While humor has been extensively studied in commercial marketing, there is less known about how humor functions in the context of a public health campaign. This dissertation addresses that gap by exploring the use of humor in public health messaging through (1) a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature, (2) a content analysis of public-health related print ads from the Ad Council, and (3) an experiment testing the role of humor styles in the effectiveness of humorous anti-binge drinking messages. The systematic review and meta-analysis assembled all the currently known research on humor in public health messaging. Overall, the success of humor depended on many factors, including the health topic and characteristics of the audience, and humor was found to not differ drastically from other appeal types in its influence on key persuasion outcomes. The meta-analytic component of this review found that humor had a positive impact on ad liking and behavior and a negative impact on perceived self-efficacy and intention, with only self-efficacy demonstrating a statistically significant difference between the appeal types. In the content analysis, Ad Council ads spanning 70 years of public health messaging were evaluated in order to understand the utilization of important communication elements in health communication campaigns. A sample of print ads was assembled, and ads were coded for theoretical constructs, ecological level, emotional appeal, and the presence of humor. The sample included a variety of campaign topics, ranging from drunk driving to polio vaccination to child abuse. Overall, campaigns were found to most often lack response efficacy information, and the presence of specific behavioral suggestions regarding the health issue decreased over time in favor of contact information. Most campaigns targeted the individual level, with few targeting organizational, policy or other systems-level changes necessary to facilitate most (if not all) public health behaviors. The experiment examined the role of matching ad humor styles to individual humor styles in humorous anti-binge drinking ads aimed at college students. Those with detrimental humor styles were found to perceive messages matched to their humor style as more humorous than messages not matched to their humor style. Perceived humor was found to be negatively associated with message rejection and positively associated with likelihood of sharing the message. This study re-affirms the importance of ensuring humor campaigns are actually perceived as humorous by the audience. Overall, this dissertation suggests that humor should be used in well-tested public health campaigns in order to realize its potential benefits for affecting health behaviors.

This thesis addresses a series of disconcerting moments that emerged during a research study with seven fourth and fifth grade students who participated in an after-school Technology Think Tank and their classroom teachers at a Midwestern elementary school. These moments were marked by heightened power, identity performances, and emotions and were disturbing not only as they occurred, but remained bothersome upon reflection in the days and weeks afterwards. In this research I call them ‘haunting moments.' The primary data sources for this research were audio and video files that I initially analyzed for volume. This process verified my premise that the haunting moments were linked to an increase in speaking volume that differentiated them from other discourse. Then I employed a two-fold coding approach including interpretive phenomenological analysis which generated a comprehensive list of codes including textual and social functions of technologies. My analysis led to a pursuit for a framework for understanding the haunting moments in the Think Tank and classrooms. I contextualized them within a theoretical matrix which included the dialectical relationship of standardization and resistance and the inextricable role of power, identities, and emotions with that dialectic. Standardization was accomplished through mechanisms of control that I identified as discursive positioning and surveillance. These mechanisms were resisted by mechanisms of agency. I also described the important role of technology-- which mediated the mechanisms of control and agency that were used in the service of standardization and resistance. Theorizing and framing haunting moments leads to a more complex understanding of literacy learning. This research describes how standardization and resistance, along with the emergence of moves of power, identities, and emotions are an inevitable outcome of participation in discourse communities, however this inescapability does not signify inevitability or preclude agency through improvisation or authorship.

Emotion regulation is an ability that humans engage in throughout their lives. Disruption in this ability due to brain injury can have devastating consequences on the ability to function adaptively in complex environments. It has been observed that damage involving certain areas of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), including the ventromedial PFC (VMPFC), can result in long-lasting impairments in real-world emotional and behavioral functioning. However, the specific areas of the PFC that are critical for the ability to regulate emotion have not been identified. The primary aims of this project were to identify areas of the PFC that are important for the regulation of emotion, and to determine the degree to which impairments in emotion regulation may contribute to real-world dysfunction following damage to the PFC. To address these aims, emotional regulation and real-world functioning were examined in a sample of patients with focal PFC lesions. Damage involving the VMPFC appeared to have limited impact on the ability to voluntarily regulate emotion. It was also observed that damage to PFC regions outside the VMPFC was associated with reduced ability to overcome distraction by salient emotional stimuli, compared to VMPFC damage. However, analyses of lesion volume showed that more extensive damage involving the VMPFC was associated with greater emotional distraction, suggesting one form of emotional dysregulation that may result from damage to the VMPFC. In addition, it was found that brain damage in general was associated with impairments in real-world functioning, though PFC damage was not associated with more striking impairments compared to damage outside the PFC. These findings suggest that damage involving certain PFC regions can disrupt the ability to effectively regulate emotion. The results from this project also suggest that laboratory measures of emotion regulation may help in predicting real-world dysfunction following brain damage.

Prior research has attempted to develop a model of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and counterproductive work behaviors (CWB), but limited testing remains a problem. The purpose of the current study is to examine OCB and CWB from a job stressor-strain approach. The sample consisted of 235 employees throughout the United States and their supervisors. Results of the study suggested OCB and CWB are affected by stressors (including interpersonal conflict, low interactional justice, job demands, and organizational constraints). Additionally, trait emotion and attributional styles affect the amount of stressors perceived. The implications as well as limitations of the study are discussed.

Despite becoming a greater public health concern, the suicide rate among adolescents has not decreased significantly in recent years (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015). In fact, suicide is the second leading cause of death for individuals between 12-18 years (CDC, 2015). Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI), the deliberate destruction of one’s own body tissue without suicidal intent and for reasons not socially sanctioned (Nock, 2009), has been identified as a robust predictor of suicide, above and beyond other risk factors such as depression and hopelessness (Asarnow et al., 2011; Guan, Fox, & Prinstein, 2012). Therefore, understanding risk factors for NSSI is an important area of research not only for prevention of NSSI, but also suicide. Recently, an association between poor sleep and suicide ideation in adolescents has been highlighted (Franic, Kralj, Marcinko, Knez, & Kardum, 2014; Park, Yoo, & Kim, 2013). However, very little attention, both globally and within the United States, has been given to understanding the impact sleep may have on NSSI. Given the strong role that emotion regulation has been identified as having in both poor sleep and NSSI separately, it is important to look at the interaction of these two factors in the prediction of NSSI. Data were collected from 154 adolescents in high school. Results indicated that poor sleep was a significant predictor of both NSSI engagement and self-reported suicide ideation. Additionally, emotion regulation successfully moderated the relationship between poor sleep quality and suicide ideation severity. Results support that sleep is an important risk factor for NSSI engagement and suicide ideation and that emotion regulation may play an important role in strengthening the relationship for between sleep and suicide ideation only. These findings suggest that clinicians should be aware of and work with their clients on both emotion regulation and sleep quality to reduce risk of NSSI engagement and suicide ideation.

<p>Religious faith has been identified as a protective factor against negative psychological outcomes and is associated with a range of positive mental and physical health outcomes. While religion is thought to confer psychological benefits to believers in part by enhancing emotion regulation abilities and providing faith-based regulatory methods such as religious coping, these associations have not been examined empirically. This may be due to a lack of measures that are appropriate for use in repeated measures contexts, which are needed for accurate assessment of dynamic constructs such as emotions and regulation. This study employed generalizability theory in a sample (N = 146) collected in daily dairy format over 21 days to determine the reliability of commonly used measures of religiosity and religious coping at the daily level. Once reliability was established, varying time scales were used in a multilevel modeling framework to examine the associations among intrinsic religiosity, religious coping, positive and negative affect, and difficulties in emotion regulation. Positive religious coping (PRC) measured at baseline, same day, and a 1-day lag was associated with higher levels of daily positive affect, though PRC was also associated with negative affect when measured on the same day. Negative religious coping (NRC) measured at baseline predicted lower levels of daily positive affect and was associated with higher levels of negative affect when measured on the same day and a 1-day lag. NRC was also associated with higher levels of difficulties in emotion regulation at all measurement periods, though PRC and intrinsic religiosity were not significantly associated with emotion regulation difficulties. While not associated with daily positive or negative affect, intrinsic religiosity was found to enhance the effect of positive affect inertia. These results did not support the conceptualization that religiosity broadly promotes adaptive emotion regulation, but rather that intrinsic religiosity may increase positive affect by amplifying the effects of positive affect inertia. Additional work is needed with increased measurement occasions to fully understand the temporal associations among these constructs.</p>

To date, there is limited research that examined the extent to which infants can retain emotion information acquired in a social referencing encounter. The purpose of this study was to examine infants’ memory process for emotion acquired in a social referencing paradigm and the longevity of these memories. We predicted that infants would approach objects paired with a positive and avoid objects paired with a negative emotion. Furthermore, we examined the relationships between looking behaviors at encoding and subsequent behaviors during retrieval after a 10-minute delay. Ten- to fourteen- month-old were exposed to a social referencing paradigm with their encoding behaviors recorded on an eye tracker, then after a 10-minute delay infants were presented with the objects and their retrieval behaviors towards each object were recorded. There were no significant differences in encoding and retrieval behaviors between emotion conditions. However, there were significant correlations between encoding and retrieval behaviors between positive and negative conditions such as quicker latency towards the target at encoding resulted in a longer touch duration towards the object during retrieval in the positive condition and longer looking duration towards the target object at encoding resulted in more avoidance behaviors towards the object during retrieval in the negative condition. Results from the study add to our understanding of infants’ memory for emotion and its processes suggesting a relationship encoding and subsequent retrieval behaviors. Key words: memory, infants, emotion, social referencing

Parents play a significant role in how children learn to express their emotions as well as their child’s overall emotional well-being. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of positive and negative emotion socialization experiences on internalizing disorders in young adult males and females. One-hundred and forty-two young adults between the ages of 18-28 years from a southwestern university participated in the current study. It was hypothesized that early negative emotion socialization experiences would be related to higher levels of anxiety and depression in young adulthood (and, conversely, early positive emotion socialization experiences would be related to lower levels of anxiety and depression). In addition, it was expected that fathers would engage more in negative emotion socialization behaviors than mothers, especially with sons. Participants completed the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale- Adolescents’ Perceptions (CCNES-AP; Fabes & Eisenberg,1998), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) (Beck, Epstein,Brown, & Steer, 1988), the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) (Beck et al., 1961), and a demographics form. Results indicated that parental emotion socialization was significantly related to depression in males but not females. There were limited significant correlations between anxiety and emotion socialization for males, but not females. Findings supported the hypothesis that fathers tend to engage more in negative emotion socialization behaviors than mothers, especially with sons. The long-term impact for males but not females of early emotional socialization experiences is discussed within the context of gender differences in intimate peer relations throughout development. In addition, the long-term impact of mothers and fathers on how children learn to express their (negative) emotions, and the implications of such for males’ mental health, is also discussed.

Objetivou-se por meio deste trabalho identificar a existência de expressões faciais e corporais que refletem o estado emocional de bezerros de raças leiteiras. Foram estudados 32 bezerros com idades entre 1 e 8 semanas durante quatro dias. Foram formados 8 grupos com 4 animais cada, de forma aleatória, formando grupos homogêneos entre si em idade. Cada grupo foi analisado duas vezes. Os animais foram levados a uma câmara de teste com laterais abertas e coberta com telha metálica, sobre uma área de pastagem, onde receberam a aplicação dos tratamentos \"estímulo positivo afago\" e \"estímulo negativo teste do guarda-chuva\". A expressão facial foi analisada por meio das unidades de ação facial sobrancelha, boca, narina e área da esclera ocular. A expressão corporal foi verificada por meio das variáveis posição de orelha e posição de cauda. Os animais foram avaliados durante seis tempos experimentais: ambiente natural, pré-teste, teste, pós-teste 1, pós-teste 2 e ambiente natural após teste. Ambos os estímulos provocaram redução (p < 0,05) da área de esclera ocular de 3,50 cm2 para 1,10 cm2, e da área de narina de 8,58 cm2 para 6,07 cm2. A sobrancelha levantada esteve presente durante o estímulo negativo (p > 0,05). Não foi possível identificar se as modificações nas unidades de ação facial foram decorrentes de emoções positivas ou negativas. Toda manipulação com os animais provocou alteração nas unidades faciais. O posicionamento de orelha e cauda estão relacionados a emoções positivas e negativas. A posição de orelha \"para atrás\" e a posição de cauda \"arqueada\" estão associadas a expressão de emoções positivas. A posição de orelha \"horizontal\" e a posição de cauda \"presa\", a emoções negativas. Os tipos de posições de orelha e cauda são indicadores de estado emocional positivo ou negativo em bezerros, e há um grande potencial para o uso dessas medidas para mensurá-lo. Assim, identificamos a existência de expressões faciais, com a variável sobrancelha, e corporais, com a posição de orelha \"para atrás\" e cauda \"arqueada\" que refletem estados emocionais positivos; e posição de orelha \"horizontal\" e cauda \"presa\" que refletem estados emocionais negativos em bezerros. / The purpose of this research was to identify the existence of facial and body expressions that reflects the emotional state of dairy calves. Thirty-two calves between 1 and 8 weeks of age were studied for four consecutive days. Eight groups with four animals each were formed randomly, forming homogeneous groups among themselves in age. Each group was analyzed twice. The animals were taken to a test chamber with open sides and covered with metal tile over a pasture area, where they received the application of the treatments positive \"neck stroking\" and negative \"umbrella test\" (Sandem et al. 2004). The facial expression was analyzed through the facial action units: eyebrow, mouth, nostril and eye white. Body expression was verified by the ear position and tail position variables. The animals were evaluated during six experimental times: natural environment, pre-test, test, post-test 1, post-test 2 and natural environment after the test. Both stimuli caused reduction (p < 0,05) in eye white area from 3,50 cm2 to 1,10 cm2, and area of nostril from 8,58 cm2 to 6,07 cm2. The raised eyebrow was present during the negative stimulus. It was not possible to identify if the changes in facial action units were due to positive or negative emotions. All manipulation with the animals caused a change in the facial units. The positioning of ear and tail are related to positive and negative emotions. The \"back\" ear position and the \"arched\" tail position are associated with expressing positive emotions. The \"horizontal\" ear position and the \"between hindlimbs\" tail position, to negative emotions. The types of ear and tail positions are indicators of positive or negative emotional state in calves, and there is great potential for using these measures to evaluate emotions. Thus, we identified the existence of facial expressions, with the variable eyebrow, and body expression, with the position of \"back\" ear and \"arched\" tail that reflects positive emotional states; and \"horizontal\" ear position and \"between hindlimbs\" tail reflecting negative emotional states in calves.

Eating disorders remain a phenomenon that escapes full comprehension, resulting in frustration for those who suffer from the disorders, their families, and their therapists. It is becoming increasingly necessary to describe the mechanism by which eating disorders develop, in order to effectively treat and prevent these disorders. The aim of this study was to illuminate factors that contributed to the development of eating disorders within the individual contexts of the lives of the participants, as well as how those factors interacted in context to culminate in the development of an eating disorder. This qualitative study was conducted from an interpretive perspective. The findings show how individual contextual factors interact to produce a marked fear of gaining weight, which is driven by fear of negative evaluation, and that the eating disorder behaviour serves specific functions that are related to coping with stress within the lives of the participants. / Psychology / M. Sc. (Psychology with specialisation in Research Consultation)