The purpose of this study was to investigate how my executive coaching clients and I engaged in reflective practice through a model of dialogical interaction called Levelising. Four individual coaching clients, representing a variety of management expertise, participated in this study. I engaged them in coaching by both inquiring into their experiences and reflecting on my own. Data consisted of verbatim transcripts from the coaching sessions, which were analyzed qualitatively using a structured, typological approach. Findings indicated that as my clients and I engaged in a reciprocal reflective process centered on the Levelising model, they experienced uncertainty along with insight into their practices, the issues they faced, and themselves. Our Levelising experiences also shaped my own questions and reflections as their coach. By incorporating the Levelising model into my coaching practice, I was able to help my clients move beyond simple problem-solving approaches by deliberately reflecting on their experiences and assumptions and exploring new ways of framing their experiences. Further, I observed that engagement in Levelising evolved our professional relationship as we both became more aware of how our assumptions, values, and beliefs shaped our interactions. Implications for executive coaching and research on Levelising are discussed.

The research described here tested for relationships among behavioral consistency, personality traits, and communicative behavior in a socially and vocally complex avian species, the Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis). First, I tested for the existence of behavioral profiles, also known as non-human animal personality, across varying contexts (presence of predator, foraging within a novel object, and novel conspecific) in the laboratory. I found evidence for behavioral profiles encompassing behavioral patterns such as activity, affiliation, aggression, and boldness. Second, I incorporated a larger social component to these studies by testing birds housed in social groups in semi-naturalistic aviary settings. In the aviaries, I tested for behavioral profiles in more complex social environments, and also tested for relationships between personality-like influences and the chick-a-dee call, the key vocalization of this species used in social organization. There has been very little work devoted to testing relationships between personality-like traits and communicative behavior. As in the laboratory study, I found evidence for behavioral profiles in the more complex social setting of the aviaries. I found aggression and boldness to be strongly, positively correlated with chick-a-dee call rate. Additionally, I found particular note types within the chick-a-dee call to be indicative of both aggressive behavior and avian predator presence. Taken together, findings from these studies indicate that personality-like influences in chickadees may play an important role in constraining variation in individual, social, and communicative behavior.

Experiential avoidance (EA) is an unwillingness to remain in contact with private and overt experiences, with higher EA associated with increased psychopathology. This study investigated relationships among EA, age, and the use of emotion words in positive and negative autobiographical narratives, as well as whether EA was associated with depression, anxiety, quality of life, and social support. Participants included younger (n=60) and older adults (n=60), who completed a positive and negative emotion narrative task along with measures of psychopathology. Results indicated that relative to younger adults, older adults spoke for longer time intervals in both narrative conditions. EA did not significantly affect narrative duration in either age cohort. However, despite longer narrative durations, older adults high in EA used fewer negative emotion words in the negative emotion narrative task compared to young adults high in EA. EA was positively associated with anxiety and depression and inversely related to quality of life and social support. Results are explained in the developmental context of the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (Carstensen, 1991), which posits that young adults are more prone to communicate in situations that involve information attainment, whereas older adults verbal behaviors may be more a function of emotion regulation. Clinical implications are discussed.

The major objective of this research was to explore the experience of retiring from high school football. Previous research has neglected qualitative investigations of high school athletes’ experiences of retirement. High school football was chosen due to its popularity and importance in American communities. The purpose of this study was to give participants an opportunity to voice their experiences of retiring from high school football so that others may be better able to understand and learn from their experiences. The phenomenological method was used to interview ten retired high school football players identified as elite based on team and individual statistics. These interviews were then transcribed and analyzed by a phenomenological research group looking for themes that existed among the ten participants. Themes emerged on the ground of Missing & Reminiscing, which set the context for the study. The themes included The High School Football Player, The Others, and The Spotlight, each of which contained sub-themes. The ground, themes, and sub-themes are outlined and described in detail, with quotes from the participants provided to exemplify each one. This research provides a clearer understanding of the experience of retiring from high school football so that counselors, coaches, parents, and athletes can take steps toward having a successful and constructive retirement. The current study has been used to facilitate counseling and workshop efforts with both current and retired athletes.

This dissertation describes two projects aimed at understanding the role of conflict, connection, and aggression in adolescent romantic relationships. The first project is an empirical investigation that seeks to understand how the developmental task of separation-individuation is negotiated in adolescents’ romantic relationships via their communication processes. We hypothesize that participants who exhibit higher levels of connection and lower levels of conflict will be less physically aggressive and feel more satisfied in their relationships. We also hypothesize a moderation model whereby participants who exhibit conflict in the context of higher levels of connection will have better relational outcomes than participants who exhibit conflict in the context of lower levels of connection. To explore these associations, we use observational and survey data collected from 98 middle adolescent and 105 late adolescent dating couples. Results suggest that participants who exhibited higher levels of connection and lower levels of conflict were more likely to report being satisfied with their relationships. Similarly, participants who demonstrated higher levels of conflict were more likely to report using and were observed using more physical aggression. Females were significantly more likely to report using and were observed using more physical aggression than males as well. The second paper, a comprehensive and integrative review of the literature, provides a context for understanding this significant gender finding that females were more aggressive than males. Much controversy and debate exist about the differential incidence of dating aggression perpetration by males and females in adolescence and early adulthood. Some studies have failed to find any significant gender differences, and others have found that females are more likely to perpetrate dating aggression than males. The goal of this paper is to review the literature in adolescence and early adulthood regarding gender differences in dating aggression, to discuss individual and contextual factors that may contribute to the emergence of dating aggression differentially for males and females, and to discuss methodological concerns and future directions for research in this area. The conclusion that can be drawn most confidently from research to date is that in normative samples, the proportion of males and females who engage in mild psychological and physical aggression (not sexual aggression) is about equal or higher in females than males in adolescent and young adult samples.

Mindfulness and mindlessness are often theoretically and psychometrically treated as opposing poles of a single dimension (e.g. Langer, 1989; Kabat-Zinn, 1990; Brown & Ryan, 2003). The present study examines the possibility of two differing styles of mindlessness, an oblivious form based upon defensive avoidance of experience and a reactive form based upon ruminative reaction to experience. These differing styles of mindless are theoretically similar to adult attachment status. The avoidant attachment style is conceptually related to an oblivious style of mindlessness in that both involve a defensive denial of certain aspects of experience, particularly those aspects that evoke feelings of vulnerability or emotional distress. The preoccupied adult attachment style is similar to the reactive style of mindlessness in that both involve a hyper-focus on emotionally distressing experiences and a subsequent affective destabilization. Given these similarities, the present study explored reactive and oblivious mindlessness by examining the interaction of mindfulness and adult attachment status. Adult attachment status is profoundly related to autobiographical narrative (e.g. Main, 1996; Mikulincer & Orbach, 1995). Accordingly, narrative measures were used to explore the relationship of attachment status and mindfulness. Among participants with a preoccupied attachment status, mindfulness predicted decreased emotional articulacy. Among avoidant participants mindfulness predicted decreased emotional articulacy and increased complexity of representations of self and others. In contrast, among secure participants mindfulness had no relationship to narrative measures. These results suggest that mindfulness functions as a protective factor against the distressing rumination associated with emotional articulacy among those with an insecure attachment status. They also provide preliminary support for a theory of reactive and oblivious mindlessness and highlight the value of further research examining the interaction of mindfulness and attachment status.

In this study, the relationships among work values, personality variables, job satisfaction and career satisfaction were investigated. The specific work values assessed in this research included: achievement, autonomy, challenge, creativity, ecology, family, informality, income, leadership, leisure, geographic locale, excitement, work space aesthetics, social responsibility, security, expertise, integrity, power and teamwork. Personality was assessed broadly by using the Big Five personality variables and narrowly, using more specific constructs of personality. An archival data source was used consisting of a sample of 457 employees from various industries. Several research questions were addressed answered including: How are work values related to broad and narrow personality traits? How are the work values related to job satisfaction and career satisfaction? And how are the Big Five and Narrow personality traits related to job and career satisfaction? Results of the study indicate several relationships between work values and the personality traits (both broad and narrow) in relation to each other and career and job satisfaction. Specifically, correlations showed a negative relationship between Emotional Stability and creativity (r = -0.27, p <.001), and intrinsic motivation and income (r = -0.38, p <.001). Work values were also related to both job and career satisfaction. However, more correlations were identified among the work values and career satisfaction. The results of a series of multiple regressions identified openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and emotional stability as significant predictors of job satisfaction. The narrow personality traits identified in the multiple regression as significant predictors of career success were: tough mindedness, optimism, assertiveness, customer service, and intrinsic motivation. Implications of the current study as well as future directions are discussed.

The present study analyzed participant descriptions of what it was like to resolve one’s hate toward someone or something. This experience was described as taking place in terms of a structure involving three phases: (1) When I Hated, (2) Resolution of Hate, and (3) After Hate. The first phase, When I Hated, was characterized by four themes: Power, Unjust, Significant, and Not Me. Phase 2, which concerned the Resolution of Hate, was described as a transition period defined by the themes of Choice, Separation/Distance, and Change in Perspective. The final phase, After Hate, was characterized by two themes: Burden Lifted and Release/Restoration. It appears from these results that as people learn to see the object of their hate from a different perspective they are able to resolve their hate and, in some cases, to restore a meaningful relationship to the object(s) of their former hate. The resolution of hate was often described in terms of collapse of one of the first three themes defining Phase 1; that is, the power dynamics of the situation changed and the initiating incident was now seen as either trivial or justified and the reason for continuing to hate was no longer experienced as significant. An understanding of how hate is resolved from a first person perspective has the potential for deepening our understanding of how hate is overcome and, on this basis, of leading to more effective interventions designed to help others resolve hate.

The present research explored the relationship between personality and Life Satisfaction. The Big Five and Narrow Traits have been used to predict Life Satisfaction and Subjective Well-Being. There is a newer movement in psychology explore qualities about the individual that facilitate thriving and happiness, a movement known as Positive Psychology. The associated traits could lead to better prediction of Life Satisfaction. To test the degree to which the Positive Psychology traits better predict Life Satisfaction, upper-class college students took a computer-based Personality Measure. The measure consisted of many sub-scales, including the NEO Five-Factor Personality Measure, Narrow Trait measures, and the VIA Positive Psychology Scale. Regression analysis was performed to assess the degree to which Positive Psychology measures contribute variance in Life Satisfaction. Results showed that Positive Psychology accounts for significant variance in Life Satisfaction above the Big Five and/or Narrow Traits, particularly along the dimension of Love.

Developing instruments that are more culturally sensitive and taking a multicultural approach to scale development is encouraged in order to appropriately assess and conduct research with ethnic minorities. African Americans are prone to many negative stereotypes in the world of work which usually involve a lack of work drive and motivation achievement. The present research investigated the differences between African American and European American participants on a culturally sensitive instrument developed for this study and a measure of Work Drive: the Houston Experience Measure (HEM) and the Work Drive Scale. This study was conducted in three phases. Phase one, the HEM was developed based on qualitatively-informed interviews with 15 African Americans. Each interview transcript was rigorously analyzed and thematized. Results of this content analysis revealed three main scale constructs that formed the HEM (pressure to perform, family socialization related to work drive, and competitiveness). In Phase two, the HEM was administered to 163 college students to determine validity and reliability of the scales. Results determined that each scale was reliable and valid; coefficient alpha for Pressure to Perform scale was .83; .92 for Family Socialization for Work Drive and .88 Work-Related Competitiveness scale. In phase three, differences between 96 African American and 203 European American participants from various career fields, on the HEM and the Work Drive Scale were examined. Results indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the correlations for African Americans and European Americans on the scale pressure to perform and work drive and family socialization related to work drive and work drive. However, there were statistically significant differences between the correlation competitiveness and work drive for African Americans and European Americans. European Americans indicated a higher correlation between these variables compared to African Americans. These findings do not support the main hypotheses of this study. It is proposed that generally these variables related to Work Drive are more universally felt and expressed by members of different racial, ethnic, and gender sub-groups; pointing toward equality of work drive and correlates of work drive for African Americans and European Americans. The study on African American and European American differences is complex and will not lend itself to simple racial differences but by specific constructs and underlying processes of these constructs being studied. Further research is needed regarding the use and replicability of findings with the HEM.