This dissertation reports about the construction and validation of the Apperception Test God Representations. First, results of a meta-analysis demonstrated that for adherents of monotheistic... Show moreThis dissertation reports about the construction and validation of the Apperception Test God Representations. First, results of a meta-analysis demonstrated that for adherents of monotheistic religions, their perceived and experienced relationship with the personal god they believe in, was associated with well-being and distress. Also, as was expected based on object-relations and attachment theory, God representations were associated with views of self and others and with neuroticism/optimism. However, these results were mostly based on self-report measures of God representations, which are thought to be susceptible to social desirability and doctrine effects. Many scholars believe that God representations are for an important part implicit. Because well-validated implicit God representation measures did not exist, this thesis project examined the validity of a newly developed measure. In a group of 74 Christian patients with personality disorders and a group of 71 Christian nonpatients, associations of implicitly measured God representations with implicitly and explicitly measured distress and object-relational and explicitly measured personality functioning were compared with associations of explicitly measured God representations with these variables. For patients, associations between changes in God representations and changes in distress and explicit object-relational functioning after psychotherapy were examined. Results predominantly corroborated the construct validity of the ATGR. Show less
The cumulative lifetime risk of developing breast cancer for a Dutch woman is about 12%. In some families breast cancer seems to occur even more frequently or women fall ill at a relatively young... Show moreThe cumulative lifetime risk of developing breast cancer for a Dutch woman is about 12%. In some families breast cancer seems to occur even more frequently or women fall ill at a relatively young age. Such families may have a genetic susceptibility towards breast cancer. To learn more about the likelihood of this susceptibility actually being present, members of such families may request genetic counselling and DNA-testing. The main purpose of this thesis is to provide more insight into some effects of genetic counselling and DNA testing for breast cancer. We address effects on: (a) risk perception; (b) psychological distress; and (c) intentions for risk-management behaviour. Regarding the effects of DNA testing, special attention is paid to women who receive a so-called uninformative DNA-test result. The data of this thesis do not provide support for one of the two hypotheses which has been postulated about the impact of an uninformative result. They suggest that, as a group, women seem to be reassured upon learning their uninformative result, but to a lesser extent than women who received a true negative result. Only a small minority of women with an uninformative result incorrectly concluded that the chance of a mutation being present was non-existent. Show less
