Browsing by department "Institute of Behavioural Sciences"

Body consciousness research is a multidisciplinary field including various conceptualizations of its subject. Usually research frames are based on comparisons between bodily experts, such as dancers, or psychiatric groups with bodily aberrations (e.g. eating disorders) and control participants. Methods of body consciousness research include behavioural and self-report measures as well as brain imaging. Some methods have been used to study bodily experts, but not psychiatric groups, and vice versa. In this study, dancers, amateur and professional athletes, and control participants were studied using four behavioural methods (aperture task, endpoint matching, rubber hand illusion, posture copying) and two self-report measures PBCS (Private Body Consciousness Scale of the Body Consciousness Questionnaire) and BAQ (Body Awareness Questionnaire). Because many methods of studying body consciousness focus on the use of hands, a new method called posture copying, involving the whole body, was developed in this study. Dancers succeeded better than controls in the aperture task, and better than athletes and controls in the posture copying task. In the posture copying task, group differences were present in copying all other body parts but hands. Both dancers and athletes scored higher in the BAQ than controls. There was an almost significant difference between athletes and controls in the endpoint matching task. No group differences were found in the rubber hand illusion or PBCS. The results were considered as proof that dancing has a special connection with body consciousness, but that some aspects of body consciousness are similar in dancers and athletes. Methods measuring the same quality of body consciousness produced contradictory evidence, which questions their validity. This study offers useful knowledge for the future of body consciousness research, with regards to choice of participants, methodology, and study design, as well as treatment plans of clinical groups with disorders in their body consciousness (e.g. eating disorders).

Depersonalization refers to the experience of alienation from oneself. It is a common symptom, although not so widely studied in adolescents suffering from mental health problems. Depersonalization is a dissociative symptom, of which a main characteristic is loss of coherence on mental functions. However, compared to more severe forms of dissociation, depersonalization is relatively common also in nonclinical populations. The present study takes a closer look at the comorbid symptoms of adolescents experiencing depersonalization. Is there a connection between depersonalization and psychiatric diagnosis categories, severity of depression or anxiety symptoms, or symptoms associated with risk for psychosis? Based on previous studies, it is expected that mood and anxiety disorders and the severity of depressive symptoms as well as suspiciousness and perceptual abnormalities of the psychosis risk symptoms will be positively correlated with depersonalization. This study is part of the Helsinki Prodromal Study by the National Institute for Health and Welfare. The subjects (N=152) were new patients aged 15-18 in psychiatric treatment with various kinds of mental health problems. They were selected for further assessment after initial screening. Depersonalization was assessed with the Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ) depersonalization factor (Therman et al. 2014). The Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV, Clinical Version (SCID-CV) and medical records were used for the diagnostic assessment. Depressive symptom severity was measured with the Beck Depression Inventory and the Beck Hopelessness Scale and severity of anxiety with the Beck Anxiety Inventory. The severity of psychosis risk symptoms was assessed with the Structured Interview of Prodromal Symptoms (SIPS). Mood disorders were associated with depersonalization as hypothesized. A similar association was not detected for anxiety disorders, though depersonalization was modestly positively correlated with the severity of depressive and anxiety symptoms. All of the positive SIPS-symptoms, especially delusional ideas were correlated with the severity of depersonalization. This was the case also with bizarre thinking, focus and attention problems, decreased experience of emotions and self, dysphoric mood and impaired tolerance to stress. These findings indicate that there are differences in the severity of depersonalization depending on the type of comorbid symptoms. For clinical applicability of the results, further study using more detailed definitions of depersonalization is needed.

The goal of this thesis is to study gender equality within the Finnish technology industry. Recently the imbalance between the sexes in the workplace has become a part of the general discourse. This has led to both organizations and governmental institutions taking actions to promote gender equality in the workplace. Previous research has shown that socialization into traditional gender roles affects future career choices and steers individuals into occupations where the majority of employees have the same gender identity as themselves. Furthermore, studies have shown that stereotypical perceptions about the technology industry as masculine are hindering women from seeking a career in technology. This study aims to analyze how technology companies approach gender equality within their organization and the industry in general. The research questions of this thesis are: How do technology companies relate to gender equality? Have companies taken action to promote a more gender equal staff structure? And, how do these companies write about their female employees online? Organizational studies with a social constructivist feminist approach have shown that the ideal employee is still today identified through masculine norms. Thus, women have had to create strategies for how they are doing gender in their daily work, by taking on some traditionally feminine or masculine processes and leaving others out. This thesis is based on a qualitative research approach. The research material consisted of Finnish technology companies' blog texts published on their own websites. The material consisted of 18 blog posts written by 14 companies. The material was analyzed through theme analysis. Social constructivist feminist organization theory laid the theoretical framework for this thesis. The results of this research show an active discussion on gender equality in the Finnish technology industry. The approach to the issue of having too few women in the technology industry differed greatly between the different companies. Only a few companies expressed in their blog texts an understanding that inequality originates from social constructs in society. Most companies place the responsibility of gender equality on women as individuals. There were clearly a desire to include more women in technology, but the benefits of diversity in itself were only identified by few of the researched companies. Most companies unconsciously reproduced the prevailing normative masculine power structures of the industry in their attempts to promote gender equality. The results of the research indicated a willingness in the Finnish technology industry to promote gender equality, but a lack of understanding the structural nature of the problem and the tools required to handle this challenge.

Ethiopia is Africa's biggest coffee exporter nation with deep history. Coffee discovered in Ethiopia and it continues to be pivotal for the country in many fronts till to date. The coffee linkage with Ethiopia is deep-rooted many historians believe back in 9th century coffee discovered by Kaldi, a goat herder. He discovered it after noticing coffee's energizing effect on his goats. The word coffee itself also derived from place called 'Kaffa' where the trees blossomed. Coffee gradually became a world obsession by spreading from highlands of Ethiopia traveled along spice routes to Yemen, Turkey and Europe. Coffee exporting is a significant portion of Ethiopian economy. It accommodates more than twenty five million peasants which indicate its magnitude for the country. It is one of the leading sources of income for the government and other stakeholders. The establishment of Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) has seen the Ethiopian coffee trade system being transformed. It created a platform of primary, secondary and tertiary market divisions. In a way that the coffee can be traded based on value addition from one division to the other. Unlike the previous centralized warehousing system, it introduced decentralized warehousing and liquoring centers across the country where the coffee quality checked by use of laboratory tasting. It gives a temporary produce storage services until the coffee is sold and ownership of the produce transferred from seller to buyer. The introduction of modernized and transparent system enabled economic gain and helped farmers to enhance their life conditions. The objective of this study was to identify some of the contradictions that are solved in Ethiopian coffee trade activity by the establishment of ECX. In addition, the emerging contradictions and prevailing disturbances at present as well as the overall benefits it brought in relation to farmers' day to day life conditions were analyzed.

Goals In this study, a week-long digital storytelling project was conducted in a labour market training course in adult education. The study problem was: how collaborative learning was present in the groups in the labour market training course and what it contributed to producing digital storytelling videos? The theoretical background in this study is Global Sharing Pedagogy -model and the collaborative learning aspect of it. For collaboration, the theoretical background are the central concepts of Hakkarainen's studies and the productive agency by Schwartz & Lin. Methods This was a case-study. The subjects in this study consisted of two labour market training groups that were united for the purposes of this study and ages of participants were from 20 to 50 years old. They were split into four smaller groups which were used as cases in this study. The smaller groups had members between four and seven. The project lasted for one week and there was from three to six hours of work each day. At the end of week, the digital stories were reviewed together. The data for this study consists of field diary during the working phase, group interviews with the groups and the finished digital stories. Each group was a separate case and the descriptions from both observation and interviews were searched for signs of collaborative learning. Each case was also compared to other cases to find differences and similarities. Results and conclusions The descriptions of learning in groups had clear aspects of collaborative learning. Each group had some aspects but three of four groups, the dedicated, the independents and the supported had significant collaborative learning present in every part of the project while the wanderers had lesser collaborative learning present. The results reveal that digital storytelling is a good tool to use in adult education to promote both collaborative learning and 20th century skills in students.

Many international organizations have defined the so called 21st century learning skills that students should have in order to be successful in today's society. Digital literary is one of those skills. Experts say that schools do not really have the concrete tools to teach these skills. Research shows that digital storytelling is one way to develop many of the important 21st century skills. The purpose of this study is to analyze how students could develop their digital literacy by creating digital stories. More precisely, what kind of media content production, editing, and sharing skills will they learn by making their own video stories. This study is based on Digital Storytelling Project by the University of Helsinki. The project was a part of Finnable 2020 research funded by Tekes. This study involves all the 6th graders that participated to the Digital storytelling project from Finland, a total of five classes. The research material consists of student and teacher interviews and video stories made by the students. The research material was analyzed with content analysis. The framework for the analysis was based on research on digital literacy, digital storytelling and film narrative. The results of this study show that the students learned many digital literacy skills involving media content production by creating video stories. By making their stories the students learned to plan their own content, to search for relevant information and material to their stories, and to use mobile devices for filming. They also learned about filming, and how to deliver their own message through the video stories. By editing their stories the students practiced how to edit and remix pictures and videos with different video editing tools. By sharing their video stories with others the students learned how to share information, how to evaluate their own work and the work of others, how to consider the audience, and how to interact and influence through video stories.

Music interventions carried out by caregivers of persons with dementia (PWDs) have lately become the focus of music rehabilitation in dementia research. Dementia can be burdening for caregivers and it may disrupt the relationship between PWDs and caregivers. The aim of this thesis was to determine whether 1) awareness deficits frequently observed in PWDs manifest in rating discrepancies between PWDs and their caregivers when rating mood and quality of life of PWDs or if these differences are primarily explained by caregiver burden and 2) a caregiver-based music intervention can attenuate the rating discrepancies. In the current study, 89 PWD-caregiver dyads were randomly allocated in three groups: singing group, music listening group, and control group. Cognition, mood, and quality of life of the PWDs were assessed at baseline, immediately after the intervention, and 6 months after intervention. Discrepancy scores were calculated between the PWDs' and caregivers' ratings in Cornell-Brown Scale for Quality of Life in Dementia (CBS) and Quality of Life in Alzheimer's Disease (QOL-AD). Correlations of the discrepancy scores to intervention outcomes and baseline PWD and caregiver characteristics were examined. Differences between intervention groups in CBS and QOL-AD discrepancies were analyzed with ANOVA. QOL-AD discrepancy was associated with dementia severity at baseline. CBS discrepancies were consistently associated with caregiver burden, higher discrepancies corresponding to higher burden. The intervention groups did not show any differences in change in the discrepancy scores in mixed-model ANOVAs. Further research with more focused measures is needed to determine whether music interventions can alleviate awareness deficits and/or PWD-caregiver discrepancies and, regarding the latter, to reveal the exact route of the effect.

Objectives: This thesis examined the relationship between disordered gambling (DG) with mental health, loneliness, perceived general health, risky alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking and computer gaming frequency by age and gender among adolescents and emerging adults. Gambling types were also examined for their association to DG, mental health, loneliness, perceived health, risky alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking. DG is conceptualized as a behavioural addiction, and its development is influenced by the availability of gambling opportunities, prevalence of other addictive behaviours, and psychological well-being. Previous studies have indicated that specific types of gambling are more strongly associated to DG that others. The purpose of the present study was to identify the strength of the various risk factors of disordered gambling, examine whether specific risk factors are associated to certain gambling types and if there are age and gender related differences in regards to the associations between disordered gambling and its risk factors. Methods: A cross-sectional population based random sample (n = 822, 49.3 % female) of individuals aged 15 to 28 from the self-reported Finnish Gambling Survey 2011 was utilized. DG was assessed with the Problem Gambling Severity Index, such that a score of 2 or more indicated DG. Mental health was measured with the five item Mental Health Inventory and risky alcohol consumption was assessed with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test -Consumption. The remainder of examined variables were assessed with single Likert-scaled items. The correlates of DG and gambling types were examined with logistic regression models. Results and conclusions: Male gender, risky alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking, and frequently feeling lonely were significantly associated to DG. Slot machine gambling, online gambling other than poker, private betting, and casino betting were strongly associated to DG. The aforementioned gambling types were strongly associated to risky alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking along with sports betting. Feeling lonely was associated to online poker, casino betting and private betting. There were indications of gender differences in regards to the gambling types associated to feeling lonely. Risky alcohol consumption seemed to be a stronger risk factor for DG among males, and tobacco smoking stronger among females. Current findings warrant further investigation of DG in regards to loneliness, and reconsideration of national gambling policies.

The aim of this study was to test the associations between job satisfaction and job strain, defined according to Karasek's Job Demands-Control Model, as well as type D personality traits. Previous studies have mainly focused on job characteristics and other external circumstances when studying wellbeing at work. The relationship between occupational wellbeing and individual factors such as personality traits has received less attention. Based on previous studies five hypotheses were set: 1) type D personality is associated with lower job satisfaction, 2) type D personality is associated with higher job strain, 3) job strain is negatively associated with job satisfaction, 4) job control moderates the association between job demands and job satisfaction, and 5) the association between type D personality and job satisfaction is mediated by job strain. The data consisted of 1117 participants of the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns study. All participants were full-time employed Finns aged 30 to 45. Type D personality was measured with a modified questionnaire based on DS14 (Denollet, 2005), job control was measured using items from the Job Content Questionnaire (Karasek, 1985) and job demands was measured using items from the Occupational Stress Questionnaire (Elo et al, 1990). Job satisfaction was measured with a single-item scale. The hypotheses were tested using linear regression analyses. The effects of gender and education level were controlled for. Employees with type D personality were found to experience lower job satisfaction and higher job strain when compared to non-type D counterparts. Of the two type D traits, only negative affectivity was a statistically significant predictor of job satisfaction. Job strain was associated with lower job satisfaction. The association between negative affectivity and job satisfaction was partly mediated by job strain. Based on these results it seems that type D personality, especially negative affectivity and job strain may be risk factors for lower occupational well-being.

This Master's thesis is part of a project on marginalisation in school. The main focus of this study is to review how eighth-graders, reflect on and challenge structures of gender, gender roles, sexuality and heteronormativity in school. Although the school as an institution should be safe, inclusive and equal, structures that are problematic exist. The thesis used a feminist poststructuralist approach and gender was an important theme. The theoretical framework of the thesis described gender, sex and sexuality through both a societal perspective and a school perspective. The material for the study was collected from 2013 to 2014. The sample in this thesis consisted of 11 individual interviews and 4 group interviews with students in the eighth grade in a school in the capital area in Finland. The method of analysis was qualitative content analysis. How students challenge gender roles, heteronormativity and sexuality is something that there is not much research about. Hence, it was central to analyse what kind of structures exist in the school. It emerged that the students have to put up with stereotypical gender roles, threats of violence, appearance requirements, offensive name-calling, and a pressure to select a suitable hobby. Boys behave violently towards girls to a greater extent than the other way around. The results also indicate that the school is a very unsafe place for students with a non-heterosexual orientation. In school there is in general very little discussion about heteronormativity and sexuality. There were students in school who challenged the norms. There was a group of girls that explicitly challenged the structures. They questioned girl- and boy colours, and that educational materials, practices and environments in the school were heteronormative and gender-divided. Although there has been a change from previous research in that students are challenging structures, results indicate that gender roles and heteronormative structures still exist in school, which is problematic. Overall the thesis demonstrates that it is very hard to be a student in the eighth grade today. Bullying and excluding structures in school are common. The schools should actively review their own practices. Students who challenge the structures give hope to that despite everything, small changes in the everyday life in school are possible.