Title:
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First impressions of young women with Turner syndrome
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This thesis explores the social difficulties of women with Turner syndrome (TS), and comprises of three parts. The first is a conceptual introduction, that consists of an extended discussion of the psychological and social functioning of women with TS. It considers the limitations of previous research and identifies that a gap in the literature seems to be that others’ impressions of and attitudes towards individuals with TS have been largely overlooked, along with the social implications of such impressions. It then examines the different methods of investigating observer impressions, and their strengths and limitations. The second part comprises of an empirical paper that investigates observer first impressions of women with TS. Young women with TS and typically developing controls were filmed participating in a social performance task. These clips were later presented to observers in various modalities (i.e. Audio-Visual, Video-only, Audio-only, Still Image, Transcript). The observers were asked to rate the women on various personal characteristics, as well as to consider their intentions to engage in further interaction with them. The findings indicated that observers judged women with TS more negatively on all personal characteristics explored in this study, and also reported reduced intent for social engagement with the participants with TS. Implications and limitations are explored. The final part of this thesis is a critical appraisal, that reflects on the process of conducting the research as a whole and discusses the various methodological dilemmas and challenges that were encountered. It also considers in more depth the impact of the findings and their wider implications.
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