M.A. Theses

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Retirement and life satisfaction
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1981., 1981.) Uğursal, Billur.; Sunar, Diane.
Through their work people not only earn their living, but also gain a status within society and fulfill society's expectations from them. Through retirement, a point at which they are terminated from work, people lose, among other things, the job role that they have been accustomed to playing for many years. The objective of this thesis is to find out whether lois of job role influences one's life satisfaction and whether there are sex differences in this matter. For this purpose, a life satisfaction scale was devised and tested. Working and non-working retirees were interviewed and their life satisfaction scores were obtained on this scale. Answers given to the items in the questionnaire were analyzed to test the following hypothesis: 1- When female non-working retirees are compared with male retirees in general (working and non-working) a higher mean score of life satisfaction is expected for females. 1a) Non-working female/retirees will have a higher average life satisfaction score than working male retirees. 1b) Non-working female retirees will have a higher mean life satisfaction score than their male counterparts. 2- Male retirees who regain the worker role through re-employment will score higher in overall life satisfaction than non-working male retirees. The first hypothesis was found to receive some support for those younger than 58 years of age, whereas sub-hypotheses 1a and 1b, as well as the second hypothesis were rejected. As a result, the hypotheses were rejected, except that data relevant to the first hypothesis showed a tendency to be in the expected direction. Female retirees compared to male retirees in general scored relatively higher in average life satisfaction. This may be a result of traditional sex-role expectations that assign husbands as the responsible person to provide material support for the family while the duty of the wife is to manage the household. Thus, after retirement, females may feel free of the double burden of work and home duties tha't cause stress throughout the working years, whereas males take up work life after retirement mainly involuntarily. Rejection of the second hypothesis throws doubt on the meaning 'attached to jobs and working by retirees in the current sample. It is assumed that an insignificant meaning is attached to working so that retirement does not cause severe problems for men as it has been found to be the case in western societies.
Cognitive and emotional development in family-reared and institutionalized children
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1982., 1982.) Fırıncıoğlu, Semra.; Cansever, Gökçe.
In this study the intellectual and personality development of children who have had minimal environmental stimuli and no parental rearing in the early years of their life and -who are between 7-10 years of age have been investigated by making use of Koppitz' Human Figure Drawing test. With the children who have been accepted to institutions by the time they were two years of age, the facts of having maternal deprivation as well as insufficient environmental stimuli have been taken into the consideration. The control group was divided into two subgroups within itself; the first one being low SES family-reared children and the second high SES family-reared children. In this study 70 institutionalized, 80 low SES and 80 high SES family - reared children were tested. The results have shown that while the intellectual development of the institutionalized group is slower than the other groups of children, the low SES group is slower in intellectual development compaied to the high SES group. The institutionalized group also showed more emotional disturbance compared to the other two groups. Finally the results of this study enable us to make use of these data in the standardization of the Human Figure Drawing test as well as drawing our attention to negative influences of living in an institutionalized setting, and thus suggesting that certain precautions be taken.
A program for the treatment of nocturnal enuresis
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1982., 1982.) Konakçı, H. Sühendan.; Cansever, Gökçe.
Enuresis is a well-known problem of childhood. Although it has a long history of incidena, a method which leads to permanent cure has not been found yet. The present study attempts to investigate the effectiveness of a treatment program developed for nocturnal enuretic children. The notable feature of the program is that it involves both psychodynamic a behavioristic principles. Eighteen children mo were between the ages of 4 and 12 were used in the study. There were 8 males and 8 females . The treatrrent was given to one group of children while it was withheld from a control group. It was hypothesized that there will be a significant decrease in the number of bedwettings in the treatrrent group, compared to the control group. The results obtained from the treatment group were compared with the spontaneous recovery rate of the ccntrol group. The treatment group shaved a significant decrease. Since, six months later, relapse was observed in a number of subjects, some factors should be given more consideration in the application of the proposed program.
The hospitalization experience and state-trait anxiety among different diagnostic groups
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1982., 1982.) Mizrahi, Coya.; Fişek, Güler Okman.
This study investigated the state-trait anxiety levels of psychiatric inpatients in relation to the concept of hosnitalization 60 subjects; 20 neurotics, 20 psychotics and 20 substance abusers were given The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory at the time shortly after hospitalization and at the time before discharge from the hospital.The subjects were inpatients from Erenkoy Social Security Assosiation Psychiatric Hospital and were between 25 to 45 years old. The subjects had at least elementary school education. The first group of hypotheses was about the differences between neurotics and psychotics."The hypotheses stated that neuroti will have higher state and trait anxiety levels both at the time shortly after hosptalization and before discharge from the hopital. The second group of hypotheses was about the differences within subjects, that is about the change between evaluations shortly after hospitalization and before discharge from the hospital of the same subjects. The hypotheses stated that neurotics will have lower and psychotics higher state anxiety scores before discharge from the hospital while trait anxiety scores of both groups were expected to remain st8,ble. Findings about the case of substance abusers were presented altough there was no hypoothesis stated about their condition. The most general finding was that all of the three groups showed a decrease in their anxiety levels and this decrease was most significant in the neurotic group, reflected both in state and trait anxiety scores. The other important finding was that neurotic and psychotic subjects could be differentiated according to their state and trait hospital did not indicate any difference between these two groups of subjects. The results were discussed in the light of our theoretical expectations and in terms of the hospitalization experience.
An investigation of a treatment program for feeding difficulties
(Thesis (M.A.)- Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1983., 1983.) Levent, Handan.; Fişek, Güler Okman.
The purpose of this study is to test the effectiveness of a treatment program to improve the eating habits of children who display problems such as food-refusal, demanding help and/or entertainment in eating, dawdling. and finickeness. The program mainly' involves behavior modification techniques. with supportive measures based on psychoanalytic assumptions. The events which served to maintain inappropriate eating behaviors were withdrawn, while new events to strengthen the desired behavior patterns were introduced. These events mainly involved .the mother's behavior durir.g and after the meals, the amount and timing of the meals, and a reward system made contingent upon appropriate eating behaviors. There were ten children in the· study, between the ages 4 - 2 and 5 - 11. The. treatment program was applied to one group of five children and withheld from the control group of five. It was hypothesized that children who participated in a four-week behavior modification program in which the mothers were the change agents would show improvement in eating habits; whereas the children in the control group would show no change. All the cases in the experimental group showed improvement above 90%, whereas no change was observed in the control group. nle results of the study indicate that the mother's worries and attitudes play the most important role in initiating feeding difficulties, and changing her attitude and educating her in how to deal with the problem leads to improvement in the child.
Preference for the equity or equality norm by preschool children in reward distribution
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1983., 1983.) Bilsel, A. Hikmet.; Fişek, M. Hamit,
The present study attempts to find the determinants of preferences for justice norms. It is proposed that a) The preference for equity or equality norm var1es with the sex of the child, such that girls prefer to use the norm of equality more often than boys do; b) Children are affected by the type of the relationship (unit-nonequivalence) between individuals in their choice of justice norms. More specifically, children who perceive the relationship as unit use the norm of equality more often than those who perceive it as nonequivalent; and lastly c) When children are told "not to be. unjust" they use the norm of equity more often than those who are not told so. ihe hypotheses were tested on 80 nursery school children (40 girls - 40 boys) aged 5, usings full factorial design. The result showed that sex of the subjects, the perceived relationship between the individuals and being told not to be unjust are important factors in the preference for justice norms.
A comparison of two group treatment methods of adolescent shyness
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1983., 1983.) Somer, Zeynep.; Fişek, Güler Okman.
The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of different group treatment procedures in reducing adolescent shyness. Subjects, ages between 15-16, were randomly assigned to one of the four groups, Cognitive Behavior Modification, Social Skills Training, Attention Control and Control. Treatment procedures in the three groups lasted for seven sessions, one forty minutes session per week. The distributiot by sex was equal in each group. In the Cognitive Behavior Modification procedure, half of each session was deVoted to the discussion of self-evaluations and worries of the subjects. The basic goal was to modify their maladaptive cognitions toward a more rational assessment of their situatinn. The remaining half of each session was devoted to a modified version of systematic desensitization. The Social Skills Training procedure consisted of training in basic skills of interpersonal behavior through the techniques of modeling, coaching, role-playing, homework and feedback.To investigate the effect of a group experience on the reduction of shyness, an Attention Control Group was formed and the topic of this group experience was irrelevant to the issue of shyness. It was hypothesized that, shyness, as indicated in the self-report measures used, and in the ratings of significant others (teachers and peers) would decrease as the result of treatment. A greater reduction was expected to be observed in the Social Skills Trainig Group compared to the Cognitive Behavior Modification Group. The results indicated that different treatment procedures did not create any significant decrease. Thus, the hypotheses were not supported. The nonsignificant findings were explained by the methodological limitations of the present study.
Language change as influenced by cultural contact a case: |Ladino
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1983., 1983.) Gerson, Karen.; Aksu-Koç, Ayhan.
An investigation on need affiliation and its relation to family cohesion in Turkish adolescents
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1983., 1983.) Tunalı, Belgin.; Cansever, Gökçe.
The present study is an investigation on the need for affiliation and its relation to the level of cohesiveness in the family. By administering Faces II Scale of Family Cohesion and Adaptability, the families of the subjects were divided into four groups of different cohesion levels ranging from the lowest cohesion (ie. "disengaged") to the highest (ie. "enmeshed"). The need for affiliation was defined as establishing, maintaining or restoring a positive affective relationship with another person. Four T.A.T. cards were used for measuring the degree of afffiliation and the need for affiliation was predicted to increase as the cohesion level in the family increased. It was also predicted that as the Size of the family (ie. number of children) increased, there will be a decrease in the need affiliation scores of the subjects. Besides the stated relations, certain characteristics of the subjects like death, divorce, or remarriage in the family, the presence of grandparents in the family atmosphere the age of the parents, and whether the mother worked or not were also examined in relation to the need for affiliation and the level of cohesion. 70 subjects of the study were all females coming from lower middle socio-economic status families, ages between 15- 17. The results have shown that the predicted relation exists between the need for affiliation and level of cohesion in the family. That is, as cohesiveness, in the family increases, so does the need for affiliation. wtth regard to the second hypothesis, the results yielded a nonsignificant relation between the two variables; in other words, no significant increase was observed in the need for affiliation as the size of the nuclear family increased. Families with "working mothers" seemed to be more cohesive and the members of such families received higher scores on need for affiliation. Other factors such as death, divorce, remarriage, etc. did not have any significant relation with need for affiliation and family cohesion level.Certain suggestions were made on the basis of the results obtained from this investigation.
Sibling set configuration, family dynamics and childhood psychopathology
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1983., 1983.) Zeytinoğlu (Öztemir), Gülgün.; Fişek, Güler Okman.
The study attempts to explore those characteristics which make it possible for a given child in a family to emerge with psychological dysfunction. As the starting point, Fishbein's (1981) research study on the effects of sex and birth order of sibling set on the selection of an identified patient is replicated in part. Also) the effects of theoverinvolvement of one of the parents, the presence of a grandparent in the household and the sibling rivalry felt by the child upon psychological dysfunction in the identified patient are examined. The theoretical framework of this study rests on family systems theory (Bowen, 1974 ; Minuchin, 1974), which investigates the relationship between family members; and Adler's theory of birth order.
The relationship between perceived child-rearing attitudes, ego-strength, and socio-economic-status
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Science and Engineering, 1983., 1983.) Erbeş, Nazlı.; Yavuzer, Halide Sevim,
The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between SES and ego strength in late adolescence. It was hypotesized that there would be a direct relationship between these two variables, such that higher status should lead to higher ego strength and that this, relationship was mediated through socialization practices used by parents. These socialization practices were measured by a parental attitude scale (PARI) as perceived by adolescents. The Ego Strength scale was to measure adolescents' ego strength, these scales were given to high and low SES students in two different lycee. The general results suggest that there is a significant difference in child rearing patterns influencing adolescents' low SES groups. Significant differences were found in adolescents' ego strength in the different SES groups, with high SES adolescents having higher ego strength than low SES adolescents. No significant difference was found between.boys and girls. Significant differences were found in tihe extreme mothering and overprotectiveness dimension of parental attitudes scales such that less overprotective mothers being in high SES groups and positevely associated with high ego strength in their children. The second significant was found in the rejection of the housewife role dimension of the PARI scale, high SES mothers do not reject their housewife role and foster their children to have high ego strength significant difference was found between the equalitarianism discipline and obedience dimensions while parental conflict dimension was found to be strongly related to ego strength regardless of the socio-economic group. This latter finding suggest tha the home climate affects directly adolescents' personality in whathever group he belongs to. These results suggest that the different basic conditions of life at different levels of the social order affects parental attitudes influencing their children's ego strength.
An investigation of the psychological correlates of weight
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1983., 1983.) Kayahan, Sema.; Fişek, Güler Okman.
The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between weight and field dependence - independence, internalexternal control and future time perspective, so that some recommendations could be given to improve weight reduction techniques. It is hypothesized that as weight increases field dependency would increase, external locus of control would increase and future time perspective would decrease. To measure the first two dimansions, already developed scales were used, namely Witkin's GEFT and Rotter's I - E Scale. To measure future time perspective on the other hand, the future section of the Time Questionnaire which is originally developed to measure the suicide potential of depressive patients was modified to measure the future projection of the obese. Senior students of two Technical High Schools for Girls were the subject group. A regression analysis was calculated between weight index and field dependence - independence, internal - external locus of control and future time perspec'cive. According to the results, no significant relationship was found between any of the variables. These resul ts confirom the other findings which suggest that behavioral characteristics of individuals are not determined by their weight levels contrary to Schachter's findings which indicate that obese individuals have certain kinds of behavioral characteristics, that is stimulus bounded.
An investigation of the effectiveness of cognitive behavior modification in the reduction of text anxiety
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute of Social Sciences, 1984., 1984.) Köksal, Falih.; Fişek, Güler Okman.
The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Cognitive Behavior Modification in reducing the test anxiety, of twenty (8 male, 12 female) Robert College lycee three students. To asses the level of test anxiety of subjects in pre and post testing, STAI and TAS were used as instruments. The treatment was applied to the subjects in the experimental group while it was witheld from the control group. The hypothesis put forward was that, the decrease of test anxiety in the experimental group on STAI and TAS would be significantly greater than that in the control group. With the application of t-tests the results were found not to support this hypothesis. Various speculations as to the reasons for these findings were discussed and suggestions for further studies were given.
Perceived family cohesion and its relationship to ego-strength in late adolescents
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute of Social Sciences, 1984., 1984.) Fışıloğlu, Hürol.; Fişek, Güler Okman.
The aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between the perceived family cohesion level and egostrength of the family member. It was hypothesized that late adolescents whose family cohesion scores are moderate will have high ego-strength and late adolescents whose family cohesion scores are high or low will have low ego-strength. Also related to the hypothesis effects of differed sex and demographic characteristics on perceived family cohesion and ego-strength were examined. The sampling population of the research was composed of 60 male and 60 female students of the language Preparatory School of Bosphorus University ages between 17-23. FACES II was used to measure perceived family cohesion and the Ego-Strength Scale was used to measure ego-strength. As the results of the two way Analysis of Variance on the effect of perceived farmily cohesion on ego-strength and the interaction of sex by perceived family cohesion did not indicate significant results the hypothesis was not supported. However, the effect of sex on ego-strength was found to be significant. Males' ego-strength scores were significantly hiqher than were females' scores. Additional results indicated that income of the family, mother's education, father's education had a significant effect on ego-strength of the subject, and the number of siblings had a significant effect on perceived family cohesion level.
The impact of pre-school education and child-rearing practices on cognitive styles and autonomy of five year old Turkish children
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1984., 1984.) Ergün, Özlem.; Sunar, Diane.
The cumulative effect of environmental deprivation on cognitive development in early childhood
(Thesis (M.A.)- Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1984., 1984.) Erdemli, Ayşe.; Aksu-Koç, Ayhan.
The present study investigates the cumulative effect of environmental. deprivation on children's cognitive functioning. It was hypothesized that (1) Three year old children attending educational preschools would perform better in cognitive functioning than the same age children raised at home, (2) Five year old children attending educational preschools would perform better in cognitive functioning than the same age children raised at home, (3) the difference in cognitive functioning between children attending educational preschools and raised at home would be greater in the five year old group compared to three year old group. Classification and seriation tasks devised by Piaget were administered as measures of cognitive functioning to 120 Low SES children at two age levels, 3 and 5, half of them attending education preschools and half raised at home. Results indicated no significant difference between the educational preschool children and home reared children at either age. The only significant difference was found between the two three year old groups in terms of classification behavior. The results, being insignificant, didnot support the main hypothesis that there would be a greater difference between the two groups of elder children because of longer exposure to environmental deprivation.
Preferences for justice norms and job satisfaction
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute of Social Sciences, 1984., 1984.) Müderrisoğlu, Duygu.; Fişek, M. Hamit,
The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between distributive justice and job satisfaction in formal organizations by investigating the application and acceptance of justice norms and distribution rules. In approaching the justice evaluations of white-collar workers, primary emphasis has been placed on preferences for norms (either equity or need) and dimension of evaluation (status or performance characteristics) ln the allocation of rewards, and on whether agreement between employees' and managers' preferences affects the employees' perceived justice and satisfaction levels. Two preference scales and a perceived justice scale were developed in order to measure the magnitude of the relation between perceived justice and agreement variables. A satisfaction scale was used to measure the employees' satisfaction levels in order to investigate the relation between perceived justice and satisfaction. The existence of a meaningful relation between perceived justice and agreement variables, between satisfaction and perceived justice was hypothesized, however was not supported by the results. The predicted differences were not found in the data. The failure to support the hypotheses may be the results of a number of artifacts of the study, including on overly-homogeneous sample, macro-economic conditions and lack of variance in norm preferences and levels of job satisfaction.
Who are we now? A study of the cultural identity of Turkish migrant workers' children returning from western Europe
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1984., 1984.) Karahan, Rengin.; Vassaf, Gündüz,
54 Turkish high school students who have returned from West European countries after living as families of migrant workers completed a questionnaire in the month of May, 1983. The questionnaire consisted of questions eliciting background information plus the four scales assessing the following psychological characteristics of these children. 1. Interaction with the culture of the host country - A culture contact scale (a modified form of the scale developed and used by LeCompte and LeCompte and White) was used for assessment. 2. Traditionalism level of both the children and their fathers (families) LeCompte ~nd LeCompte Traditionalism scale was used to assess traditionalism. 3. Attitude toward the families - A new Family Evaluation scale wa~ developed. 4. Cultural identity in terms of both host and home cultures - Short-Form Adjective Q-Sort was used to assess the cultural identities. Except for the Family Evaluation scale, all the other scales had been previously developed and used in other research. They were indicated to be valid and reliable measures. The degree of contact the children had with the host culture was found to be best predicted by the Family and the School variables. The children from highly conservative families reported similar traditional attitudes on the seven different issues of the traditionalism scale. These children had lower culture contact scores indicating little exposure to the host culture. The children who were exposed to segregated public education and intense religious education were found to have had less contact with the host culture. The length of stay in the host countries failed to predict the degree of contact the children had with their culture, contrary to the expectations and the previous findings. In the case of the cultural identity variable, all of the independent variables turned out to be nonsignificant in predicting the Turkish identity of the children (expressed by the 'Self and Turk' scores) possibly, due to the lack of variance in the scale.
Accuracy of recognition of facial expressions in children
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1984., 1984.) Kürklü, İris.; LeCompte, W. Ayhan (William Ayhan).
An evaluation of determinants of interpersonal trust in task groups
(Thesis (M.A.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 1984., 1984.) Mindek, Neşe.; Fişek, Güler Okman.
In the present study the effect of the variables openness and realization on the level of trust, in short term task grou,ps was investigated. The theory which the study was based upon was the TORI theory which was developed by Jack and Lorraine Gibb. Although in the TORI theory, as the name indicates, trust, openness, realization and interdependence were taken as the major aspects of the trust level in groups, in the present study, only two of these variables, namely openness and realization were taken as the independent variables and their relation with the level of trust was investigated. It was hypothesized that in the groups where openness is present, the trust level will be higher than the groups where closed communication takes place. And the second hypothesis stated that; in the groups where realization is present, the trust level will be higher than the groups where it is absent. Openness was defined as free flow of communication, ideas, feelings and perceptions among the group members, and realization was defined as members of the group being role free. To test for these hypotheses four conditions were set forward, which were open and role free, open and role bound, closed and role free, and closed and role boundJand for each of these conditions three discussion groups each made up of five people were included in the experiment. Thus total number of 60 subjects (11=28, F=32) participated in the experiment. The analysis of the findings supported the first hypothesis in the direction that the trust level of the groups where open communication took place was significantly higher than that of the closed groups. However for the second hypothesis no significant difference could be obtained among the role free nad role bound groups. This nonsignificance could be explained by the insufficiencies in the parts of the sample and the experimental manipulation.

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