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Socio-Emotional Conflict In Teams: A Social Relations Analysis And Exploration Of Causes, Jacqueline Zelno Bergman

Doctoral Dissertations

Substantial research has consistently shown that socio-emotional conflict detracts from team performance and decreases team member satisfaction. However, little research has been done to determine what leads to this type of conflict. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine in more detail the underlying causes of socio-emotional conflict among team members from a person-perception perspective. A round-robin design and D. Kenny's (1994) social relations model (SRM) were used to examine the extent to which perceptions of socio-emotional conflict stem from individual versus relational factors. Moreover, several individual difference variables were examined to investigate who is most likely to …

Urban Transit And The Working Poor: The Geography Of Welfare Reform, Jennifer Lynn Rogalsky

Doctoral Dissertations

American cities have changed from older high-density urban neighborhoods to sprawling automobile-oriented suburbs. Many of the urban poor find themselves distant from jobs and services on this landscape. For poor single mothers, the problems are exacerbated by childrearing responsibilities. In addition, most of the jobs that are accessible to the working poor are low paying and have non-traditional hours, making the challenges of this new urban landscape even more formidable.

Welfare reform initiatives have established time limits for assistance; the aim is to remove millions from welfare and make them self-sufficient. However, the immediate result was to push many into …

Political Practice: A Hermeneutic-Phenomenological Inquiry, Michael E. Arfkin

Doctoral Dissertations

The present project focuses on some of the similarities between social cognition, transcendental phenomenology, literary theory, and epistemological hermeneutics. I argue that developments in hermeneutic theory call into question the view that interpretation is a cognitive process residing within the minds of individuals. Drawing on Heidegger’s project for a fundamental ontology, I suggest that hermeneutic phenomenology provides a radical critique of social cognition’s view of the nature of social reality. I also introduce the concept of practice as an alternative to psychology’s focus on subjectivity.

These theoretical explorations provide a foundation for investigating the practices that embody an interpretation of …

Assessment Of The Trait Hope Scale With Social Service Providers, Andrea Kelli Mccarter

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the reliability of the Trait Hope Scale when used with a sample of socials service providers. Scale scores were collected from 104 social service providers in the southeastern region of the United States. Data was collected using self report surveys from a population of case managers in the social service field. Univariate analyses were conducted to determine the make up of the sample which was primarily white females having a graduate degree. Additionally, Bivariate analyses were used to compare the mean scores of the agency, pathway and hope scale between genders and …

Leadership Ability Based On Communication Style: A Quantitative Study Of The Effects Of Sex And Gender On Perception Of Leadership, Linda Pysher Jurczak

Doctoral Dissertations

Work to date on masculine and feminine communication styles in leadership roles is limited. Much of the leadership research reflects an interest in the differences between the styles of men and women, but relatively little has been done focusing on feminine and masculine communication styles. This study seeks to fill in some of the gaps. The quantitative design of this study is based on Goldberg's (1968) experimental paradigm and used an Internet-linked survey consisting of four different sex and gender combinations. The survey included Renzetti's (1987) Sex Role Attitudinal Inventory, a brief description of a leader, and a Likert-type scale …

Madam President: A Content Analysis And Media Effects Approach To Investigating News Nedia Coverage Of Female Presidential Primary Candidates, Tiffany Jane Shoop

Doctoral Dissertations

From the early 1900s when the first Congresswoman, Jeannette Rankin, in reference to a reporter, shouted, “Tell him to go to hell!” to the late 1980s when gubernatorial candidate Evelyn Murphy, in reference to an unflattering picture of her in jogging shorts published in the Boston Herald, stated, “Just some kind of parity among us, that’s all I’m asking,” the tension between women in political positions and the news media has been a topic of considerable scholarly interest (Witt, Paget, & Matthews, 1995, p. 186, 183). This research project continues the stream of research on news media coverage of …

Being Authentic In Life And On Stage: A Phenomenological Investigation Of The Actor As Character, Sanderien Marieke Bosshardt

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to describe the process of character development as experienced by the actor. Twelve professional actors participated in 60 to 90 minute phenomenological interviews in which they were asked to talk about their experiences of character development. Each participant was asked to respond to the following statement, ''Take a moment to think about a specific character you played. Please describe for me in as much detail as you can what stood out for you during the development of that character."

Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. The transcripts were analyzed individually and in a group format …

Measuring Effort To Interview And Track Mothers Of Newborns, Elizabeth E. Wilson

Doctoral Dissertations

Maintaining a longitudinal sample is methodologically important to the integrity of research conclusions. The amount of effort devoted to retaining samples varies across research studies. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the effort needed to interview and track longitudinal respondents and the respondents' demographic characteristics, their collateral information, and various measures of the respondents' stability. The sample consisted of 246 mothers of newborns who were interviewed twice over 6 to 12 months as a part of the Volunteer Infant Parent Study. By using eight variables and latent class analysis, mothers of newborns were categorized into …

Identifying The Underpinnings Of Compulsive Behavior: A New Measure Of Addiction Proneness, Jennifer Lynn Bowler

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation describes the development and initial validation of an indirect measure of addiction proneness. This new measurement system is based on the concept of differential framing, that is, the idea that individuals with different personalities tend to frame the same situations and stimuli in qualitatively different ways. This new measure (called the Conditional Reasoning Test of Addiction Proneness, or CRT-AP) consisted of 23 items that were designed to assess framing proclivities associated with addiction proneness. These items used Conditional Reasoning methodology to assess the extent to which implicit biases are used to justify the perpetuation of chemical dependency. Data …

Religion And Political Attitudes In South Korea, Junghyoun Kim

Doctoral Dissertations

In order to shed some light on how religion affects the consolidating democracy in South Korea, this research focuses on the relationship between individual’s religiosity and their political attitudes, particularly: (1) political tolerance, which is considered a prerequisite for democratic consolidation, and (2) political ideology, which enables us to look at the impact of religion on people’s political behavior.

In terms of the research design, this research uses a quasi-experimental design, a survey design for hypothesis testing using statistical procedures (sample size = 994, sample frame = all adults over 20 years old who live in Seoul, the capital of …

Winnie-The-Pooh And Lincoln, Too: Children’S Literature As Civic Education, Marc S. Schwerdt

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to describe the civic content of children’s literature. A content instrument was prepared to measure the presence of civic and political concepts within a sample of children’s literature consisting of 51 bestsellers and 35 Newbery Award winners from 1960-2001. While manifest political agendas are minimal within children’s literature, this study found a heavy presence of civic content as defined by civic education standards. Children’s literature is permeated with the structure, skills, values and behavior of democracy. Findings show that civic content corresponds with developmental characteristics in children of the relevant age group. Findings also …

Differential Attributions Of The Causes Of Subordinate Success And Failure By Aggressive And Non-Aggressive Individuals, Mark Connor Bowler

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examined the differential causal attributions of non-aggressive and aggressive individuals responding to incidents of subordinate success and failure. Participants (N = 407) were presented with 16 vignettes (eight describing subordinate success and eight describing subordinate failure) that utilized unique combinations of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency information. Participants made attributions regarding the cause of the subordinate’s behavior (i.e., person, task, circumstances, or any combination of the three) and indicated their preferred behavioral response (i.e., praise/reward, reprimand/punish, coach/train, redesign the task, or do nothing). When responding to incidents of subordinate success, the causal attributions of aggressive individuals were similar to …

The Pressure Model Of Terrorism: A Behavioralist Model For Ethnonational Terrorism In Western Europe, 1945-2000, Ole J. Forsberg

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine which factors affect an ethnonational group's decision to utilize terrorism to obtain their desired outcomes. Current theories have reached an answer, but theoretical underpinnings of those answers are disparate and weak. Thus, in answering this question, a new model of terrorism is necessary - one which spans the four primary levels of analysis. I do this using a weak rational choice model as a cross-level link, and using psychological models as a basis for the individual-level actions.

While the model is not unequivocally and universally supported by the tests, it is able …

Political Sophistication And Partisan Cues: Insight From South Korea’S 2002 Presidential Election, Do-Kyung Kim

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to study the effects of political sophistication on the use of partisan cues in the 2002 South Korean presidential election. Many scholars in recent years have argued that it does not matter so much that many voters are poorly informed about politics because they can use information shortcuts or heuristic cues to overcome the lack of information and still make a reasoned choice. Based on these studies, much of the political sophistication literature in political science assumes that the use of party cues in the voting booth is the hallmark of an unsophisticated voter. …

Multiculturalism And The State: Globalization, National Protection, And The Role Of Social Policy In Québec And Canada, Corey Allen Blad

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is an historical comparative examination of economic globalization (i.e., global market integration) effects on state political economic capacities in Québec and Canada. The central goal of the project is to understand how global market integration has altered the policy capacities of state institutions. Specifically, this dissertation examines Canadian multiculturalism and Québec interculturalism as social policy responses to ethno-cultural diversification resulting from increased global market integration. I argue that increased global market integration decreases state capacity to enact economic protections, but not the demand for protections from national populations. The result of these changes (ethno-cultural diversification and decreased economic …

Exploring Sexual Scripts: College Students’ Perceptions Of Seduction And Rape, Nicole Corsaro Cravens

Doctoral Dissertations

Previous research has utilized script theory as an important tool for social scientists in understanding people’s attitudes and beliefs regarding problematic events, e.g., rape and violence. A study conducted by Ryan (1988) has shown the different scripts for rape and seduction scenarios perceived by introductory level college students. The present study is an extension of Ryan’s research on rape and seduction perceptions. Data will be collected from students currently enrolled at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, instructing them to describe a "typical" rape and "typical" seduction scenario. These will be analyzed to: identify common stories of rape and seduction among …