Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 241-257). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Communication, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 23, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-118). Also issued in print.

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 15, 2010) The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Laura King Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 205 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 81-99).

The importance of showing that Drosophila are capable of learning an instrumental response would, with the information already known from genetic studies, enable researchers to possibly isolate the genetic basis of a simple learning process and thus gain greater insight into this phenomenon. If a reliable technique can be found for earning in Drosophila, a new field of research would be opened which could greatly add to our knowledge of the evolution of behavior. The following two studies attempted to demonstrate that Drosophila can learn and also investigated which system, vision or olfaction, serves best in this capacity.

No description available.

The present thesis examines how people manage difficult conversations in daily life through online surveys, live interaction studies, field studies, text analysis methods, topic models, and multilevel linear regression models. The thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter 1 establishes a process model of conversation avoidance, investigating people’s motivations, emotions, and behaviors when they are put into an unwanted conversation. I find that when people are concerned about their privacy, they are more likely to feel anxious and to stay quiet in the conversation. At the same time, when people are concerned about creating a conflict, they are more likely to feel angry and to leave the conversation. Chapter 2 evaluates the effectiveness of delaying conversations as an avoidance strategy. I find that although people prefer their partners to confess to them immediately after the events happened, people often delay their confessions. The waiting time is not associated with positive outcomes of the conversation or how their conversation partner reacts. Chapter 3 investigate a socio-ecological factor that predicts conversation avoidance and conversation seeking behaviors using the concept of relational mobility. I find that individuals with the ability to choose who they want to affiliate with are less concerned about their privacy or creating a conflict in a conversation. However, these individuals tend to have shallow conversations. Individuals with the ability to meet many new people tend to have deep conversations. Overall, this dissertation contributes to our understanding of how people handle difficult conversations in daily lives.

Traditional two-process theory predicts that a conditioned stimulus (CS) paired with shock offset on Pavlovian trials will inhibit operant avoidance responding. Two explanations of the inhibitory mechanism involved were compared: contemporaneous pairing of CS with a hedonic relief reaction versus the predictive, discriminative relationship of CS to the non-shock interval. The pattern of avoidance inhibition associated with cessation CSs paired with electric shocks of constant duration was expected to be different from the pattern accompanying cessation CSs paired with shocks of variable duration. Mean rates of responding by the two groups were compared by analysis of covariance using baseline as the covariate. Neither CS displayed any reliably observable effects on avoidance rates. Possible procedural flaws and compatible improvements are discussed.

An avoidance response was conditioned to three stimuli presented in serial order. Following conditioning, each group of subjects received a different treatment procedure. The group I procedure involved distributed CS trials, contingent, non-anxious CS terminations, and individualized treatment durations. Group 2 subjects received massed CS trials, non-contingent CS terminations, and non-individualized treatment durations. Group 3 subjects experienced distributed CS trials, contingent non-anxious CS terminations, and non-individualized treatment durations. Individual izing treatment duration (termination contingent upon operational ized measure of anxiety dissipation) was found to significantly hasten the extinction of avoidance responses. Implications for the effective practice of implosive therapy were discussed. Yoked control methods were criticized for confounding the variable of individualization of the yoked variable.

Many people who receive exposure-based treatments for anxiety disorders exhibit a return of fear and avoidance which is often referred to as renewal or relapse. Human and nonhuman research on fear conditioning and renewal has been instrumental in helping understand relapse in anxiety disorders. The purpose of this investigation was to examine renewal of human avoidance and assess whether avoidance may aid in sustaining renewal of fear responses. We adopted a multimodal measurement approach consisting of an approach-avoidance task along with ratings of perceived threat and fear and measures of skin-conductance, a widely used physiological measure of fear. A traditional, single-subject research design was used with six healthy adults. All tasks employed a discrete trial procedure. Experimental conditions included Pavlovian fear conditioning in which increased probability of money loss was paired with a “threat” meter in Context A and later followed extinction in Context B. Fear and avoidance increased to higher threat levels in Context A but not Context B. Renewal testing involved presenting the threat meter on a return to Context A to determine if it evoked fear and avoidance (i.e., relapse). As predicted, renewal testing in Context A showed that increased threat was associated with increased avoidance, ratings of perceived threat and fear, and higher skin-conductance. Moreover, results showed that renewal maintained over six blocks of trials. This is the first investigation of renewal of threat and avoidance in humans that highlights avoidance as a mechanism that may contribute to maintaining fear in anxiety pathology.