Social Psychology and Interaction Commons^™

Using Theories Of Social Exchange And Status Construction In Mixed-Group Cooperative Learning Practices, Joseph M. Quinn, Valerie K. Barron

Feminist Pedagogy

---

Classroom group work can reproduce broader social inequalities when status-based expectations shape whose contributions are valued or ignored. Intergroup Contact Theory (IGCT) proposes conditions of contact that can reduce prejudice but provides limited explanation of the interactional processes through which these conditions generate cooperation or alter status expectations. We integrate IGCT with the Theory of Social Commitments and Status Construction Theory to identify micro-level structural mechanisms that instructors can leverage to create more equitable intergroup interactions that can also enable social learning and bias reduction toward underrepresented groups. Drawing on these theories, we propose a three-part strategy: forming strategically mixed-status …

---

Beyond The Individual: Rethinking Public Health Approaches To Gambling-Related Harm, Rowland Edet, Lisa A. Kort-Butler

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

---

Public health approaches to gambling‐related harm have increasingly shifted from individual pathology to population‐level frameworks. However, these approaches remain under strain, as they continue to individualize harm while attempting to address broader structural conditions. Here, we examine three dominant paradigms to show how they shape the framing of harm and the design of interventions. First, medicalization legitimizes gambling‐related harm within clinical systems but reinforces pathologized identities and professional authority. Second, stigma frameworks highlight processes of exclusion and barriers to help‐seeking but often remain insufficiently attuned to institutional and structural power. Third, structural perspectives situate harm within neoliberal governance, market expansion, …

---

Influence Of Violent Media On Adolescents, Alli Shattuck

Best Integrated Writing

---

This review article explores the relationship between violent media exposure and adolescent behavior. The research examines how repeated exposure to violent video games, movies, and social media may lead to aggressive behaviors. Symbolic Interactionism and Social Learning Theory are used to dissect the way adolescents engage with violent media. The neurological effects of this exposure are discussed alongside environmental influences such as parental supervision and social groups. Overall, the research establishes the complexities of media influence and suggests that violent media is one contributing factor to adolescent aggression rather than the sole cause.

---

Best Integrated Writing Fall 2026 - Complete Edition, Wright State University School Of Humanities And Cultural Studies, Kristie Mckiernan

Best Integrated Writing

---

Best Integrated Writing includes excellent student writing from Integrated Writing courses taught at Wright State University.

---

Constructing An Inferior Identity: Special Educational Needs Students Under Inclusive Education In Hong Kong, Jesse W. C. Yip, Anna H. N. Ng

The Qualitative Report

---

Inclusive education has been in place for approximately three decades in Hong Kong, and previous research has predominantly focused on examining its effectiveness from the perspectives of teachers, policy makers, and healthcare professionals. However, there has been limited investigation into the personal experiences of students with special educational needs (SEN) who are integrated into mainstream schools. This study employing narrative inquiry explores the identity formation of eight SEN students throughout their 20-year learning journey within Hong Kong’s inclusive education system. The results revealed that the participants developed an identity of inferiority, which encompassed three key themes: experiencing school bullying, feeling …

---

Linguistic Intervention Unlocks The Economic Gains Of Diversity, Sheen S. Levine, Simon Siegenthaler, Bart J. Wilson

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

---

Significance

Racially diverse communities can generate gains from specialization and trade, yet these gains often go unrealized. In experimental economies that mirror everyday exchange, participants struggle when the highest returns require cross-race trade. The shortfall reflects not segregation (sorting into same-race trading blocs) but stagnation: participants retreat from interaction and produce for themselves. We design a brief intervention encouraging motivational language and explicit signaling of needs and surpluses. By shifting how participants talk, it changes their trading behavior, increasing cross-race exchange and, consequently, welfare. Crucially, the intervention operates only where diversity impedes gains, confirming that it targets the barrier itself. …

---

Lost On The Moon: A Classroom Activity For Bringing Group Processes To Life, Christin L. Munsch, Allison Lena, Kay Sassan

Feminist Pedagogy

---

This teaching activity reviews key concepts in group processes and introduces students to Expectation States Theory (EST) and Status Characteristics Theory (SCT), two micro-sociological frameworks that explain how inequality of opportunity emerges in task-oriented small groups with consequences for unequal outcomes. The activity is built around a team-building exercise “Lost on the Moon” in which participants rank 15 survival items individually and then in small groups. We adapt this exercise by taking field notes on group interactions and drawing on these notes to facilitate a discussion in which students critically reflect on their interactions with one another. We close the …

---

Theory In Service Of Students: Feminist Pedagogy, Status Processes, And Rotating Leadership, Alison J. Bianchi

Feminist Pedagogy

---

No abstract provided.

---

From Awareness To Action: The Group Processes Course As Design Laboratory, Kimberly B. Rogers

Feminist Pedagogy

---

In this article, I describe several pedagogical tools used in my group processes course to help students understand how group processes contribute to inequality and how to effectively intervene on these processes. I pair experimental research with work in natural settings to help students trace the development of theories across levels of application and understand their usefulness outside the laboratory. I incorporate reading reflections and simulation exercises that encourage students to apply course material to their own group experiences and make abstract group processes and their consequences more visible for analysis and action. I use complex instruction to promote more …

---

Contextualizing Trends In Television Viewing And Computer Use Among U.S. Children Aged 5–11 Years, 2001–2018, Ashley W. Kranjac, Dinko Kranjac

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

---

Introduction

Excessive screen time among children is linked to adverse physical, mental, and developmental outcomes. The putative drivers of increasing screen time among school-aged children in the United States remain unclear. Population-level changes may arise from intracohort change (IC)—change in average screen time across survey cycles—or cohort replacement (CR), as later-born cohorts with different levels of screen time replace earlier-born cohorts.

Methods

We analyzed nine 2-year National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cycles from 2001 to 2002 through 2017–2018, including 9,841 children aged 5–11 years old. Screen time was measured as the sum of proxy-reported estimates of daily hours …

---

The End Of Unmeasured Exploitation: How A.S.M., C.A.S., And S.I.A. Challenge Digital Attention Capitalism, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

---

Digital attention capitalism generates value through the capture and monetization of human attention, yet it has historically lacked standardized mechanisms for measuring attention-related harm. This paper argues that the Attention Safeguard Models (A.S.M.), Cognitive Attentional Standards (C.A.S.), and Sociological Impact Assessment (S.I.A.) collectively challenge this system by introducing an integrated framework for classifying, measuring, and evaluating digital attention harm and its societal consequences. C.A.S. provides standardized measurement of digital attention harm, A.S.M. identifies and classifies patterns of attentional disruption and manipulation, and S.I.A. evaluates broader impacts on institutions, communities, civic engagement, education, social cohesion, and inequality. Together, these systems transform …

---

How Wisconsin Extension Educators Talk About Climate Change Without Talking About ``Climate Change'', Sky Hershberger, Todd P. Newman

Journal of Extension

---

Climate change touches all areas of Extension's programming. To understand how educators approach talking about climate change with constituents, we interviewed 15 Extension educators and three program managers in Wisconsin. Crops and Soils educators view climate change as interwoven with their work, Financial Education educators view it as mostly disconnected, and Community Economic Development educators range between these extremes. Educators in all three programs avoid the polarizing phrase ``climate change,'' instead focusing on specific, local, and relatable issues. Educators show empathy and emphasize resilience (adaptation) rather than mitigation. These findings can inform Extension's organizational strategy on climate change.

---

The Algorithmic Narcissus: Ai Validation And The Atrophy Of The 'Athletic' Social Self, Ilham Phalosa Reswara, Anggi Mayangsari

Jurnal Psikologi Sosial

---

Artificial intelligence systems designed around continuous affirmation and minimal friction are becoming increasingly prominent as social and relational partners in everyday life. This article examines how sustained interaction with such frictionless AI systems may reshape the developmental conditions under which social selfhood forms and is maintained. Drawing on Cooley's (1902) looking glass self, Kohut's (1971) concept of optimal frustration, and the developmental literature on social competence, the article argues that frictionless AI may distort the social mirror through which identity forms, remove the manageable frustration that appears necessary for psychological growth, weaken empathic capacity, and erode the social stakes that …

---

Unsex Me Here: Gendered Psychology In Shakespeare's Major Tragedies And Comedy, Md. Abu Bakkar

Journal of Language, Literature, and Arts

---

This study examines how gender shapes psychological experience across five of Shakespeare’s major plays: Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Twelfth Night. Existing scholarship treats Shakespeare’s tragic women, tragic men, and comic heroines as separate problems; this article asks whether one framework connects them. Its starting point is the reversal in psychological positions between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth: he resists killing on moral grounds and then grows recklessly violent, while she plans the murder with cold resolve and is later overwhelmed by guilt. The study asks whether this pattern recurs more broadly, and why. Drawing …

---

Nihilistic Violence Aesthetics In Public Online Communication, Heath Nicholas Landress

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

---

Public online communication has increasingly included violence-related content that is meme-based, ironic, visually stylized, multimodal, and only partially ideological. This comprehensive literature review synthesized research on online extremism, extremist memes, toxic multimodal content, dehumanizing digital communication, nihilistic violent extremism, warning behaviors, platform affordances, and youth-facing online environments. The purpose was to clarify what the literature had established; identify where the scholarship remained fragmented; and map research domains relevant to social, behavioral, public safety, and human services scholarship. The review used a structured, comprehensive literature review strategy supported by integrative synthesis procedures. The final corpus contained 34 scholarly sources, including 32 …

---

“When I’M Not Heard, I Feel Like I Don’T Matter”: Advancing Equity In Disability Policy Through Critical Participatory Action Research With People With Intellectual Disability, Cris Marchionne

Student Theses

---

People with intellectual disability deserve a system that offers flexible, timely, and person-centered support — one that is innovative, sustainable, and holistic in enabling them to live fulfilling lives. This qualitative study, grounded in Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR), examines how people with intellectual disability experience participation in decision-making within New York State's disability service system. By centering lived experience, the study identifies factors that facilitate or hinder participation in decision-making and examines structural, social, and policy-related barriers that limit agency. Through six focus groups and a Photovoice project with self-advocates receiving OPWDD services, participants described systemic barriers that limited …

---

Cultural Humility, A Salve For Romantic Relationship Conflict, Lena Blum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

---

Conflict communication and having a relationship consisting of differing sociocultural backgrounds (DISC Couples) have been viewed as obstacles or at best hindrances of relationship satisfaction in earlier couples’ psychology literature. More recent literature makes an argument that it is not merely conflict communication or the differences of culture within a couple, but rather how couples navigate both conflict and differences that impact relationship satisfaction. The present work aims to investigate the role of cultural humility in the association between cultural conflict communication and relationship satisfaction, as well as its relationship with the frequency of cultural conflict communication among DISC couples. …

---

Unexpected Encounters With Spot In The Wild: Sensemaking As Communicative Boundary Work With Robots, Annette Markham, Constanze M. Leeb, Brooke Ann Coco, Daniel Kirby, Lu Liu, Edoardo Lomi, Lucy Thornton, Kelly Ka-Lai Chan, Bradley R. Crammond

Human-Machine Communication

---

As near-autonomous and AI-embedded robots continue to appear in public settings, their sociality and interactivity is a critical part of the social fabric. This article presents emerging themes from a large-scale ethnographic study of granular-level public interactions between more than 400 people who have an unexpected encounter with Boston Dynamics’ robot “Spot” in a public square in Melbourne. Conceptualizing Spot as a boundary object enables us to highlight patterns of sensemaking as people grapple with ontological disruptions through micro-level interactions; within the self, with other people, or between the self and the robot. Based on thematic analysis of multimedia data …

---

Variability In Eligibility And Outcomes: A Cross-Comparison Of New York City Mental Health Courts, Caitlin Sanders

Student Theses

---

Mental health courts (MHCs) represent a critical diversion mechanism for justice-involved individuals with serious mental illness (SMI), yet substantial variability in eligibility criteria, assessment practices, and program structure limits our understanding of how court-level policies shape participant access and outcomes. This exploratory study provides the first systematic cross-borough comparison of all five New York City MHCs, achieving a 100% response rate across courts. Using an adapted version of a statewide MHC survey instrument, data were collected from court representatives via structured survey administration and supplemental interviews. Findings indicate significant variation across courts in legal and clinical eligibility criteria, assessment personnel …

---

The Freedom Myth: How Ski Culture's Hidden Conformity Reveals The Unconscious Power Of Brand Belonging, Isabel R. Phillips

University Honors Theses

---

Purpose: Ski culture sells freedom and enforces conformity. This review asks what unconscious behavioral patterns hold that contradiction in place, and how brands capitalize on it to manufacture belonging.

Design/Methodology/Approach: A narrative literature review across consumer psychology, behavioral neuroscience, sociology, and ski industry research. No primary data were collected. Four accounts of consistency-seeking are synthesized into one framework, then applied to three ski industry cases at ascending scales and tested against a comparative case from Spanish football.

Findings: Belonging is a conditioned response, and conditioning requires a stable stimulus. Consistency is therefore the precondition of belonging rather than a constraint …

---