aggression. Both the veterinarian behavioural problem score and trainer behavioural problem score had a tendency of positive correlation to stranger-directed fear. Dogs that, according to the C-BARQ, were found to be very attached and attention-seeking, showed high energy level or owner-directed aggression were likely to show stress related behaviours during the test in my study. By addressing the stress, the behavioural problems may be eased.
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French, Richard L. B. "Exploring links between neurophysiology and behaviour with a behaviour-based robot." Thesis, University of Southampton, 2002. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/256282/.
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Mansoubi, Maedeh. "Sedentary behaviour and physical activity in adults : measurement and behaviour change." Thesis, Loughborough University, 2015. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/19986.
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The increasing evidence of associations between sedentary behaviour and low levels of physical activity in adults and both immediate and long term health implications is of public health concern. There is a need to further our understanding of adult's health behaviours, to facilitate the development of behaviour change strategies promoting healthy behaviours. This thesis provides four independent but interlinked studies focusing on adult s sedentary behaviour and physical activity in the context of measurement and behaviour change. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the thesis where the scene is set for the placement of the studies in this thesis in the field of sedentary behaviour, physical activity, and measurement methods. Chapter 2 describes a systematic review of the relationship between sedentary behaviour and physical activity in adults. This systematic review is of primary importance as it was instrumental in shaping and informing the direction of the research described in later chapters. Chapter 3 describes a laboratory study investigating the measurement of energy expenditure during common sitting and standing tasks and also examines the 1.5 MET definition of sedentary behaviour. This study provides evidence that the 1.5 MET threshold for sedentary behaviours seems reasonable however some sitting-based activities may be classified as non-sedentary in people of differing weight status. This study raised some important questions on the validity of objective measurement devices for differentiating between sitting and standing postures. Thus, Chapter 4 of this thesis describes a laboratory study investigating the validity of the ActiGraph inclinometer algorithms for differentiating between sitting and standing postures. Chapter 5 is an intervention investigating sedentary behavior and physical activity compensation outside working hours in a sample of office workers exposed to sit-to-stand desks in the workplace. This thesis found that light physical activity, especially standing, could be one of the most efficient and feasible behaviours to replace sedentary behaviour. Such findings add considerably to the existing literature. Targeting such facets of adults behaviour and specially office workers holds great potential for behaviour change strategies.
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Brown, Daniel. "Investigating the Role of Past Behaviour and Habits in Health Behaviour." Thesis, Griffith University, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/395107.
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Globally, there is a significant burden of disease due to unhealthy patterns of behaviours. Poor quality nutrition, over-exposure to the sun, insufficient oral hygiene practices, and excessive alcohol consumption are but a few examples of health-related behaviours that affect mortality and quality of life. To effectively modify people’s health behaviour, mechanisms of change must be isolated and tested. Previous research has often used theories of social cognition to understand, explain, and predict health behaviour. More recently, however, researchers are attempting to overcome the notable criticisms of such theories; for example, the tendency to focus on conscious, deliberative processes. To this end, understanding the role of non-conscious, automatic processes have come under the spotlight. The current thesis attempts to contribute to this literature by addressing three main aims. First, this thesis aimed to understand the effect of past behaviour in an integrated, dual-phase model of health behaviour that focuses on multiple deliberative processes. Second, this thesis aimed to explain the effects of past behaviour on future behaviour, with a focus on the role of habit. The final aim was to explore lay representations of habit. As a thesis presented by a series of publications, the four papers that comprise this program of research are presented as journal manuscripts.
Paper 1 aimed to understand the effect of past behaviour in an integrated, multi-theory, dual phase model of health behaviour, exploring fruit and vegetable consumption of Australian heavy goods vehicle drivers (n = 212). The model integrated and tested constructs from self-determination theory (i.e., autonomous motivation), the theory of planned behaviour (i.e., attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, and intention), and the health action process approach (i.e., action planning and coping planning), with the addition of past behaviour. Structural equation modelling identified the relative contributions of motivation, social cognition, and volition to the prediction of fruit and vegetable consumption, one week later. Importantly, past behaviour was shown to attenuate model effects, particularly to the intention-behaviour relationship. This study explicitly demonstrated the effect of past on future behaviour and found significant residual variance unexplained by the conscious, deliberative processes.
To address the second aim of the thesis by seeking to understand which elements of past behaviour exert influence on future behaviour, Paper 2 tested a dual-process model that incorporated constructs that underpinned reasoned action and automatic constructs across three distinct health behaviours and populations: binge drinking in university students (n = 319), dental flossing in adults (n = 251), and parental sun safety behaviour of children 2 – 5 years of age (n = 184). Furthermore, Paper 2 sought to use a measure of past behaviour that combined long-term, recent, and routine patterns of behaviour. This was used to best model potentially distinct patterns of past behaviour; but, to also overcome criticisms that argue past-future behaviour effects are inflated by shared-method variance. The study adopted a prospective design with two waves of data collection, spaced six weeks apart. Structural equation modelling found that the automatic, but not reasoned action constructs, mediated the past-to-future behaviour relationship across all three behaviours.
In further addressing the second aim of the thesis, Paper 3 aimed to explore the role of two different types of habits (i.e., goal-directed and counter-intentional) simultaneously with a reasoned action measure (i.e., intention) in two health-promoting nutrition behaviours (i.e., eating the recommended serves of fruits and vegetables and restricting sugar sweetened beverages) in two populations (i.e., middle school students aged 11 – 14 years (n = 266) and university students aged 17 – 24 years (n = 340)).
Results revealed different patterns of effects whereby intentions predicted both behaviours in both samples and goal-directed habits and counter-intentional habits only predicted fruit and vegetable consumption in the middle-school sample. This study highlighted how automatic processes may play a significant role in explaining and predicting health behaviours. Of note, in Paper 3, the habit for each behaviour that was measured using an avoidance-orientation (i.e., the habit to restrict or avoid) did not produce a significant effect. The non-significant effects could indicate that such habits do not play a role in health behaviour or, alternatively, demonstrate the participants had difficulty understanding and interpreting such questions. Understanding how the general population interprets the meaning of habit is therefore useful; yet, has rarely been explored.
Paper 4, in addressing the last aim of the thesis, sought to understand lay representations of habit using qualitative methodology across two studies. The first study used an online, open-ended questionnaire to elicit the most salient features of habit. The second study used interviews and focus groups to explore a more in-depth understanding of lay representations of habit by exploring what lay people identify as the important features of habit and which behaviours they identify as habitual. Paper 4 found that, overall, there were many consistencies with a lay and scientific representation of habit (e.g., automatic, frequently engaged). However, despite being able to identify specific features of habit, lay people, at times, identified habitual behaviours that were inconsistent with their definition. In particular, lay people often used the word habit to mean clustered, repetitive patterns of behaviour, synonymous with routine, or as something that is characteristic or typical of them. This highlights potential problems with how lay people may answer self-reported measures of habit and how they evaluate interventions seeking to modify habits. Furthermore, as researchers continue to explore other automatic and implicit processes (e.g., counter-intentional habits or implicit attitudes and motivations) there must be a coherent and consistent definition to distinguish between them.
Overall, the findings of this thesis make an important contribution to the health and behavioural medicine literature by contributing to understanding the role of past behaviour and habit in explaining and predicting health behaviour. The research first corroborated the attenuation effects of past behaviour on future behaviour in an integrated model of health behaviour. It was demonstrated that a significant portion of variance was left unexplained when only reasoned, deliberative processes are used in models of behaviour. The research then demonstrated that the residual variance of past-to-future behaviour was accounted for by automatic constructs (i.e., habit) in three distinct behaviours and populations. This was further expanded by exploring the role of two constructs representing automatic processes, goal-directed and counter-intentional habits, alongside intention. The inconsistent effects across behaviours and samples highlighted that little is known about how lay people represent habits, which likely influences how they interpret measures of habit. Therefore, the final paper qualitatively explored lay representations of habit, demonstrating that while there are some consistencies with a scientific understanding of habit, there remains a number of discrepancies. The findings of this thesis contribute to understanding the effects of past behaviour and habit on health behaviour. These findings highlight that further research is needed in enhancing the scientific conceptualisation of habit and in further understanding the conditions in which constructs representing non-conscious and automatic processes mediate the past-to-future behaviour relationship compared with constructs representing reasoned-action processes.Thesis (Professional Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Psychology (PhD ClinPsych)
School of Applied Psychology
Griffith Health
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Griffin, Deborah, and N/A. "Social Issue Exchange: An Exploration of Determinants and Outcomes." Griffith University. Department of Marketing, 2007. http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20070910.111229.
Full textAbstract:
It has been argued that marketing contributes to society by finding solutions to a diverse range of social issues. Importantly, research within the (social) marketing domain recognises that the concept of exchange is a fundamental aspect of influencing people to take on positive social issue behaviours (Andreasen, 1995; Rothschild, 1999). However, regardless of the influence of social marketing, ultimately the behavioural exchange resides with the individual. This infers that exchange can be considered from the individuals (i.e., consumers) point of view, of intrapersonal or self-exchange (Gould, 1994). Furthermore, the conditions that facilitate or constrain this form of exchange are found within the individual and relate to for example, individual differences. However, in recent years there has been limited interest in exchange theory within the marketing domain and, in particular, exchange as a fundamental consumer behaviour phenomenon (Anderson et al, 1999; Gould, 1994). This study seeks to extend current consumer behaviour and social marketing knowledge in the areas of exchange theory and personality. Based on an examination of the extant literature, a model of determinants and outcomes of Social Issue Exchange was developed and empirically tested. The Social Issue Exchange Model proposed in this study accounts for a number of associations which includes a representation of personality termed pro-social orientation along with social issue involvement, attitude toward social issues, subjective assessment of negative consequences and feelings. The determinants of social issue exchange included the multi-component variable pro-social orientation comprising the traits risk aversion, locus of control, consideration of future consequences, susceptibility to normative influence and social responsibility along with the variables social issue involvement and attitude towards social issues. The outcomes of social issue exchange include the variables of subjective assessment of negative consequences and feelings. The study adopted a quantitative methodology using an Internet administered questionnaire that allowed for the measurement of the determinants and outcomes of social issue exchange. The construction of the questionnaire followed a sequential process which involved developing new measures, utilising and adapting existing measures and then pre-testing these measures to ensure the development of a psychometrically sound and respondent-friendly survey instrument. The final survey used Excess Alcohol Consumption and Speeding social issues as stimuli for the study. Data collection resulted in 1146 (comprising 559 for Speeding social issue, and 587 for Excess Alcohol Consumption social issue) useable surveys for subsequent analysis. Analysis included a number of statistical procedures including correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis and tests of the model via Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis. Overall, the findings provided support for the proposed Social Issue Exchange Model. In terms of the measurement model, the findings show that pro-social orientation accounted for different amounts of variance in the five traits, with consideration for further consequences accounting for the most variance and susceptibility to normative influence accounting for the least. In terms of the inner model, all the hypothesised paths were supported with the exception of attitude towards social issues and social issue exchange. A comparison of the smaller models (i.e., Speeding and Excess Alcohol Consumption) with the overall model indicated that largely the relationships were consistent, with the exception of social issue involvement and attitude towards social issues which was not supported in the Excess Alcohol Consumption model. The findings provide a number of theoretical and practical implications for research. From a theoretical perspective, broadening the concept of exchange to account for self-exchange in the context of social issue behaviours contributes to the body of knowledge on exchange. Moreover, aggregating traits to form the multi-component construct pro-social orientation takes a holistic approach to personality and thereby, provides greater clarification of the psychological processes that drive individuals to respond positively or negatively to social issues and associated behaviours. From a practical perspective, this study may lead to a better understanding of how personal characteristics can shape an individuals response to social issues as well as their behaviours. In summary, the importance of understanding the processes that influence individuals social issue behaviours provides a justification for this study. Accordingly, this study offers valuable insights into how exchange is an integral feature of individual behaviour change, as well as positive social change for society.
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Griffin, Deborah. "Social Issue Exchange: An Exploration of Determinants and Outcomes." Thesis, Griffith University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/367920.
Full textAbstract:
It has been argued that marketing contributes to society by finding solutions to a diverse range of social issues. Importantly, research within the (social) marketing domain recognises that the concept of exchange is a fundamental aspect of influencing people to take on positive social issue behaviours (Andreasen, 1995; Rothschild, 1999). However, regardless of the influence of social marketing, ultimately the behavioural exchange resides with the individual. This infers that exchange can be considered from the individual’s (i.e., consumer’s) point of view, of intrapersonal or self-exchange (Gould, 1994). Furthermore, the conditions that facilitate or constrain this form of exchange are found within the individual – and relate to for example, individual differences. However, in recent years there has been limited interest in exchange theory within the marketing domain and, in particular, exchange as a fundamental consumer behaviour phenomenon (Anderson et al, 1999; Gould, 1994). This study seeks to extend current consumer behaviour and social marketing knowledge in the areas of exchange theory and personality. Based on an examination of the extant literature, a model of determinants and outcomes of Social Issue Exchange was developed and empirically tested. The Social Issue Exchange Model proposed in this study accounts for a number of associations which includes a representation of personality termed pro-social orientation along with social issue involvement, attitude toward social issues, subjective assessment of negative consequences and feelings. The determinants of social issue exchange included the multi-component variable pro-social orientation comprising the traits risk aversion, locus of control, consideration of future consequences, susceptibility to normative influence and social responsibility along with the variables social issue involvement and attitude towards social issues. The outcomes of social issue exchange include the variables of subjective assessment of negative consequences and feelings. The study adopted a quantitative methodology using an Internet administered questionnaire that allowed for the measurement of the determinants and outcomes of social issue exchange. The construction of the questionnaire followed a sequential process which involved developing new measures, utilising and adapting existing measures and then pre-testing these measures to ensure the development of a psychometrically sound and respondent-friendly survey instrument. The final survey used Excess Alcohol Consumption and Speeding social issues as stimuli for the study. Data collection resulted in 1146 (comprising 559 for Speeding social issue, and 587 for Excess Alcohol Consumption social issue) useable surveys for subsequent analysis. Analysis included a number of statistical procedures including correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis and tests of the model via Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis. Overall, the findings provided support for the proposed Social Issue Exchange Model. In terms of the measurement model, the findings show that pro-social orientation accounted for different amounts of variance in the five traits, with consideration for further consequences accounting for the most variance and susceptibility to normative influence accounting for the least. In terms of the inner model, all the hypothesised paths were supported with the exception of attitude towards social issues and social issue exchange. A comparison of the smaller models (i.e., Speeding and Excess Alcohol Consumption) with the overall model indicated that largely the relationships were consistent, with the exception of social issue involvement and attitude towards social issues which was not supported in the Excess Alcohol Consumption model. The findings provide a number of theoretical and practical implications for research. From a theoretical perspective, broadening the concept of exchange to account for self-exchange in the context of social issue behaviours contributes to the body of knowledge on exchange. Moreover, aggregating traits to form the multi-component construct pro-social orientation takes a holistic approach to personality and thereby, provides greater clarification of the psychological processes that drive individuals to respond positively or negatively to social issues and associated behaviours. From a practical perspective, this study may lead to a better understanding of how personal characteristics can shape an individual’s response to social issues as well as their behaviours. In summary, the importance of understanding the processes that influence individuals’ social issue behaviours provides a justification for this study. Accordingly, this study offers valuable insights into how ‘exchange’ is an integral feature of individual behaviour change, as well as positive social change for society.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department of Marketing
Griffith Business School
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Rennie, Laura J. "The role of perspective in visualising health behaviours : effects on motivation and behaviour." Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.555107.
Full textAbstract:
Recent research has shown that using a third-person (observer's) perspective to visualise a behaviour (voting, studying) results in stronger motivation to engage in the visualised behaviour than when the first-person (own) perspective is used (Libby, Shaeffer, Eibach, & Slemmer, 2007; Vasquez & Buehler, 2007). This thesis was concerned with whether this effect could be replicated in a health context- whether the perspective used when visualising a health behaviour affected motivation and subsequent behaviour. Experiments 1 and 2 found, in contrast to previous research, that participants who used the first-person perspective to visualise a behaviour (blood donation, smoking cessation) were more motivated to engage in the visualised behaviour than those who used the third-person perspective. Drawing on action identification theory (Vallcher & Wegner, 1987), it was predicted that the effect of perspective on motivation was moderated by the difficulty of the visualised behaviour. Supporting this, in Experiments 3 and 4 (in which difficulty was manipulated in addition to perspective), the effect of perspective on motivation was found to be moderated by difficulty, and this effect carried over into behaviour one week later in Experiment 4. It was hypothesised that the effect of perspective on motivation was mediated by the level of abstraction at which the visualised behaviour was mentally represented (in accordance with construalleve1 theory, Trope & Liberman, 2003). Although this mediation effect was not obtained in Experiment 5 when abstraction was assessed using the behavioural identification form (Vallacher & Wegner, 1987), Experiment 6 assessed the linguistic abstraction of participants' written accounts of their visualisation, and here it was found that the beneficial effect of the first-person perspective on motivation when visualising a difficult health behaviour (drinking restraint) was mediated by a more concrete representation of the behaviour, as predicted. A meta-analytical synthesis of the findings from Experiments 1 to 6 supported predictions regarding the moderating role of behaviour difficulty, and the mediating role of level of abstraction. Implications for theory and health behaviour change interventions are discussed.
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Chinnapha, Punnarat. "Human behaviour at work : investigating the impact of organisational citizenship behaviour and impression management behaviour on teamwork effectiveness in Thailand." Thesis, University of Surrey, 2003. http://epubs.surrey.ac.uk/865/.
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Bardesi, Isusi Pablo, and Boschmonar Gabriel Fernandez. "Dynamic behavior of bridge bearings : Numerical modelling of frictional behaviour of POT Bearings." Thesis, KTH, Bro- och stålbyggnad, 1992. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-206767.
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