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[cat] La conducció sota els efectes de l’alcohol és un dels principals factors de risc de la sinistralitat viària. Malgrat els esforços de governs i institucions per reduir les xifres de sinistralitat, el nombre d’accidents de trànsit relacionats amb el consum d’alcohol s’ha mantingut estable en els darrers anys. La reforma del Codi Penal en matèria de trànsit del 2007 ha suposat un increment dels penats per conducció temerària. La conducció sota la influència de begudes alcohòliques representa aproximadament el 50% de les condemnes per delictes contra la seguretat del trànsit. Conèixer quines són les característiques psicològiques més rellevants relacionades amb aquest delicte suposaria un pas endavant en la prevenció i la intervenció en seguretat viària, i facilitaria el disseny d’estratègies enfocades a prevenir aquesta conducta i la reincidència delictiva. Aquesta tesi s’estructura en dos grans objectius, que es desenvolupen en els estudis 1 i 2. L’estudi 1 pretén identificar els factors de risc de la conducció sota els efectes de l’alcohol, i conèixer quines són les característiques psicològiques dels penats per aquest delicte. En aquest estudi comparem les característiques de personalitat i actitudinals d’un grup de penats per conducció sota els efectes de l’alcohol i un grup de conductors control. Una anàlisi descriptiva dels resultats no revela diferències significatives entre els dos grups en cap de les dimensions de personalitat avaluades, mentre que el grup de penats mostra més actituds antisocials. Malgrat això, els resultats de l’anàlisi de regressió indiquen que la conducció sota els efectes de l’alcohol es relaciona amb un alt neuroticisme, baixes puntuacions en responsabilitat i fortes actituds antisocials. Els resultats d’aquest estudi mostren una alta coincidència entre el perfil psicològic de la conducció sota els efectes de l’alcohol, la conducta antisocial general, i l’abús d’alcohol. Aquests resultats s’haurien de tenir en compte en el desenvolupament de programes de prevenció, identificant aquells conductors amb un major risc de conduir sota els efectes de l’alcohol, així com aquells perfils amb una major resistència al canvi. D’altra banda, les actituds antisocials són un bon target a tenir en compte en els programes d’intervenció en conductors penats per conducció sota els efectes de l’alcohol. L’estudi 2 té com a objectiu avaluar la utilitat de la Teoria de la Conducta Planificada (TPB) per a predir intenció de conduir sota els efectes de l’alcohol. La TPB és un model àmpliament utilitzat en la recerca de la conducció de risc. En aquest estudi ens proposem posar a prova la TPB per a predir intenció de conduir havent begut en un grup de penats per conducció sota els efectes de l’alcohol complint una pena de presó, un grup de penats per conducció sota els efectes de l’alcohol complint una pena substitutiva a la presó, i un grup de conductors control. D’altra banda, ens proposem millorar aquest model incloent aquelles variables de personalitat i actitudinals que s’han relacionat amb la conducta antisocial i la conducció de risc. Els resultats d’aquest estudi mostren que els components de la TPB són capaços d’explicar entre un 20% i un 57% de la variància en intenció de conduir sota els efectes de l’alcohol, en línia amb els resultats d’altres estudis amb característiques similars. El component amb una major influència en la intenció és el control conductual percebut. La personalitat no representa una aportació rellevant en el model. Aquests resultats posen de manifest la necessitat d’incloure el control percebut dels conductors en les intervencions centrades en evitar la conducció sota els efectes de l’alcohol. També, suggereixen que la intenció de conduir sota els efectes de l’alcohol no està influïda directament per característiques de personalitat concretes, i obren noves línies de recerca centrades en explorar els mecanismes pels quals la personalitat influeix en la conducció sota els efectes de l’alcohol., [eng] Driving under the influence of alcohol is one of the main risks of road accidents. Knowing which are the most relevant psychological characteristics related to this crime would be a step forward in the prevention and intervention in traffic safety, and would help in the design of strategies aiming to prevent this behaviour and the recidivism. This thesis is structured in two main objectives, which are developed in studies 1 and 2. Study 1 aims to identify the risk factors for driving under the influence of alcohol, and to determine the psychological characteristics of those who have been convicted for this crime. In this study we compare personality and attitudes of a group of DUI (driving under the influence of alcohol) offenders and a group of control drivers. A descriptive analysis does not show significant differences between the two groups in any of the personality dimensions, while offenders show more antisocial attitudes. However, results of the regression analysis indicate that driving under the influence of alcohol is related to a high neuroticism, low scores in conscientiousness and strong antisocial attitudes. Study 2 aims to evaluate the usefulness of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to predict the intention to drive under the influence of alcohol. Our aim is to test the TPB to predict drunk driving intention in a group of DUI offenders serving a prison sentence, a group of drivers following a diversion programme as an alternative sanction for a DUI offense, and a group of control drivers. On the other hand, we aimed to improve the TPB model, including those personality and attitudinal variables that have been linked to antisocial behaviour and risky driving. Results of this study show that the TPB components are capable of explaining between 20% and 57% of the variance in intention to drive under the influence of alcohol, in line with the results of other studies with similar characteristics. The component with a greater influence on intention is perceived behavioural control. Personality does not represent a significant contribution to the models. The final part discusses the implications of these findings in the design and improvement of targeted programmes focused on preventing drunk driving and intervention programmes for DUI offenders.

Human risk perceptions and responses to risks are driven in part by personal experiences with relevant threats. In the case of climate change, humans have been slow to take sufficient action to mitigate climate risks, but personal experiences with extreme or abnormal weather events may shape attitudes and behaviors regarding climate risk. This dissertation presents a series of five papers that examine the effects of experiences with weather events on people’s attitudes and behaviors related to climate change. Paper 1 presents a detailed review of existing recent theoretical and empirical papers on the topic. Paper 2 presents evidence that a variety of extreme weather events can increase attention to climate change. This paper quantifies attention to climate change as frequencies of social media messages about climate change paired with records of extreme weather events in the United States. Next, Paper 3 reports evidence that experiences with abnormal weather events can impact climate policy support, an essential climate mitigation behavior. Across five studies in Paper 3 including survey data, online search data, and real election outcomes paired with objective weather observations, findings indicate that experiences with abnormal temperatures can increase climate policy support. Papers 2 and 3 together provide evidence that experiences with extreme or abnormal weather can affect attention to climate change and can affect substantial real-world climate mitigation behaviors. Paper 4 sheds light on the psychological mechanisms underlying the effects of experiences with extreme weather on climate change attitudes and behaviors. We examine experienced affect about climate change as a candidate mechanism which is investigated over three studies including survey data, experimental data, and social media data. We find support for the hypothesis that weather experiences influence climate attitudes and behaviors in part through experienced affect. Papers 1-4 together provide evidence that experiences with abnormal weather events can influence climate attitudes and behaviors. It remains an important question how these effects compare to effects of other drivers of climate attitudes such as climate activist events. Paper 5 analyzes the effects of climate activist events in direct comparison with effects of abnormal weather experiences. We find that the aggregate effects of weather experiences over the course of an average year are comparable to the individual effects of the world’s largest recent climate activist events and also to the effects of intergovernmental climate summit events. In sum, this dissertation reviews and synthesizes past literature, reports new evidence that abnormal weather experiences can affect citizens’ climate attitudes and mitigation behaviors, sheds light on an underlying mechanism of this phenomenon, and demonstrates that the magnitude of the effects of personal experiences is comparable to other known drivers of climate risk perceptions and mitigation behaviors.

This paper presents the results of a study based on the change in language attitudes experienced by some allochthonous individuals through contact with the sociolinguistic situation in Catalonia. Previous studies have suggested that in some cases, contact with Catalan a minority language with a valued identity acts as a stimulus for some foreigners to re-evaluate their own linguistic heritage. The present ethnographic research aims at providing some clues as to how the discovery of a minority language triggers changes in representations and attitudes. The study employed a qualitative methodology based on in-depth open interviews. The narratives analysed reveal various socio-cognitive mechanisms. The informants report having initially experienced the autochthonous minority language as an obstacle but later on developed an alliance with it and with minority languages in general. This change seems to be influenced by positive affective socialisation experiences in the host society and by the growing perception that knowing the language makes them members of the community. Furthermore, the sociolinguistic situation is perceived as an alternative model for rethinking one's own language ideology. As a result, a mirror effect, or movements of reciprocity, emerges as the representation built in Catalonia is projected onto the homeland.

Influence maximization, defined by Kempe, Kleinberg, and Tardos (2003), is the problem of finding a small set of seed nodes in a social network that maximizes the spread of influence under certain influence cascade models. In this paper, we propose an extension to the independent cascade model that incorporates the emergence and propagation of negative opinions. The new model has an explicit parameter called quality factor to model the natural behavior of people turning negative to a product due to product defects. Our model incorporates negativity bias (negative opinions usually dominate over positive opinions) commonly acknowledged in the social psychology literature. The model maintains some nice properties such as submodularity, which allows a greedy approximation algorithm for maximizing positive influence within a ratio of 1 􀀀 1=e. We define a quality sensitivity ratio (qs-ratio) of influence graphs and show a tight bound of ( p n=k) on the qs-ratio, where n is the number of nodes in the network and k is the number of seeds selected, which indicates that seed selection is sensitive to the quality factor for general graphs. We design an efficient algorithm to compute influence in tree structures, which is nontrivial due to the negativity bias in the model. We use this algorithm as the core to build a heuristic algorithm for influence maximization for general graphs. Through simulations, we show that our heuristic algorithm has matching influence with a standard greedy approximation algorithm while being orders of magnitude faster.