Previous studies have pointed out the potential risks involved with targeting homosexual consumers by using ads with Homosexual imagery in mainstream media. Many of these studies have indicated that there may be drawbacks with exposing heterosexuals to these kinds of advertisements. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether this is true for all groups of heterosexual consumers. An experimental study was carried out to examine the effects of explicit Homosexual imagery on a heterosexual group with a generally positive attitude towards homosexuality. Empirical evidence suggests that Homosexual imagery does not elicit any negative reactions among these heterosexual consumers.

Imagery is an individual and cognitive process (Morris, Spittle, & Watt, 2005). This study has therefore qualitatively examined following objectives: (1) elite powerlifters imagery experiences and (2) if elite powerlifters use imagery deliberately. Five elite powerlifters participated in the study (3 men, 2 women), they were 21-37 years old (M = 27.6; SD = 6.1). The Individual Profile of Imagery Experiences in Sport (IPIES; Weibull, 2008b) was modified and used to meet the objectives for the study. Imagery was used by all elite powerlifters.

The objectives of this study was to (1) examine Swedish professional bowlers understanding of imagery (2) their experience in imagery (3) see if there was interest in improved use of imagery within bowling. Twelve professional bowling players (M = 30.42), all male, took part in the study. Six of the players were ranked among the best in the world. The instrument that was used was The Individual Profile of Imagery Experiences in Sport (IPIES, Weibull 2008). The result showed that eleven of twelve use imagery within bowling.

Blakeslee och Goff (2007) föreslår att dressyrryttares visualiseringsfärdigheter bör skilja sig från andra sporter som inte involverar ett djur. Enligt Murphy, Nordin och Cumming, (2008) finns det ett behov av ett instrument som tar hänsyn till visualiseringstyp, funktion och dess utgång. The survey of imagery experiences in sport (SIES; Weibull & Wallsbeck, 2009; Wallsbeck & Weibull, 2009) är ett relativt nytt instrument som mäter dessa variabler. Syftena i denna studie var därför att: (1) studera elitdressyrryttares visualiseringsupplevelser, (2) studera elitdressyrryttares förståelse och (3) upplevelse av instrumentet SIES. En kombination av kvalitativ och kvantitativ metod användes i studien.

This thesis has focused on the construction of homosexual parenthood in Swedish law and preparatory work. The purpose was to describe the norms about legal parenthood and examine if and how homosexual parenthood was included in the normative parenthood. The study was jurisprudential and based on methods such as sociology with a juridical focus and critical discourse analysis of the juridical texts. The theoretical framework was the critical discourse analysis as well as a queer perspective, both influenced by social constructionism and a poststructional theory. The conclusion of the study is that parenthood is described from what is presumably best for the child, which is two parents of different sexes and biological origin.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of being a homosexual immigrant in the Swedish society. Our questions were how the interviewed homosexual immigrants experience being treated by the people in their surroundings and how they are influenced by their attitudes. We also wanted to know what kind of thoughts they have about affiliation considering origin and sexuality, and what positive and negative aspects they experience from the combination of being both homosexual and immigrants.To get the answers to these questions we used a qualitative method and interviewed seven homosexual immigrants between the ages of 25 and 40 years. We then compared our material with earlier studies of the living situation of homosexual immigrants in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. We also linked our findings to Goffman's stigma theory and to heteronormativity.The main result was that the combination of homosexuality and immigrantness can result in various difficulties.

Mental ljudföreställning (eng. auditory imagery) innebär att uppleva ett ljud för sitt inre i frånvaro av yttre sinnesintryck. Tidigare studier har visat att ljud­föreställning kan inverka såväl faciliterande (t.ex. Farah & Smith, 1983) som interfererande (t.ex. Okada & Matsuoka, 1992) på perceptuell ljuddetektion.

Motion är viktigt för vår hälsa, men många som börjar motionera slutar inom en snar framtid (Fallon, Hausenblas, & Nigg, 2005). Det är därför viktigt att utveckla strategier som motiverar människor till träning. Visualisering är en teknik som visats ha en motivationshöjande effekt hos motionärer. Kim och Giacobbi (2009) menar dock att det finns ett behov av att skilja på innehåll, syfte och effekter inom motionsvisualiseringen och att ett nytt mätinstrument därför behövs. Syftena med studien var därför att: (1) utveckla och testa mätinstrumentet the Individual Profile of Imagery Experiences in Exercise (IPIEE; Weibull & Johnsson 2010), samt att (2) studera motionärers frivilliga och spontana visualiseringsupplevelser.

The thesis aims to study how rainbows families are being treated by the authorities and the surroundings. It focuses on how homosexual parents are met in society. Although, homosexuals have the legal right to have a family and enter into marriage, the social norms are still far behind and rainbows families are seen as ?the others? and abnormal.  Earlier researches have been studding how the authorities still assumes that every family are living in a heterosexual family constellation. By this assumption they exclude families who are not living in a heterosexual family.

Purpose This thesis tries to create an understanding of how male homosexual entrepreneurs, both as persons and as a concept, relates to the fact that entrepreneurship, as well as the society as a whole, is heteronormative. Moreover, it examines by what methods the male homosexual entrepreneurs cope with the seemingly paradox of a homosexual man who also is an entrepreneur. Method The method has been qualitative from a social construction-point of view. We have made semi-structured interviews with nine male homosexual entrepreneurs and structured the findings from the interviews with a computer programme and mind mapping techniques. We have compared the structured findings with theories, in an abducting manner, to find out an answer to the purpose of this thesis.

In our study we examined recurrent patterns and changes in the representation ofhomosexual persons in Swedish daily newspapers 1987, 1997 and 2007.We analysed articles about HIV-infected persons and articles with a view to portray thelife conditions of gay and lesbian persons from the three different years. We chose toonly analyze news articles that intend to represent real human beings, which mean thatwe did not analyze reports that only reproduce abstract knowledge from authorities.With analytical tools from semiotics and discourse analysis we identified some recurrentpatterns in the representation of homosexual people. We found that a recurrent pattern inthat when homosexual people are seen as groups, they are described as deviant,discriminated and some times as a threat. When portrayed as individuals the nonanonymouspersons appear in articles and pictures as normal, strong and healthy. Lesbianwomen are not represented in the articles from 1987, but in articles from 1997 and 2007they appear as unhappy when single and happy in a relationship.The results also showed some interesting differences in news representation ofhomosexual persons between the three investigated years.

The aim of our study was to examine how homosexual and heterosexual men and women are represented in the Swedish magazine QX, a magazine for gay, bisexual and transgender people. We wanted to find out what kind of roles the persons in QX appears in, and inquire the relationships that exist between them.We analyzed the texts in twelve magazines, from December 2008 to November 2009, in order to get the most current results as possible. We used a discourse analysis, with focus on identities, relationships and the representation of the world. Representations, gender, hegemonic masculinity and stereotypes have been significant theories to analyze our results.The results showed that the successful gay man is the most important person in QX. He is the perfect masculine macho fagot, who is highest in rank.

This thesis explores the possibilities of avoiding the issues generally associated with compression of noisy imagery, through the usage of vector quantization. By utilizing the learning aspects of vector quantization, image processing operations such as noise reduction could be implemented in a straightforward way. Several techniques are presented and evaluated. A direct comparison shows that for noisy imagery, vector quantization, in spite of it's simplicity, has clear advantages over MPEG-4 encoding..

We believed that knowledge organisation of manga and manhwa with homosexual (including lesbian) themes might be a challenge for Swedish public libraries. One of the reasons for this is that these themes in manga and manhwa usually occur in genres not directed towards an LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) audience. To see how Swedish public libraries treat such titles and why they treat them as they do, we examined a selection of public libraries, their collections, acquisitions, cataloguing and shelving of relevant titles. The theory used is mainly Grant Campbell?s binarisms, subject access to LGBTQ literature and critical analysis of knowledge organisation.

The purpose of this study is to identify and make attitudes among social workers towards homosexual and bisexual people visible, examine how these attitudes relate to their actions in their professional role and how these attitudes and actions can be understood by theories of heteronormativity and power. The study is a cross-sectional quantitative survey in the form of a questionnaire completed by social workers. The result shows that there are two groups among the social workers. One larger group that reproduces a norm of acceptance toward homosexual and bisexual people and one smaller that reproduces a heterosexual norm. This reproduction of heteronormativity increases the risk for homosexual and bisexual people to be made invisible and treated more negatively in contact with social workers, which in turn can lead to worse health among the clients..