Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
The thesis focuses on the experiences of inclusion and participation of deaf and hard of hearing people in team sports, considering their own perspectives towards their reduced hearing, then...Show moreThe thesis focuses on the experiences of inclusion and participation of deaf and hard of hearing people in team sports, considering their own perspectives towards their reduced hearing, then translating this to their experiences on the sports field. Attributes that either support or obstruct inclusion are brought forward by sports policies and programs, the participants themselves, and literature research. While the research has given directly observable examples and tools of how inclusive practices in sports can be enabled, it has also shed light on indirect and structural issues that somehow impact sports experiences: general participation in the deaf or hearing world; the sense of belonging one has in each; the ability of sign language as an influencing and communicative tool; and the interaction or lack thereof with other deaf or hard of hearing people. Thus, a distinction is made between physical participation and social participation in team sports, where each pertains to a different side of what it means to achieve inclusion.Show less
In a ‘post-truth’ society, many journalists have become afraid to communicate uncertainty about their information as they believe it to decrease public trust. Earlier research showed this was not...Show moreIn a ‘post-truth’ society, many journalists have become afraid to communicate uncertainty about their information as they believe it to decrease public trust. Earlier research showed this was not the case, but not enough attention was paid to the linguistic stimuli with which the uncertainty was communicated. Through a survey with five texts covering two contested topics, climate change and rising prices due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the effect of expression length and frequency of verbal phrases of uncertainty were tested for their perceived uncertainty, reliability, trust in the information and trust in the authors. Results showed that the verbal expression of uncertainty, no matter the length or frequency, did not influence any of the four tested components. These results should reassure journalists that transparency does not negatively affect trust, and that they can safely communicate uncertainty about their information.Show less
Research master thesis | Psychology (research) (MSc)
closed access
Background: To alleviate side-effect burden in advanced breast cancer, it is necessary to identify at-risk personality types and effective interventions. Previous research indicates that patients’...Show moreBackground: To alleviate side-effect burden in advanced breast cancer, it is necessary to identify at-risk personality types and effective interventions. Previous research indicates that patients’ pessimism and trait anxiety may be risk factors for experiencing side-effects. To reduce their side-effect burden, optimizing patients’ side-effect expectations is suggested as a novel strategy. Doctor-patient communication strategies, such as expressing empathy (i.e. reassurance of nonabandonment) and explaining psychological mechanisms behind side-effects (i.e. a nocebo explanation), are most promising for optimizing patients’ expectations. In this experimental video-vignette study, we aimed to determine (1) whether clinician-expressed empathy and/or a nocebo explanation is effective in reducing expected side-effect burden, (2) whether generalized pessimism and trait anxiety relate to expected side-effect burden, and (3) whether there is an interaction between the effectiveness of these interventions and these personality characteristics. Methods: Using a two-by-two experimental video-vignette design, 159 cancer patients/survivors and healthy women watched one out of four videos with a nocebo explanation (present/absent) and empathy manipulation (present/absent). The effect of the interventions, the personality characteristics, and the interaction between these two were assessed using regression analyses. Differences between specific (e.g. hair loss) and nonspecific side-effects (e.g. fatigue) were investigated. Results: Clinician-expressed empathy, but not the nocebo explanation (p>.025), was successful in reducing expected side-effect occurrence (p=.008) and intensity (p=.003). Next, pessimistic patients expected side-effects to be more intense (p=.010), which was more profound in predicting the intensity of specific (p=.004), rather than nonspecific side-effects (p=.038). Moreover, results indicate an adverse effect of the nocebo explanation for pessimistic patients, as they expected nonspecific side-effects to be more intense after receiving this intervention (p=.014). Anxious patients expected a higher occurrence of nonspecific side-effects (p=.024), but not of specific side-effects (p=.435). No moderating role was found regarding patients’ anxiety and the effectiveness of the interventions. Conclusions: Short expressions of empathy by an oncologist can improve side-effect expectations. Generalized pessimism may cause patients to be vulnerable to expecting more intense side-effects, and to experiencing adverse effects from the nocebo explanation. Clinical follow-up studies need to investigate whether these results hold in clinical practice, and identify interventions for pessimistic cancer patients.Show less
Master thesis | Crisis and Security Management (MSc)
open access
2022-05-30T00:00:00Z
Classical literature on crisis communication focusses primarily on factors like consistency, accuracy and speed as being the most important aspects to effective crisis communication. However, an...Show moreClassical literature on crisis communication focusses primarily on factors like consistency, accuracy and speed as being the most important aspects to effective crisis communication. However, an emerging body of literature criticizes this approach for being too Western oriented and indicates that culture should play a bigger role in crisis communication and crisis communication statements. As such this thesis wanted to contribute to this research gap by examining to what extent multinational corporations should take cultural factors into account in their crisis communication statements. In order to achieve this, an explorative study was conducted that looked at how companies currently conduct their crisis communication and what can be learned from these practices through preliminary interviews, case studies and final interviews. From this, interesting finding were found at both the practical and academic levels. At the practical level, it was found that current crisis communication practices seem sufficient. Despite the fact that case studies portray a more nuanced picture than the classical literature would suggest, with culture being considered more than expected it still seems that the focus in crisis communication is and will remain on consistency, accuracy and speed. At the academic level, the most important finding was that current endeavors have been too oriented on the Western world, shaping the classical body of literature present today. As a consequence, the emerging body of literature tends to originate from non-Western parts of the world and seems to be a response of sorts against this traditional literature. As a result, these research agendas operate in the extremes and show little nuance in terms of the role culture plays or should play in crisis communication. By providing these insights, this thesis hopes to add more nuance to the existing research and offer suggestions on how the current literature can be improved or further developed.Show less
Trust is an important aspect of daily-life communication. We decide whether to trust someone based on just a face or a voice. Trust is part of credibility and is invariably connected to expertise....Show moreTrust is an important aspect of daily-life communication. We decide whether to trust someone based on just a face or a voice. Trust is part of credibility and is invariably connected to expertise. Previous research on credibility, expertise and trustworthiness has shown the impact of disfluencies on all three aspects. However, it has often focused only on native speech, and never used the duration of empty pauses as a fluency measure. The current study investigated the effect of empty pause manipulations in both native and non-native speech on perceived competency-based trustworthiness in two scenarios, differing in the level of expertise. Recordings of a native and a non-native speaker were manipulated phonetically, which resulted in two conditions: long empty pauses (LongPauses) and no empty pauses (NoPauses). The perceived competency-based trustworthiness of the speakers was measured using a 5-point likert-scale, based on McCroskey’s (1966) authoritativeness scale. Results indicated a significant effect for scenario and an interaction effect between scenario and nativeness. Post-hoc t-tests showed that the native speaker was perceived as significantly less trustworthy than the non-native speaker in the non-expert scenario. Second post-hoc t-tests showed that the native speaker was perceived as significantly more competency-based trustworthy in the expert scenario, than in the non-expert scenario. This same effect was not found for the non-native speaker. Follow-up questions showed that listeners in the native group indicated that the implied expertise in the scenarios did affect their judgements of the speaker, while the listeners in the non-native group indicated it did not.Show less
When it comes to teamwork, it is vital to communicate well with one another, especially when the lives of patients are in your team’s hands. In order to communicate well, hospital workers must feel...Show moreWhen it comes to teamwork, it is vital to communicate well with one another, especially when the lives of patients are in your team’s hands. In order to communicate well, hospital workers must feel psychologically safe enough within their team to address questions, problems, and errors, and must feel free to make suggestions and give feedback. This study investigates, by the means of a survey on psychological safety and network ties, whether social network ties within and between teams can predict the psychological safety of hospital workers, as they work with colleagues outside of their team as well. Asking for advice from (different) team members and being friends with team members was hypothesised to indicate that the team psychological safety is adequate. Having difficulties with team members was expected to lower the perception of psychological safety. Over the course of three weeks, 70 hospital workers answered the survey via Mechanical Turk and the results from the linear regressions suggest that advice ties positively affect and difficulty ties negatively affect team psychological safety, but only when psychological safety scores were at the lower end of the scale. Team tenure did not moderate the effect that network ties have on psychological safety while larger team sizes may weaken this effect. Future tools for improving psychological safety in hospital teams can make use of the knowledge that advice ties and difficulty ties are possible ingredients of a low psychological safety team moving to a desired level of psychological safety.Show less
In the dynamic world of healthcare, where people work together in multidisciplinary teams, psychological safety is necessary for effective teamwork. Psychological safety leads to more team learning...Show moreIn the dynamic world of healthcare, where people work together in multidisciplinary teams, psychological safety is necessary for effective teamwork. Psychological safety leads to more team learning, self-expression and personal engagement that in turn increases team effectivity. With those beneficial effects in mind, an important part (the first subquestion) of this study focused on the level of psychological safety of various actors at the department of Neurology/Neurosurgery/Neurocare in a large university hospital. Furthermore, this first subquestion served a larger goal. The hospital is about to implement changes in rules and regulations concerning the work activities of healthcare workers, in order to increase patient safety. According to the results of this study, the level of psychological safety was on an adequate level. The second subquestion addressed the prevalent communication styles among colleagues on the work floor of the abovementioned departments. The results suggested that healthcare workers use significantly more directive (dominant and contentious) communication styles compared to non-directive (attentive and friendly) communication styles. No difference was found between the communication styles of nurses and doctors. Since the way of communication may influence psychological safety, the third subquestion focused on the relationship of communication styles and psychological safety. No association was found between those two concepts. However, we found some indications in our very small sample size that nurses with non-directive communication styles may be vulnerable to experiencing a lower level of psychological safety. Because of Covid-19 regulations, the sample size was limited, so the findings are not generalisable. However, this study does serve as a proof-of-concept of a study that can be conducted in the future. In a subsequent similar study, the same method with some modifications can be used to get more generalisable findings and insights into the relationship between communication styles and psychological safety.Show less
Previous research on speech fluency and persuasiveness has generally focused on the effect that measures of speech fluency have on measures of perceived persuasiveness in native speech. In this...Show morePrevious research on speech fluency and persuasiveness has generally focused on the effect that measures of speech fluency have on measures of perceived persuasiveness in native speech. In this study an experiment was carried out to examine how the fluency measure of speech rate affects native and non-native speech in four different persuasive scenarios. Recordings of a native and non-native speaker were manipulated phonetically, resulting in fast and slow recordings for each scenario. Persuasiveness was measured on three dimensions, with one measure of belief change, and two measures of perceived persuasiveness: message perception and speaker perception. The results indicated that the persuasiveness of native and non-native speech is affected differently by speech fluency manipulations. A significant interaction was found for two of the three variables (belief change and speaker perception), indicating that the native speaker was more persuasive with a higher speech rate, whereas the persuasiveness of the non-native speaker was unaffected. For the message perception variable, there was no significant interaction effect, but there was a significant effect for fluency and nativeness, indicating the native speaker was more persuasive, and the fast speaker was more persuasiveShow less
Multiport interferometers are an important tool in the emerging field of quantum information technologies. In theoretical work, we investigate implementing Haar-random unitary transformations in...Show moreMultiport interferometers are an important tool in the emerging field of quantum information technologies. In theoretical work, we investigate implementing Haar-random unitary transformations in increasingly large interferometers with realistic imperfections. We find that random matrices result in mostly low values of interferometer beam splitter reflectivities. We model production imperfections and we find that these severely limit the implementation of random matrices. We show the effects of the imperfection can be mitigated through optimisation of interferometer degrees of freedom and by adding additional beam splitters. In experimental work, we investigate the realisation of reconfigurable multiport interferometers in silica-on-silicon integrated photonics chips using a modular design. We show that individual modules are fully reconfigurable. We give a proof-of-principle of the design by connecting three modules for the first time and measure 5% transmission.Show less
This thesis is a reflection on a recently popular word "post-truth". In my writing, I want to reveal the problems with the use of "post-truth", especially the definition of it by the Oxford...Show moreThis thesis is a reflection on a recently popular word "post-truth". In my writing, I want to reveal the problems with the use of "post-truth", especially the definition of it by the Oxford Dictionary. Instead of considering truth as objective facts as the dictionary does, I read "truth" through intersubjective communication.Show less
Brown and Levinson’s (1987) typology of politeness strategies is based on the basic wants of a model person (MP). Their concepts of face and positive and negative politeness have been...Show moreBrown and Levinson’s (1987) typology of politeness strategies is based on the basic wants of a model person (MP). Their concepts of face and positive and negative politeness have been groundbreaking in the fields of pragmatics and intercultural communication. However, their claim of having developed a universal model has been refuted by many scholars (Bargiela-Chiappini 2003; Watts 2003; Hill et al. 1986; Matsumoto 1988; Nwoye 1992; Mao 1994). In this paper, I use a contrastive language guide by Baxter and Baxter (2011) to attempt to analyze [1] how their pragmalinguistic advice relates to Brown and Levinson’s theory of politeness; [2] what influence the sociological variables have had on Baxter and Baxter’s choice of politeness strategies that are incorporated with face-threatening acts (FTAs); and [3] what the key underlying cultural differences are between the Dutch and the British in their choice of politeness strategies. The results of this study indicate that the pragmalinguistic advice relates to Brown and Levinson’s theory by using positive and negative politeness strategies when an FTA is incorporated into an utterance. Furthermore, sociological variables do play a significant role in the selection of politeness strategies, as they adhere to the discernment principles of their respective cultures. The key difference between the Dutch and the British is found in the sociological variable Low context communication.Show less
This thesis examines the influence of religion on American political communication. It answers the question: How is religion incorporated in George W. Bush’s communication towards the people, both...Show moreThis thesis examines the influence of religion on American political communication. It answers the question: How is religion incorporated in George W. Bush’s communication towards the people, both in his speeches as through the media? A literature search together with a discourse analysis on two speeches of George W. Bush, result in the connection of certain topics and keywords with religious influence on American political communication. The keywords are then searched in Factiva, showing the presence of the topics and keywords in wellknown American newspapers. Eventually it shows the continued presence of religious influences in American political communication through the media.Show less
This thesis is a genealogy of photography as a communicative object, one that goes against the grain of photography as a memento. The phenomenon that has triggered my interest is Snapchat, a...Show moreThis thesis is a genealogy of photography as a communicative object, one that goes against the grain of photography as a memento. The phenomenon that has triggered my interest is Snapchat, a smartphone app with which photographs can be exchanged that disappear almost immediately. My genealogical method, as inspired by Michel Foucault, is not one of looking for origins; I acknowledge the inconsistencies and vicissitudes of history. Rather, my aim is to establish how conditions were shaped in order for a phenomenon such as Snapchat to emerge. Throughout my research I assess how the paradox of the photograph as memento versus the photograph as communicative object has affected photography’s relation to terms such as memory and communication over the course of a number of decades. In order to establish productive analyses, I use examples from vernacular photography as well as art photography and conceptual art. The family photo album, Instagram, and Fiona Tan’s Vox Populi are the protagonists in the first chapter, in which I assess the altered relation between photography and memory. In the second chapter, On Kawara, the picture postcard, and Polaroid photograph serve to illustrate some characteristics of visual, photographic communication. The emphasis in such interactions is on the transfer of phatic messages, an exchange in which the photograph as an object plays a mere verificatory role; it helps the sender to tell the recipient that they are still alive. The third chapter centres on the disappearance of the photograph that is the consequence of Snapchat and other disappearing-photo-apps. At a time in which we amass daunting amounts of photographs, Snapchat has begun to relieve us somehow from the burden of remembrance and time-consuming structuring processes, but clearly, it does not operate without collateral damage. Certainly, the way in which photography functions as part of our daily life is rapidly altering. Snapchat’s wealth of ambiguities complicates straightforward interpretation, certainly at this stage in time when it is still relatively new. Could it be considered an inherent critique of the way in which we build our online identities, or is it inextricably part of the social media machine? Does it enable a renewed sense of intimacy, or is it the epitome of contemporary alienation? Through the continuous publicness of our private lives, much of the distinction between what used to be the private and the public has collapsed. Snapchat provides an answer to this situation in the sense that it offers its users a right to be forgotten, yet also, the consistent exposure and interaction it motivates leaves little room for privacy. And contrary to what many believe, this increased exposure does not seem to make us more visually literate, and it never ceases to overwhelm us. More than ever, Snapchat has made visual communication to be about its “here I am” value, and less and less about the photograph itself. Clearly, it is not an isolated phenomenon as such, rather, it is symptomatic for many widespread societal changes, attitudes and developments. As you will read, Snapchat’s inconsistencies cannot currently be solved, but arguably, that should not be seen as a weakness. On the contrary: they demonstrate the complexity of the phenomenon that I have studied.Show less
This thesis analyzes the development of social movements in China since the beginning of Deng Xiaoping's reforms. A comparison of the democracy movements of the 1980s and the labour movements of...Show moreThis thesis analyzes the development of social movements in China since the beginning of Deng Xiaoping's reforms. A comparison of the democracy movements of the 1980s and the labour movements of the 2000s is the central focus of the paper with special attention given to the role of the media, and social networking, in the development of these movements. It is argued that both movements share the strikingly similar grievances and methods of organization, and that the media, despite its continuing liberalization, continues to play only a marginal role.Show less
