Exploring the Impact of Self-Compassion on Lessons Learned from a Past Failure Experience

Although failure can be rich sources of learning, research has shown that experiences of failure also tend to coincide with strong psychological reactions. The negative emotions and isolation one feels may cause one to discount or dismiss one’s failures. In doing so, individuals may be unable to properly appraise their shortcomings and fail to identify what they might learn. Previous research suggests that self-compassion (self-kindness, a sense of common humanity, and mindfulness) may impact experiences of failure in important ways. However, research has yet to empirically examine the impact of self-compassion on lessons learned from a past failure experience. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of induced self-compassion on lessons learned. Additionally, this study sought to extend attribution theory by exploring the types of attributions people make about the lessons. After describing a past failure, an American sample of 354 Prolific Academic participants were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: (a) a self-compassion induction, or (b) a control condition. Following manipulations, participants completed a measure of self-compassion and then reflected on lessons learned by writing the lesson that was most significant to them. Participants then rated the attributional dimensions for that lesson (e.g., locus of causality, personal controllability etc.,). As hypothesized, results from this study showed that those in the self-compassion condition had higher levels of self-compassion when compared with individuals in the control group (β =.315, t(354) = 4.03, p \u3c .001). However, results did not support the hypotheses that those in the self-compassion group attributed their lessons learned as more internal (β =.08, t(354) = .38, p=.71), personally controllable (β =.01, t(354) = .03, p=.98), stable (β = -.14, t(354) = -.82, p=.41), global (β = -.12, t(354) = -.69, p=.49), universal (B= - .456, t(354) = -1.25, p=.21), or less externally controllable (β = -.09, t(354) = -.35, p=.73), when compared with individuals in a control group. Mediation analyses revealed an indirect effect of condition on personal controllability through self-compassion (β = .13, 95% CI [.026, .251]). This result supported the hypothesis that participants would rate their lessons learned as more personally controllable through the process of self-compassion. However, results did not support the additional hypotheses that self-compassion would also mediate the relationship between induced self-compassion and locus of causality (β = .05, 95% CI [-.047, .159]), external controllability (β = .10, 95% CI [-.012, .242]), stability (β = -.06, 95% CI [-.155, .010]), universality (β = -.02, 95% CI [-.096, .048]), and globality (β = -.06, 95% CI [-.153, .031]). Future implications and research are suggested to further explore the impact of self-compassion on learning from failure

Pathing the Ṭubū\u27: Modal Theory in the Modern Tunisian Conservatory

While the eastern Arab modal system of maqāmāt has been amply explored by a variety of scholars and practitioners, the systems of melodic modes which underlie North African- Andalusian music traditions colloquially called the ṭubū‘ (s. ṭab‘) are relatively unknown outside their native regions (even within the Arabic-speaking world), and their features have not yet been explored in Western ethnomusicological literature. This thesis attempts to represent the modal theory of the ṭubū‘ found in one style of North African-Andalusian music, Tunisian ma’lūf. It offers a summary of pedagogical approaches used for teaching the ṭubū‘ in a typical conservatory and describes the melodic features associated with each of the modes that comprise a standard conservatory curriculum. It will be shown that the Tunisian ṭubū‘, which are categorized melodically, are conceptually distinct from the eastern Arab maqāmāt, which are categorized tonally. Approximately half of the ṭubū‘ covered in this study have tonics and scales which are shared with at least one other ṭab‘. The melodic signatures of a given mode are therefore as theoretically essential to its nature and classification as is its set of pitches. This study shows how these melodic signatures or properties (khāṣiyāt) are theorized, how they are demonstrated pedagogically through a mode’s masār laḥnī (melodic path), how they are used in the context of melodies in songs from the ma’lūf repertoire, and how they are used to differentiate one ṭab‘ from another when two or more ṭubū‘ share the same scale. Finally, this thesis offers different models that can be used for ṭab‘ analysis as it relates to melody, rhythm, and form

Inclusion Of Aerodynamic Effects In Multibody Dynamics

The Equations of Motion (EoM) software, developed by University of Windsor Vehicle Dynamics and Control Research Group, can be used to generate linear or linearized equations of motion for mechanical systems, and is particularly well suited to vehicle dynamics. This paper describes an effort to extend its capability to include the effects of wings on the motion of multibody systems

Three Essays in Public Economics: Charities and Charitable Giving

This thesis explores three topics in the study of charities and charitable giving. The first chapter studies a classic question in public economics which deals with how charities react to government grants. In recent years this question of understanding crowd-out from the charity's perspective has been extended by numerous authors. This chapter is an extension of this work by using the framework from Andreoni, Payne, and Smith (2014) which studied the impact of a specific granting program in the UK. We use a grant program for charities from a Canadian provincial government agency to explore the extent to which these grants crowd out revenue from other sources. We are able to explore more than 15,000 applications by charities for funding over a 10-year period and have constructed a rich data set that captures information about the application and the revenues and expenses of the charity. We demonstrate that the overall revenues of the charity increases approximately 20% and that the effect of the grant extends several years. We also find that the grant raises revenue nearly dollar-for-dollar for small charities and by more than dollar-for-dollar for medium and large charities. The second chapter further explores how charities operate by studying how managers of charities influence the charity's finances. Using a novel dataset of Canadian charities that links the manager of a charity to the charity's financial data I employ a multi-leveled fixed effects model to estimate the effect the manager of a charity has on the charity's financial outcomes. I find that a one standard deviation increase in manager quality leads to a 0.516 standard deviation increase in total revenue, which amounts to over $500,000, with similar magnitudes for other measures of revenue and expenditures. I then use characteristics of the manager such as gender and marital status to find which characteristics are more prevalent in managers with higher estimated ability. Finally, I present evidence of positive match effects between managers and charities suggesting that good managers are assigned to good charities, and that the effect of a manager can persist even after the manager leaves the charity. Finally in the third chapter we explore the extent to which donation decisions are influenced by government policies. Specifically we study the extent to which the salience of a tax-induced incentive for charitable giving influences donors behaviour. Previous academic work has focused on estimating the price elasticity of giving and differences between permanent and transitory effects of changes in the price. This paper focuses on the timing and salience of tax incentives for giving. The Quebec provincial government responded to the January 12, 2010 Haiti Earthquake by permitting donations for the relief effort to be reported on the 2009 tax return. Residents in the rest of Canada reported their donations for Haiti relief efforts on their 2010 tax return. This difference in policy as well as the widespread announcement of the Quebec policy provides a natural experiment for testing whether the timing associated with reporting donations on one's tax return and the salience of the announcement of the policy affects charitable giving. In Canada, all tax filers with a tax liability can benefit from the reporting of donations and the credit available for such donations is tied to the level of the reported donations. We find that Quebec taxpayers gave more than taxpayers in the rest of Canada during this period and that this effect is driven by both an extensive (increased givers) and intensive (increased giving) margin. This result has important policy implications and contributes to current debates on the use of tax incentives to encourage charitable giving.ThesisDoctor of Philosophy (PhD

Functional inaccessibility of quiescent herpes simplex virus genomes

BACKGROUND: Newly delivered herpes simplex virus genomes are subject to repression during the early stages of infection of human fibroblasts. This host defence strategy can limit virus replication and lead to long-term persistence of quiescent viral genomes. The viral immediate-early protein ICP0 acts to negate this negative regulation, thereby facilitating the onset of the viral replication cycle. Although few mechanistic details are available, the host repression machinery has been proposed to assemble the viral genome into a globally inaccessible configuration analogous to heterochromatin, blocking access to most or all trans-acting factors. The strongest evidence for this hypothesis is that ICP0-deficient virus is unable to reactivate quiescent viral genomes, despite its ability to undergo productive infection given a sufficiently high multiplicity of infection. However, recent studies have shown that quiescent infection induces a potent antiviral state, and that ICP0 plays a key role in disarming such host antiviral responses. These findings raise the possibility that cells containing quiescent viral genomes may be refractory to superinfection by ICP0-deficient virus, potentially providing an alternative explanation for the inability of such viruses to trigger reactivation. We therefore asked if ICP0-deficient virus is capable of replicating in cells that contain quiescent viral genomes. RESULTS: We found that ICP0-deficient herpes simplex virus is able to infect quiescently infected cells, leading to expression and replication of the superinfecting viral genome. Despite this productive infection, the resident quiescent viral genome was neither expressed nor replicated, unless ICP0 was provided in trans. CONCLUSION: These data document that quiescent HSV genomes fail to respond to the virally modified host transcriptional apparatus or viral DNA replication machinery provided in trans by productive HSV infection in the absence of ICP0. These results point to global repression as the basis for HSV genome quiescence, and indicate that ICP0 induces reactivation by overcoming this global barrier to the access of trans-acting factors

Evaluating food environment assessment methodologies: a multi-level examination of associations between food environments and individual outcomes

Background: The food environment (FE) is being increasingly recognized as an important and modifiable determinant of diet quality and weight status. Hundreds of FE measures exist, resulting in a lack of comparability between studies. This is problematic given that evaluating FEs’ impact on population health requires valid and reliable FE measures. Methods: A population-based, stratified random sample was recruited from southern Ontario (N=4902 individuals within 2228 households). Socio-demographic data, and self-reported weight, height and waist circumference (WC) were collected from participants. Diet quality was assessed in a subset of participants (n=1170 individuals within 690 households). Neighbourhood FE perceptions were gauged. Seven objective measures characterized the FE of 421 food stores and 912 restaurants in the study region. Euclidean-distance buffers around each household were created at 250m, 500m, 1000m, and 1500m; FE scores from each measure were aggregated within each buffer. Datasets were used to investigate three different research issues. Construct validity of four of the measures was examined using a multitrait-multimethod matrix (MTMM). Multilevel multiple regression analyses determined the extent to which perceptions and objective measures predicted individuals’ body mass index (BMI), WC and diet quality. Mediation analyses were conducted to determine whether residents’ perceptions explained associations between objective measures and outcomes. Results: MTMM results revealed that common FE measures purportedly assessing the same constructs may in fact be measuring different constructs. Perceptions were not highly correlated with objective FE measures. Objective measures (notably food access and food affordability measures) predicted BMI and WC while perceptual variables did not. Mediation analyses findings revealed that perceptions do not mediate associations between objective measures and diet quality, BMI, or WC. Conclusion: MTMM results suggest a method effect, in that what is actually being measured seems to differ by assessment method employed, which has implications for research and practice. Findings may support FE policies or programs focused on objective (rather than perceived) FE features, since objective features better predict weight outcomes and perceptions do not mediate these associations. Specifically, strategies to restrict convenience store access and improve the affordability of nutritious foods relative to non-nutritious foods seem to be supported by these findings