Communication Commons^™

Reconciling Self-Censorship: A Qualitative Study Of The Experiences Of University Staff And Administrators, Leigh C. Morales

Doctoral Dissertations

In addition to a global pandemic, the past three years have been marked by racial, social, and political unrest. These circumstances add meaningful context to examine and better understand factors that undermine free expression and contribute to self-censorship among university staff and administrators. To date, few studies have holistically explored the unique experiences of university staff and administrators with self-censorship and how this phenomenon affects their experience on college and university campuses. Understanding why staff and administrators choose to self-censor may allow for a deeper discussion about speech climate and the degree to which colleges and universities implement and uphold …

Patterns Of Receptivity To The Influence Tactic Of Pseudo-Reasoning, Dennis Neal Mccarty

Doctoral Dissertations

The “bullshit” construct used within social influence involves presenting ambiguous message content as an ersatz substitute for missing reasoning. This pseudo-reasoning combines with clearer source or affect cues that drive the target toward a desired conclusion. Bullshit receptivity (BSR) has presented a popular focus of research, especially considering the use of pseudo-reasoning within viral disinformation (Van Bavel et al, 2020). Most BSR research has involved non-experimental correlational tests with trait-like, individual cognitive variables, their explanation of BSR’s cause remaining limited and inconsistent (Pennycook et al, 2015). However, influence tactics employing bullshit commonly derive their effects from fulfilling targets’ motivated needs …

Emerging Adults’ Experiences As Receivers Of Sexually Transmitted Infection Disclosures From Sexual Partners: A Three-Part Examination, Kayley D. Mcmahan

Doctoral Dissertations

Each year in the United States, over 20 million cases of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are diagnosed, mostly among those in the developmental period of emerging adulthood (ages 18-29). Research on STI disclosure to romantic and sexual partners has increased over the last two decades, but this research has (a) generally lacked a developmental and theoretical focus, (b) not examined disclosure recipients, and (c) not been systematically and critically synthesized. To address these limitations, I conducted a three-part examination. First, I systematically reviewed the STI disclosure literature and summarized findings, critical limitations, and future research and intervention directions. Next, I …

Politeness Theory: Compliance And Paralinguistic Cooperation, Jamie Jacqueline Osborn

Doctoral Dissertations

Abstract

This manuscript is comprised of three research studies focused on politeness, shame, and cooperation. Study one is a pretest to develop stimuli for the subsequent experiment. The stimuli are comprised of messages that vary by both the type and degree of politeness. There are two types of politeness: regard for another’s identity and regard another’s independence (autonomy). There are also two degrees of politeness: presence and absence of regard. Presence of regard is considered politeness and absence of regard is considered impoliteness. This creates four conditions: identity politeness, autonomy politeness, identity impoliteness, and autonomy impoliteness. This study included exemplars …

Acculturation Stress, Psychological And Sociocultural Adjustment, And Development Of American Adolescents: A Qualitative Study Of Newton High School Exchange Students In China, Binbin Zhu

Doctoral Dissertations

Theories from the extant acculturation literature functioned to categorize international students’ adaptation experiences and predict their acculturation outcomes. Also, relevant studies focused mainly on students at the tertiary level. For adolescent students seeking self-development toward independence and autonomy, how they negotiated their identity challenges and tensions in a cross-cultural context, and how surrounding others in their socialization impacted on their psychosocial adjustment process and transformative experiences have not been actively explored. This qualitative study approached adolescent students’ acculturation as an integrated development and learning process to explore the effects of developmental and cultural factors on their cross-cultural adaptation, especially examined …

Experiences Of Newly Licensed Registered Nurses Who Stay In Their First Jobs, Lisa D. Kirkland

Doctoral Dissertations

Most newly licensed registered nurses go to work in acute care hospitals, which means they enter an increasingly complex healthcare environment where they experience staffing shortages, high nurse-patient ratios, and workplace violence. The purpose of this study is to attempt to understand the experiences of newly licensed registered nurses who have endured the early years of bedside hospital nursing and continue to work in their first nursing job. The existential phenomenological philosophy of Merleau-Ponty serves as the guiding framework for this qualitative research study. Following IRB approval, criterion and snowball sampling were used to recruit newly licensed registered nurses who …

The Relationship Between Demands And Resources And Teacher Burnout: A Fifteen-Year Meta-Analysis, Tammy Marie Stewart

Doctoral Dissertations

This meta-analysis explored the phenomenon of teacher burnout— the biggest contributor to teacher attrition (Owens, 2013; Unterbrink, 2014; Yu, 2015). The focus of this study was to use meta-analytical procedures to explore the relationship between burnout dimensions (i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of personal accomplishment) and specific demand and resource correlates. Demand correlates included work overload, role conflict, role ambiguity, and student misbehavior. Resource correlates included peer support, supervisory support, and decision-making. This meta-analytical research method encompassed fifteen years of published and unpublished studies from January 2000 through January 2015. A total of 116 studies met the following inclusion …

Planning For Communication Through Rehearsal Imagined Interactions, Martijn Jos Van Kelegom

Doctoral Dissertations

Imagined interactions are mental representations of conversations with significant others. One function they may serve is as a rehearsal for an anticipated encounter. The process by which this rehearsal occurs is investigated using Dillard’s (1990) Goals-Plans-Action model and Berger’s (1997) Planning Theory of Communication. A causal model is proposed for the relationships between domain knowledge, use of retroactive imagined interactions, specificity, and discrepancy of the proactive imagined interaction. This model is tested using survey data (N = 210), and additional data were collected assessing characteristics of the anticipated conversations. Results and additional analyses suggest that rehearsal occurs in many …

Cultivating Communities Of Practice To Develop Local Preparedness For Climate Change, Konda Reddy Chavva

Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this research was to study the effectiveness of field facilitators’ (FFs) community of practice in improving ways in which FFs and farmers communicate and work together to strengthen farmers’ climate change preparedness through identifying locally suitable adaptation strategies in drought-prone districts of Andhra Pradesh State in India. In development initiatives like the one studied, FFs are often the key liaison person with each community—farmers in this case. FFs interact regularly with farmers, with whom they establish and sustain critical relationships over time. Further, they take the lead in building farmers’ capacities by contextualizing technical information that professionals …

Cultural Discourse Analysis Of Russian Alcohol Consumption, Elena V. Nuciforo

Doctoral Dissertations

The study uses cultural discourse analysis to explore alcohol consumption that is valued as normal and enjoyable, and to examine how alcohol consumption is viewed as a problem in both folk and official discourses in Russia. An event called “posidet’” (to sit) is deeply embedded in Russian cultural discourse in the form of a communication ritual with enjoyable alcohol consumption. The ritual has a structured sequence, commonly upheld norms, and a multilayered “sacred object” that provides access to cultural meanings of Russian personhood, relations, actions, emotions, and location in the nature of things. A ritualistic corrective sequence in case someone …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Communication, Control, And Time: The Lived Experience Of Uncertainty In Adolescent Pregnancy, Elizabeth Dortch Dalton

Doctoral Dissertations

This study qualitatively examined the lived experience of uncertainty among pregnant adolescents. Utilizing a phenomenological approach, long interviews were conducted with 10 pregnant adolescent women between the ages of 15-18 years. Interviews were transcribed and analyzed using the process of phenomenological explication. Data, emergent themes, memos, and a detailed audit trail were maintained using the qualitative data analysis package Nvivo 10 for Mac (beta version). Findings can be summarized with eight themes that underlie the essence of uncertainty in adolescent pregnancy: suspicion and denial, disclosure and reactions, controlling the flow of information, relational renegotiation, the emerging reality of pregnancy, information …

Intimacy Uncertainty And Identity In Gay Male Couples Dealing With A Serodiscordant Hiv Status, Scott Allen Eldredge

Doctoral Dissertations

When individuals are diagnosed with a chronic illness, their lives instantly change. Daily routines are interrupted and attendance to the symptoms and side effects of illness and medication becomes a daily chore. However, the patient is not the only one that feels the disruptive effects of illness and the partner of the chronically ill patient must also contend with the daily effects of an illness that they themselves do not have. In the case of HIV, the infectious nature of the disease, along with the stigma associated with the disease, serve to be additional sources of stress in an already-stressful …

Creating And Maintaining Social Presence Via Computer-Mediated Communication: Measuring The Self-Rated Behaviors That Lead To Social Presence, Scott A. Christen

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation involved the creation and validation of a new measure of social presence. The first study involved the use of focus groups to create items for the future measure. The focus groups were presented with a set of items that were created based upon past literature; an through discussion of these items, a preliminary measure was created. The second study gathers data concerning the measure that was created from study one and an exploratory factor analysis was performed to eliminate items that did not work well with each other. This reduced the measure from 54 items to 23. The …

Examining The Role Of Perceived Immediacy As A Mediator: Revisiting The Relationships Among Immediate Behaviors, Liking, And Disclosure, Stephanie Erin Kelly

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation purports to clarify the role of perceived immediacy in interpersonal communication. Immediate behaviors were first identified as behaviors associated with increases in receiver liking and self-disclosure. As such, the first study is a meta-analysis of immediate behaviors and self-disclosure and the second study meta-analyzes immediate behaviors and liking. The magnitudes of the effects yielded from both studies are consisted with indirect relationships. The third study is an experiment which uses a range of previously identified immediate behaviors from the literature as an induction and measures perceived immediacy, liking, and self-disclosure to test perceived immediacy as a mediating variable …

Generational Perceptions Of Productive/Unproductive Information Received From Management Through Different Communication Channels, Eva Lynn Cowell

Doctoral Dissertations

This exploratory study identified generational preferences for receiving information from management through different communication channels and determined if age predicted productivity for productive and unproductive information received through different communication channels. This is the first study to empirically examine the relationship between age cohorts, communication channel preferences, information categories, and productivity. Sample participants worked as Extension agents at a major land-grant university. The four generations represented in the sample utilized multiple communication channels and were geographically dispersed throughout the state. The survey was administered electronically and completed by 204 (74%) of the eligible 275 employees in the organization. Independent Samples …

Always And Never The Same: Women's Long-Distance Friendships During Life Course Transitions, Jessica Thern Smith

Doctoral Dissertations

Various challenges can threaten the security of personal relationships, but one of the most difficult problems to manage is geographic distance. As more people live apart from someone about whom they care, the prevalence of long-distance relationships will increase. However, research on how long-distance friendships are characterized and accomplished lags behind.

Therefore, the present study was designed to uncover how women define and maintain their long-distance friendships. A total of 34 interviews were conducted with first-year undergraduate students, first-year graduate students, and recently-hired faculty members at a large university. The interview transcripts were analyzed inductively, which resulted in the creation …