Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Anxiety Symptoms Among Mexican And Mexican American Groups Based On Acculturation, Yolanda Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The incidence of somatic and cognitive anxiety symptomatology has been found to affect up to 29% of Latinos. Currently literature is problematic in regards to its neglect of the heterogeneous nature of the Latino population. In order to correctly analyze the within-group differences in anxiety symptomatology, this study focused in identifying the individual characteristics of Latinos of Mexican origin residing in the United States. Participants consisted of 190 college students from the University of Texas-Pan American. The relationships between vertical/horizontal collectivism, vertical/horizontal individualism, sex, annual income, and immigration status were studied. Vertical and horizontal individualism were found to be positively …

Growing Together Separately: An Analysis Of The Influence Of Individualism In An Alternative Educational Setting, Jessica L. Warren

Scripps Senior Theses

Alternative educational settings that attempt to challenge Individualism are pervaded by Individualizing influences from the larger school system. This thesis examines the influences of Individualism in a school garden program at a Southern California continuation high school. Program members included high school students, college student interns, and two co-directors. Research was conducted during the spring semester of 2014. By providing an analysis of the Individualizing and non-Individualizing influences present in the program and the ways in which these influences interacted to inform the program structure and program members’ experiences and understandings, my thesis sheds new light on the complex ways …

The Tea Party Movement And The American Political Tradition, Lance Roxas

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Abstract

Mind Playing Tricks: Individualism, Upward Mobility, And The Commitment To Self-Determination Among The Urban Poor, Will Bryerton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The ethos of the American Dream offers a popular and straightforward prescription for success: Work hard, rely on yourself before others, avoid bad choices, and prosperity will follow. It is a decidedly optimistic, largely undefined, and intensely individualistic promise with serious implications for Americans’ views on achievement and upward mobility. For all of these reasons, the validity of this ethos has come under attack. Philosophically, it is seen as illusory, ambiguous, and unrealistically demanding of individual exceptionalism. Sociologically, it is admonished for being too dismissive of structural constraints, systemic inequalities, and the value of relationships, social embeddedness, and mutual dependence. …

"Mai Pen Rai" = If Nothing Can Be Done, What Is There To Do? : Cross-Cultural Perspectives On Social Work In Thailand And The United States, Johanna C. Black

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This exploratory descriptive qualitative research study compared and contrasted Smith College School for Social Work (SSW) international field placement interns' experiences of social work in the United States and Thailand. The research compared and contrasted social work the interns' perspectives regarding social work practices they have experienced in the United States (U.S.) and in Thai culture, particularly with reference to the significance of how "Mai Pen Rai" -- there is nothing to be done-- related to social work micro and macro interventions in Thai culture. The interviews with western trained social work clinicians elicited observations of clinical and cultural similarities …

A Qualitative Inquiry Into The Treatment Experience Of Adolescent Females In A Relationally Based Therapeutic Boarding School, Douglas S. Marchant

Theses and Dissertations

Individualism, the assumption that persons are self-contained and primarily act for the sake of the self, is prevalent in American culture and has arguably perpetuated numerous psychological and societal ills. Relationality, the assumption that persons are always and inextricably constituted by relationships, has been posited as a philosophical and practical alternative to individualist culture. Several scholars, both inside and outside of psychology, have developed relational concepts and practices, including some who have elucidated a relational approach to psychotherapy (e.g., Slife and Wiggins, 2009). This study examines the implications and effects of this therapeutic approach, particularly exploring relationality's therapeutic success in …

Implications Of Individualism And Collectivism On The Individual's Social Identity, Sarah B. Powers

CMC Senior Theses

Social Identity Theory attempts to explain why individuals can act primarily as group members and secondarily as individuals and predict how individuals maintain positive social identities. Individuals are motivated to establish social identities to increase self-esteem and reduce uncertainty, and do so by using prototypes to cognitively represent, categorize, and compare in-groups from out-groups. Although Social Identity Theory explains the processes individuals undergo to develop social identities and situate themselves in society, it lacks the framework to explain how culture impacts an individual’s identity and the consequences associated with the contextual nature of a social identity. Individualism and collectivism are …

Efficacy Of Reach Forgiveness For Foreign And Virginia Students, Yin Lin

Theses and Dissertations

People agree that forgiveness is a virtue in essentially all countries. However, different cultures have different ideas about how willing one should forgive and under what circumstances. Although the study occurred in the USA, I recruited both foreign-extraction and Virginia born-and-raised female college students (N=102) to participate a six-hour REACH forgiveness intervention, promoting their forgiveness through psychoeducational groups. In my thesis, I investigated whether students of foreign extraction and Virginia-born students would respond similarly to the intervention. I operationalized culture in two ways—by country and by individual self-reported self-construal. I measured forgiveness using two measures—decisional forgiveness and emotional forgiveness. I …

Investigation Of Personal And Collective Mortality Threats In Individualistic And Collectivist Cultures: A Cross Cultural Study., Catherine Munns

Dissertations, 2014-2019

The purpose of this this study was to expand our knowledge of the ways in which people defend their worldviews under conditions of threat. Within the framework of Terror Management Theory (TMT), mortality salience (MS) in individualistic and collectivist cultures was investigated. Specifically, this study sought to directly examine MS effects as they relate to personal mortality and collective mortality. To accomplish this analysis, a 2 (Country: Russia and the U.S.) X 3 (Condition: Personal Mortality Salience, Collective Mortality Salience, and Control) design was employed. The current study consisted of undergraduate student participants from two cultures: U.S. and Russia. The …

Individualism And Collectivism As Moderators Of Affect And Attributional Style In Predicting Life Satisfaction, Jo M. Holmquest

Graduate Theses

The present study examined the effect of person-level individualism and collectivism on attributional style and frequencies of positive and negative emotions as predictors of life satisfaction. Participants were 224 individuals (age range 18 to 78, M= 39.63, SD = 13.78; 73% women; 56% Filipinos) who answered an online survey. Results from regression analyses showed that attributional style is not a statistically significant predictor of life satisfaction. The analyses also showed that across all participants, and among those who did not score high in individualism and low in collectivism, the frequency of positive emotions, as compared to the frequency of negative …

They Were Framed! The Development And Validation Of Context-Specific Measures Of Individual Culture, Amber Schroeder

All Dissertations

Early personality research often described behavior in terms of individual dispositions or stable behavioral tendencies (Allport, 1937; Cattell, 1957; Guilford, 1959), thus taking a context-independent view of personality. However, a recent review of thousands of empirical studies illustrated that even seemingly superficial changes to contextual variables can have a large impact on study results (Richard, Bond, & Stokes-Zoota, 2003). Yet, the use of non-contextualized measures of individual culture still remains the norm in cross-cultural research. Thus, utilizing a sample of more than 1,000 participants across two studies, work and nonwork measures of two cultural variables (i.e., individualism and collectivism) were …

The Cultural Context Of Performance Appraisal : Evaluating The Effects Of Raters' Cultural Values On Performance Ratings Using A Policy Capturing Approach, Vipanchi Mishra

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of the rater values of individualism and collectivism on weights placed on different types of performance behaviors when making overall performance ratings in a performance appraisal context. Specifically, it was proposed that in comparison to individualistic raters, collectivistic raters would place lower weights on task performance, higher weights on citizenship performance and higher weights on counterproductive performance behaviors. It was also proposed that similar effects will be observed when raters are situationally primed to activate either a collectivistic (interdependent) or individualistic (independent) mindset through self-construal priming. Furthermore, it was …

Sexually Explicit, Socially Empowered: Sexual Liberation And Feminist Discourse In 1960s Playboy And Cosmopolitan, Lina Salete Chaves

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I provide an analysis of 1960s American popular culture by examining Playboy, "The Playboy Philosophy," Cosmopolitan, and Sex and the Single Girl. These cultural artifacts furthered the feminist movement by challenging gender structures and sexuality. I discuss how these publications focused on the advancement of the individual through careerism, consumerism and sexuality. These publications assisted in challenging and breaking down various aspects of gender and sexual boundaries and assisted in reworking social limitations that kept women from advancing themselves outside of the pre-set gender roles of domesticity. Regardless of the traditional feminist critique of …

Individualized Intimacy? : The Negotiation Of Self And Other In Heterosexual Relationships, Daniel Santore

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Sociologists working in various scholarly traditions posit an individualization of contemporary romantic relationships occurring in Western societies over the passed several decades. This dissertation uses North American and European theoretical perspectives on "individualized intimacy" as the basis for a qualitative interview study of 45 women and men involved in heterosexual relationships. In keeping with the theoretical perspectives that ground the study, the interviews focus on how concepts of self-development, communication, gender and social class collide with one another in, and serve to shape, respondents' narratives of self and other in intimacy. Findings demonstrate that: (a) regarding gender, women and men …

Measuring Marriage Or Measuring Individuals: An Ontological Analysis Of Marital Therapy Outcome Measures, Joseph Andrew Ostenson

Theses and Dissertations

Many scholars have noted the pervasiveness of individualism in American culture, particularly in the marriage culture. Unfortunately, assuming individualism in the marriage culture poses very specific threats to marriage as an institution. Some claim that these individualistic assumptions have also infiltrated the marital sciences, undermining the efforts of researchers who hope to defend marriage. This dissertation explores that claim by analyzing seven of the most popular marital outcome instruments used by marital researchers today for individualistic assumptions. Using a conceptual analysis called "contrasting relations," the meanings of both the content and the process of the instruments are laid out according …

Cultural Differences As A Moderator Of Perceptions Of Injustice And Workplace Deviance, Amber Schroeder

All Theses

Previous research has suggested that organizational justice perceptions are negatively related to workplace deviance, but the impact of individual cultural orientations has rarely been considered. Thus, the current paper examined individualism and collectivism as moderators of the justice-deviance relationship. Results suggested that injustice was more likely to lead to deviant workplace behavior in individuals high on individualism or low on collectivism than in individuals on the opposite ends of these spectrums. Practical implications and study limitations are discussed.

Working Hard And Barely Making It: Ideological Contradictions And The Working Poor, Wendi Kane

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The existence of large, relatively comfortable, middle and working classes is what has set the advanced capitalist societies apart from most societies throughout history. These classes, while not quite "privileged," offer the hope of opportunity and upward social mobility for those who work hard. Yet in the last 30 years a growing class of "working poor" has emerged who invest many hours working but at wages that keep upward social mobility beyond their grasp. The existence of the working poor, it seems, dispels a key element in the ideology of individualism; they work hard yet do not "get ahead." This …

Culture And Persuasion Online: Predicting Attitudes, Cognitions, And Behavioral Intentions In A Culturally Diverse Online Marketplace, Gennadi Gevorgyan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

With an online experiment and a focus group, I examined the role of cultural appeals in online persuasive communication. The results of the study revealed that culturally oriented Web sites and online advertisements influence individual attitudes and behavioral intentions. These effects were particularly strong when cultural appeals were consistent across advertisements and their hosting Web sites. I observed the main effect of culture on persuasiveness of Web sites and advertisements both the American and the Chinese samples of participants. The results of the study did not, however, support the expectation that ethnic identity and need for cognition would interact with …

The Role Of Cultural Values In Organizational Attraction., Elizabeth Jimenez Muniz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United States' (U.S.) workforce is more diverse than in previous decades in terms of race, gender, and native language (Fay, 2001). Such demographic shifts have changed how organizations attract applicants and how they motivate, reward, and retain employees (McAdams, 2001). Furthermore, organizations benefit from diversity by: (a) attracting the best talent available in the workforce (Cox, 1993), (b) increasing their product marketability to customers (Deshpande, Hoyer, & Donthu, 1986; Redding, 1982), and (c) fostering creativity, innovation, problem solving, and decision making in employees (Thomas, 1999; Thomas, Ravlin, & Wallace, 1996; Watson, Kumar, & Michaelsen, 1993). Given such benefits, organizations …

Stereotypes And Prejudice: Intergroup Contact Between Americans And Japanese, Masami Ota

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goals of this research were twofold. First, this research investigated the current stereotype content between American and Japanese people. Second, the relationship among orientation (individualism or collectivisim), intergroup friendly contact, and stereotype and prejudice variability was assessed. Results showed that both Americans and Japanese have positive stereotypes of each other, with Americans selecting the trait "intelligent" as the most common descriptor of Japanese people, and Japanese selecting the trait "pleasure-loving" the most common descriptor of Americans. Although orientation was not related to the frequency of intergroup contact, friendly intergroup contact was positively related to steretype variability and negatively related …

The Politics And Values Of Individualists And Collectivists: A Cross-Cultural Comparison, David Y. Bourgeois

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism as testable dimensions of cultural variation. Collectivism emphasizes the primacy of norms, duties, and obligations, whereas individualism favors maximum enjoyment for the individual, interpersonal contracts, and freedom fiom the collectivity. While the horizontal dimension stresses equality, the vertical dimension calls attention to hierarchy. While past research (Triandis, 1995, Triandis & Gelfand, 1998) has demonstrated the convergent and divergent validity of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism, it is contended that the Triandis (1 995) measures of horizontal and vertical individualism and collectivism could provide predictive value by discriminating between attitudinal responses …

Communication To Reduce Embarrassment Between Individualistic And Collectivistic Cultures, Puvana Ganesan

Institute for the Humanities Theses

lntercultural communication is an inherent aspect of life, and "as we move or are driven toward a global village and increasingly frequent cultural contact, we need more than simply greater factual knowledge of each other. We need, more specifically, to identify what might be called the 'rulebooks of meaning' that distinguish one culture from another" (Barnlund, 1975, p. 7).

This thesis sought to discover and contribute valuable content to this "rulebook of meaning" through intercultural communication between high context, collectivistic cultures and low-context, individualistic cultures in the situation of experiencing embarrassment. One goal of this study was to determine if …

A Cross-Cultural Study Of The Collectivism-Individualism Paradigm: The Influence Of Confucian Values On The Conflict-Handling Behavior Of Male Graduate Business Students In Hong Kong And The United States, Randy Ki-Kwan Chiu

Dissertations

Problem. The Collectivism-Individualism literature argues that there is a difference in the way that Americans and the Chinese handle conflict based on differences in culture. It is also speculated that these differences have been influenced by Confucian values. However, these positions have not been conclusively supported by empirical findings.

Method. Both the Chinese Value Survey and Thomas and Kilmann's Management-of-Differences Exercise were administered to 124 U.S. White American graduate business students and 142 Hong Kong Chinese graduate business students. Three null hypotheses were formulated. These hypotheses stated that there is no linear combination of Integration, Human-heartedness, Confucian work dynamism, and …