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Gender And Personality In The Stress Process, Daniel David Cervi

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the influence of gender and several personality characteristics in the stress process using a cross-sectional study of 443 university students from a mid-size public New England university, a New England Catholic college, and a mid-size private Florida university. Three models are tested to consider the direct, mediating, and moderating effects of gender and personality on the stress outcomes of drug/alcohol use; non-substance deviant behavior; and depressive symptomatology.

Model 1 tests the antecedent effects of gender and personality to determine their influence on stress outcomes. The main effect of gender explained the largest portion of variance for drug/alcohol …

Literacies Without Judgment: Composing A (Con)Text For Cultural Healing In Northeast Brazil, Francisco Silva Cavalcante Jr.

Doctoral Dissertations

In this study the researcher describes and interprets the experiences with Projeto (Con)texto, a research group created in Northeast Brazil composed of eleven people with different levels of formal schooling, social classes and ages varying from 14 to 50 years old. The researcher explores the dynamics of the Brazilian relational universe and its impact on people's lives, the multiple forms of letramento (literacies) used by people in a certain cultural context to construe and convey meaning, and the process of strengthening of one's self to deal with cultural conflicts through cultural healing.

The researcher gathered descriptive data during one year …

The Sexual Harassment Paradox In Graduate School: Experiences And Answers, Kimberly Ann Smirles

Doctoral Dissertations

Sexual harassment is a pervasive problem in higher education (Truax, 1996). Graduate students occupy a unique power position in academia as both students and teachers. As such, they are potentially victims and perpetrators of sexual harassment. The purpose of the current research was to (a) understand the dynamics of sexual harassment by examining the experiences and perceptions of graduate students and (b) assess whether a commonly utilized education program was effective in raising awareness and changing the attitudes of graduate students. Graduate students from both the University of New Hampshire (Study 1) and around the country (Study 2) were asked …

Character Prominence And Perspective In Narrative Comprehension, Jennifer G. Halleran

Doctoral Dissertations

Current theories of narrative comprehension assume that readers attend to information about the protagonist, including his/her goals, location, and emotions. However, such a Limited view of narrative comprehension does not adequately address the complexity of text. Typically, the reader is exposed to an array of important secondary characters and their relations to the protagonist(s) in narratives. Also included in this story dynamic may be the beliefs or opinions of the secondary character(s) regarding the protagonist.

Three experiments were conducted to examine the effects of character prominence and perspective on reading comprehension for narratives. The prominence distinction between two characters, a …

The Role Of Shame In Writing: How Lived Experience Affects The Writing Process, Carol Kountz

Doctoral Dissertations

Writing fluently without disabling apprehension requires an ability to control ideas despite the occurrence of censoring thoughts or shameful sensations. Such ability is characteristically lacking in apprehensive or blocking writers, who, therefore, have difficulty in composing. To understand the psychological and social factors that impede the writing process, and to give writers and compositionists insight into the features of writing that result in "writer's block," I held conversational interviews with twenty-four people who designate themselves as apprehensive writers about their literacy experiences and writing behavior. Analysis of these interviews shows that these people, in anticipation of a real or inward, …

Fixation And Incubation Effects In Problem-Solving, Marie Theresa Hansberry

Doctoral Dissertations

In four experiments, the effects of fixation and suppression processes in problem solving ability were investigated. Previous research has shown that efficient suppression mechanisms are integral to verbal ability (e.g., Gernsbacher & Faust, 1991; Gernsbacher, Varner, & Faust, 1990; Hartman & Hasher, 1991). The present set of experiments demonstrated that such a mechanism is also a component of problem solving ability. The efficiency with which participants were able to suppress inappropriate meanings of ambiguous words was used as a measure of suppression skill. Experiment I established that participants who were able to make use of previously-presented information to solve difficult …