In the following study the author compares two methods of teaching history, the thematic approach and a more traditional chronological approach. Aiming at distinguishing the perceived notions of strength and weaknesses of each method, from the perspective of teaching, the author uses semi-structural interviews with four teachers in order to shed light on the reasons why each method is chosen. The perceptions of the thematical and chronological method in teaching history are further compared with the result in students? grades. The result shows that the thematic method is perceived as being better at teaching the student about causality and different understandings of changes in history, which would have positive impact on higher grades.

This case study examined what impact the neurological disorder Asperger?s syndrome has on the line of reasoning about religion and spirituality. Also, the question of whether the four informants showed any tendency to use the cognitive tools calledtheory of mind (ToM), existential theory of mind (EToM) and hypersensitive agency detection device (HADD) or not was put forth. From the interviews five themes were extracted: a stereoscopical view upon the world, thoughts on physical causality, prayer used as one-way communication, spiritual agency and intentionality, as well as existential and social questions. These themes were subsequently matched with theories on ToM, EToM and HADD.

Uppsatsen handlar om tre informanter som intervjuats angående sin syn på alternativa behandlingar och alternativa diskurser i kontrast till dominerande diskurser inom medicin och samhälle. Viktiga avsnitt rör till exempel sådant som vad är healing, hur kan en behandling gå till, grundläggande synsätt i alternativa diskurser och hur man ser på sjukdom..

Titel: Vin i var mans portfölj? En studie om vinets möjlighet till riskreduktionBakgrund: En portföljs totala risk kan härledas från både individuella tillgångars ackumulerade standardavvikelser och korrelationerna dem emellan. Genom att inkludera tillgångar med låg eller ingen samvarians kan portföljens risk sänkas utöver vad en diversifiering mellan ett stort antal tillgångar åstadkommer. Det uppstår således ett behov av att diversifiera mellan tillgångar med skiftande respons till marknadshändelser. Dock har olika marknader och tillgångsslag börjat korrelera allt mer vilket resulterat i att fördelarna med diversifiering har minskat.

Utgångspunkten för analysen av den första och den sista Harry Potter-boken är att vänskap har stor betydelse. Enligt tidigare forskning har det konstaterats att en utveckling av karaktärerna har skett, därför kommer denna uppsats att fokusera på vad denna utveckling har lett till. Vår syfte är att undersöka relationen mellan Harry, Ron och Hermione och vilken betydelse vänskapen har för händelseförloppet i första och sista boken. Därav har en komparativ metod använts där vi har tagit fasta på en av strukturalismens tankar om att det finns någon slags samband i en text. Analysen är fokuserad kring genetiskt ursprung, roller, förväntningar och kärlek och vad dessa områden har för betydelse för vänskapen.

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate and develop a useful theory of human behavior that recognizes the importance of our emotions. The new framework, called the theory of emotional choice, is developed by a holistic method in which results from the fields of psychology, sociology and (neuro-) biology are used to mutually support the conclusions. The theory is distilled into six preliminary points, which are based on the finding that we are not thinking as logical, rational and longsighted as is often assumed. Instead the regular human thinking is suggested to be shortsighted, intuitive and ruled by our emotions and our needs for generality, causality and normality.To demonstrate the usefulness of the new framework, it is used in an analysis of financial bubbles. Additionally, the fields of negotiation, election and ethics are suggested as potentially interesting to analyze with the new theory..

The aim of this study was to develop, implement and evaluate a mindfulness- and acceptance-based smoking cessation program in group (MRG). MRG was developed into an intervention consisting of 6 group sessions during 35 days including individual homework assignments. 8 of 10 participants completed the program. In order to evaluate the effect of MRG a quasi-experimental design with pretest and double posttest (second posttest at 1 month) was chosen. At second posttest, 50 percent (of 8 completers) were non-smokers, and the rest showed a decrease in smoking at a rate between 45 and 75 percent.

This study aims to theoretically investigate the concepts of the interpersonal actions 'to motivate' and 'to manipulate' and also to examine possible differences and similarities between the two. The method used is a conceptual review based on the Self-Determination Theory, related to the concept of motivation, and Machiavellianism, related to the concept of manipu-lation. The results show that 'to motivate', according to Self-Determination Theory, concerns influencing the intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, where intrinsic motivation is related to the feeling of self-determination, inner locus of causality, being or feeling competent and exercise activities for the pleasure of it, whilst extrinsic motivation is related to external locus of cau-sality, external pressure and engaging in activities for the purpose of reaching a goal or re-ward. 'To manipulate' is according to Machiavellianism based on the manipulator doing whatever it takes to reach a certain goal and gain something for himself with no regard of what methods being used. The comparative analysis showed that the crucial difference in how an behaviour is interpreted as either, or both, motivating and manipulative is based on who is doing the interpretation, what information she has and which aspects that are focused on..

This paper investigates the relationship between dividends and institutional and foreign ownership in Swedish firms. We use a dataset which covers the Swedish stock market over the period 1999-2009. The institutional ownership is defined as mutual funds, pension funds and insurance companies and these are analysed separately. The study confirms the expected positive relationship between the level of institutional investors in a firm and the size of dividends. We also confirm? the expected negative relationship between foreign investors and the size of dividends paid by Swedish firms.

This study addresses the issue of mergers between consulting firms. Previous research has shown that there are specific factors that determine the outcome of a merger and that success is more likely if companies are more similar. The purpose of the study is therefore to define relevant factors and understand when resemblance matter and under what conditions disparity may cause problems. Furthermore, the aim of the study is to find a pattern of which factors are more important in a successful merger. The problem of the study is addressed through a qualitative research approach and is conducted on six different mergers.

The purpose of this paper was to describe how a phenomenon is constructed into being a social problem, by studying articles on honour killing in the Swedish daily press and in the technical journal Socionomen. The main questions were: can different discourses on honour killing be identified, and if so, have they changed over time, and are there differences between the discourses identified in the daily press and in Socionomen? The method used was a qualitative analysis of discourse influenced by Faircloughs Critical Discourse Analysis. The main conclusion was that honour killing has been textually constructed as a social problem in the studied media. There was one main discourse which clearly pointed out groups as bearers and victims of the social problem.

Previous research in the field of consumer marketing has confirmed the positive effects of divergence on advertising efficiency. Despite the coherent evidence, some industries lag in the adoption of these findings, one of which is the Swedish real estate market. Divergence has not been elaborately investigated within said context and this paper addresses the need of actionable insights for housing advertising. Starting with the proven success of housing firm Fantastic Frank who work with detail photos in contrast to the common wide angle, this paper examines theoretical implications of detail photos' characteristics. Besides being divergent, detail photos are also ambiguous which renders access to effects related to visual perception.

Many perceive a boom in nostalgia and what is retro, especially within the marketing discipline. This thesis studies how nostalgia functions in the advertising context and aims to shed light on which effects there are from nostalgia evoking communication, what connections there are with other important factors as well as aspires to develop the understanding of the underlying psychological aspects and the emotional bonds to events (as nostalgia evoking stimuli in the thesis), which pave the ground for nostalgic emotions. Point of origin has been classical measures of communication effects and models of connections and causality and to these important factors have been added. Results show clear connections and correlations between nostalgia and positive communication effects, even with control for other factors that may interfere. However, the results show that some factors have moderating effects that should be important to take into consideration, namely how well the brand and the event in the ad are perceived to fit the advertising context.

Many perceive a boom in nostalgia and what is retro, especially within the marketing discipline. This thesis studies how nostalgia functions in the advertising context and aims to shed light on which effects there are from nostalgia evoking communication, what connections there are with other important factors as well as aspires to develop the understanding of the underlying psychological aspects and the emotional bonds to events (as nostalgia evoking stimuli in the thesis), which pave the ground for nostalgic emotions. Point of origin has been classical measures of communication effects and models of connections and causality and to these important factors have been added. Results show clear connections and correlations between nostalgia and positive communication effects, even with control for other factors that may interfere. However, the results show that some factors have moderating effects that should be important to take into consideration, namely how well the brand and the event in the ad are perceived to fit the advertising context.

Många anhöriga till officerare som tjänstgjort i internationell insats har upplevt negativa fysiska och psykiska besvär under och efter insatsen. Men hur påverkar detta officeren när denne ska återgå till det ordinarie arbetet eller åka på nästa insats, sett från en psykosocial arbetsmiljöaspekt? Och förändras detta med anledning av de nya lagstadgade kraven om tjänstgö-ringsskyldighet och uppföljningsansvar? Detta handlar en del av studien om. Den andra delen av studien beskriver hur ett framtida anhörigstöd kan utformas, kopplat till de nya kraven.Studien syftar till att ge en ökad förståelse till att officer och anhöriga tillsammans utgör en ge-mensam social ordning och att ge underlag till fortsatt forskning. Vidare syftar studien till att bidra med konkreta förslag till anhörigstöd till myndigheter och organisationer som idag arbetar med det.Studiens empiri erhålls genom djupintervjuer med sex långvariga partner till officerare som kom-pletteras med textempiri.Studien påvisar att det finns tendens till ett meningssamband mellan anhörigas upplevda välbefin-nande och officerens psykosociala arbetsmiljö.