This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between perceived popularity, social information processing and working memory. With the intentions of examining popularity 209 (98 female, 111 male) children in second and fourth grade were presented with a roster of their classmates and were to nominate whom they liked and whom they disliked. To study working memory capacity a working memory test, that places demands on the participant to work both with and store the given information, was used. To examine children's cognitive processing of empathy-provoking information a cognitive appraisal interview was conducted. The results imply (a) that working memory increases with age, (b) that there is a weak relation between working memory capacity and popularity, and between popularity and cognitive processing styles and (c) that there are some strong correlations between working memory and cognitive processing styles..

Denna studie undersöker och beskriver den psykiska hälsan hos en grupp barn och ungdomar placerade i familjehem i en större stad i södra Sverige. 42 barn och ungdomar i åldrarna 11 till 20 år valdes ut från en kohort bestående av 52 som vid något tillfälle under 2005 befann sig placerade i familjehem. Till barnen administrerades Youth Self Report (YSR), till en av familjehemsföräldrarna Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) och till barnens lärare Teacher´s Report Form (TRF). Data från barnens socialakter samlades också in. Totala problemskalorna för CBCL och TRF visade att andelen barn på klinisk nivå uppgick till 23 % medan motsvarande siffra för YSR var 9 %.

The aim of the study was to explore the psychological well-being of a group of adolescents in relation to how they regarded achieving in school, in a gender perspective. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with students aged 17-19 at a high-achieving school in a big city in Sweden. The interviews were analyzed thematically and the results showed that the adolescents acted differently as well as regarded achieving in school differently depending on gender. The young women were driven by ambition, they were high-achieving and planning for the future. The young men cared less about achieving and thought more about the present.

This study aims to investigate expressive writing in young adolescents, based on the model constructed by J.W. Pennebaker. Qualitative analysis of written essays has been conducted, the main purpose being exploring descriptions of relationships and expressions of emotions. Further-more, the intention has also been to study eventual gender differences and their forms of expressions in the essays. The participants were seventh- and eightgraders, gathered from two schools in Sweden.

The combat mission is an extreme situation with high demands of the soldier. Killing might very well be necessary. Before a mission a soldier can experience stress due to these factors. The purpose of this paper is to find methods to handle stress due to an upcoming combat mission and to the prospect of having to kill. The main questions of this essay: -How can certain parts of the physiological psychology improve a soldiers ability to perform a mission? ? Is the Swedish soldier mentally prepared to kill? The theory for this essay has been described using litteratur by experts within the field, and the results thereafter discussed.

This master?s thesis focus on Dewey Decimal Classification during the period 1932 to 2011, where the classification of the psychological knowledge domain is analyzed and discussed. In the light of the recent swedish switch from the swedish classification system SAB to DDC, this research area deserves prominence. The aim of this study is to investigate how DDC represents the historical development of the psychology subject with its underlying epistemology, to identify and analyze values and prejudice, and to analyze problems with DDC?s classification of psychology in relation to three other classification systems.

Denna undersökning är ämnad att utforska högstadiekillars syn på de bakomliggande orsakerna till det faktum att deras grundskolebetyg är sämre än tjejernas, och att denna skillnad ökar. Analys av intervjuer med de 31 medverkande killarna gav ett antal möjliga förklaringar, bland annat; bristande planeringsförmåga, en odefinierad optimism om framtiden samt en instrumentell-strategisk inställning till betyg..

The purpose of this essay was to, by the ecology of human development theory, examine 10-year old childrens own experience of their lifesituation outside the time of school. The study was based on qualitative interviews with six 10-year old children from a smaller community in Sweden. The main guestions was:1. What is the experience of being 10 year?2.

Objectives: The aim in this thesis has been to generate information relevant for strategic positioning and future evaluations within the scientific field of sport and exercise psychology. This has been done by request, and in collaboration with The Group of Sport and Exercise Psychology at the Institution of Psychology at the University of Umeå.Research questions:  (1) How does the cognitive structure within the field of sport and exercise psychology take shape with respect to research topics in current sport-psychological research, i.e. the research front? (2) How does the social structure within the field of sport and exercise psychology take shape with respect to formal scientific collaboration?Data: 879 articles published between 2008-2011 were used in this study. The population of articles were collected from a set of 5 core journals: International Journal of Sport Psychology, Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, The Sport Psychologist, Psychology of Sport and Exercise.

The purpose with this study is to inquire how a number of active preschool teachers use music in their daily work with children. It also looks at the meaning they think music can have to the whole group of children, especially in terms of solidarity and interaction in the group. In order to study this I chose to use questionnaires as the method. These questionnaires consisted of open questions to enable longer answers from de participants in an effort to hear their thoughts and get their point of view. The result of this study shows that all of the participants seem to have good experiences from musical activities with the preschool children.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the design of the reference service and its development that Internet has caused in college/university libraries when it comes to the service provided to the user. I want to examine the quality of this development from the view of the librarians, and also investigate their attitude and how they deal with this development.The following questions were asked:? How has Internet changed the reference service at college/university libraries?? How do the librarians look upon the possible change of quality in the reference service when the Internet is involved?? What attitude do the librarians hold toward this development where Internet is used in the reference service and how do they deal with it?The method used was qualitative interviews. A total of six librarians from Blekinge tekniska högskola, Halmstad högskola, Lunds universitet and Växjö universitet have been interviewed.The theories and models used were ?media richness?, a quality framework including ?quality aspects of a service?, and social psychology and its ?reasons for a positive/negative attitude on an organisations change?.The result shows that Internet has brought more sources of information and additional ways to contact the library.

The purpose of this study is to make a qualitative evaluation of the MTFC-program (Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care) on the basis of six youth´s experiences of the program. The study will investigate what the youth experienced as positive and negative about the program as well as finding out what has helped them or inhibited them from the aim of getting out of their criminal lifestyle. A secondary purpose of this study is to make the youth´s voices heard in the research world. The research question is: Which factors in the MTFC-program have helped or inhibited the youth towards the aim of getting out of their criminal lifestyle? For this purpose, a qualitative research method has been used where semistructured interviews have been performed on six youth who have gone through the MTFC-program.

Vilken betydelse har en arbetssökandes etnicitet och beslutsunderlagets diagnosticitet (informationskvalitet) för en granskarens benägenhet att rekommendera anställning? 172 studenter fick läsa en utskrift från en anställningsintervju och skatta hur pass anställbar den arbetssökande (svensk eller utländsk) var utifrån den information som erhölls (diagnostisk eller ickediagnostisk). Hypotesen om att sämre information om den sökandes personlighetsegenskaper medför lägre skattad anställningslämplighet för sökande med invandrarbakgrund (p.g.a. av negativa stereotyper) men inte för svenskar kunde inte bekräftas. Tvärtom skattades den utländske sökanden som mer anställbar än den svenske när informationen var ickediagnostisk (p = .03).

The purpose of this thesis is to study to what extent the UN millennium development goals have influenced Sweden?s development policy. The research method that I have used is a qualitative text analysis and I have studied the ideas in governmental texts and millennium development goals reports from 1995-2008.My hypothesis is that the basic ideas that has symbolized Sweden?s development policy has not changed much since the adoption of the millennium development goals in year 2000. This hypothesis is based on different ideas that the basic perspectives in international development policy are rather constant.My conclusion is that many of the areas that are affected by the millennium development goals already are prioritized areas within Swedish development policy, for example poverty reduction and gender equality.

This study focuses on single peoples construction of their lifes in relation to normative heterosexual coupledom. It is based on five interviews made with single women and men at the age of 24 to 51 who live by themselves. The queer theory which puts the heteronormativity in question is used as a theoretical framework. Discourse psychology functions as an analytic approach. It focuses on the use of language in the construction of reality in a world of determinant discourses.