Health behaviors, positive and negative, can support or reduce risk for multiple chronic diseases, such as substance use disorder and obesity. These diseases are marked by overconsuming commodities that offer predictable short-term benefits, and neglecting other behaviors with variable long-term benefits (e.g., fast food is enjoyable in the moment; exercise may have delayed benefits, but moment-to-moment may not be as reinforcing as fast food). An individual's valuation of these fast food or exercise may depend on how far out into the future these benefits are considered, their temporal window. The first study shows that the temporal window is constricted among high-risk substance users than people who do not have substance problems, especially when considering higher-value choices. The second study shows that the temporal window can change depending on the environment. Specifically, engaging with stories of job loss can constrict the temporal window. The third study shows that engaging with job loss can specifically constrict the temporal window and increase the value of fast food among obese individuals. The final study shows that a similar hardship scenario, natural disasters, can constrict the temporal window, increase demand for alcohol and cigarettes, and decrease the valuation of more temporally extended reinforcers (e.g., employment, savings, and seatbelt wearing) among smoking drinkers. Together, these studies support a model, reinforcer pathology; wherein the temporal window, which can differ both between individuals and environments, drives valuation of reinforcers that impact health. / Doctor of Philosophy / Health behaviors, positive and negative, can support or reduce risk for multiple chronic diseases, such as substance use disorder and obesity. These diseases are marked by overconsuming commodities that offer predictable short-term benefits, and neglecting other behaviors with variable long-term benefits (e.g., fast food is enjoyable in the moment; exercise may have delayed benefits, but moment-to-moment may not be as reinforcing as fast food). An individual’s valuation of these fast food or exercise may depend on how far out into the future these benefits are considered, their temporal window. The first study shows that the temporal window is constricted among high-risk substance users than people who do not have substance problems, especially when considering higher-value choices. The second study shows that the temporal window can change depending on the environment. Specifically, engaging with stories of job loss can constrict the temporal window. The third study shows that engaging with job loss can specifically constrict the temporal window and increase the value of fast food among obese individuals. The final study shows that a similar hardship scenario, natural disasters, can constrict the temporal window, increase demand for alcohol and cigarettes, and decrease the valuation of more temporally extended reinforcers (e.g., employment, savings, and seatbelt wearing) among smoking drinkers. Together, these studies support a model, reinforcer pathology; wherein the temporal window, which can differ both between individuals and environments, drives valuation of reinforcers that impact health.

The Education Commission of the States in 2007 reported that 16 states had a policy for alternative licensure for school leaders and 23 states had a path for alternative licensure but not a policy (Education Commission of the States, 2007). Therefore there were 39 states that offered a policy or path for obtaining licensure for school leaders through an alternative route. This information suggested a nation-wide development and warranted investigation. First year principals, as are first year teachers, are in need of a mentor. The current principals are the individuals who would be asked to mentor newly hired principals. This quantitative study was conducted to gain insight into the willingness of elementary principals to mentor alternatively licensed principals. The Virginia Association of Elementary Principals (VAESP) agreed to email the web mail questionnaire to their public school principal members as of March 1, 2010. The questionnaire was sent to 515 elementary principals in Virginia. One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was the statistical procedure used to determine the relationship between the predictor variables and the willingness of elementary principals to mentor alternatively licensed principals. The data indicated that Virginia Elementary School Principals are somewhat willing to mentor their peers. However, they do not feel that alternative licensure is a good route for principal licensure. / Ph. D.

Synchrony is a multi-faceted construct, defined here as the mutual warmth and responsiveness between a mother and her child. As children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) struggle to navigate various aspects of social life, we expected that impairments in synchrony would be seen, but that mothers would show adaptability. Twenty-five children (10 met ASD criteria on a gold standard autism assessment) completed a brief cognitive assessment and nine semi-structured play tasks with their mother, adapted from the Marschak Interaction Method. Synchrony was not found to moderate the relationship between ASD severity and externalizing behaviors, as hypothesized. ASD severity did predict externalizing behaviors. While children in the ASD group were more negative during the observed play tasks, there were no group differences on mother or dyad scores. Despite power limitations, our findings suggest important future directions for examination of mother and dyad mechanisms that better explain these differences. / Master of Science

Research continues to support the positive link between teacher collective efficacy and student achievement. The purpose of this study was to better understand how principal leadership behaviors affect teacher collective efficacy beliefs. The study was designed around Goddard, Hoy, and Hoy's construct of teacher collective efficacy, which is grounded on Bandura's efficacy constructs. The sequential mixed-methods study was designed to examine the perceptions of teacher participants from one Texas Title I middle school regarding principal leadership behaviors. A case study approach was used to construct meaning from teachers' perceptions about the effects of principal behaviors on teachers' beliefs regarding the components of collective efficacy. The quantitative portion of the study (a survey) examined teacher perceptions of their collective efficacy beliefs regarding various facets of the school organization. The qualitative portion (focus group and individual interviews) centered on what teachers perceive to be the impact of principal leadership behaviors on their teacher collective efficacy. Findings from the quantitative portion of the study suggest that teachers perceive their levels of collective efficacy to be higher when reflecting on factors that are primarily connected to school, like learning, motivating students, and handling student discipline issues. Findings from the qualitative portion of the study suggest that when principals exhibit collaboration, empowerment, relationship building, and trust, teachers perceive the leader to be effective. The study was limited to one Title I middle school so an extension to the study which would include other middle or additional high schools is recommended.

The purpose of the study is to examine young children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors in the context of post paternal incarceration by focusing on both risks (i.e., parental depressive symptoms), protective factors (i.e., coparenting alliance), and their impact considered together. The final sample included 426 previously incarcerated fathers and the biological mothers of their three-year-old children. Using hierarchical multiple regression, I examined three sets of analyses: 1) the association between parental depressive symptoms and children's behavior outcomes, 2) the association between coparenting alliance and children's behavior, 3) the association between parental depressive symptoms and children's behavior as moderated by coparenting alliance. Expectedly, higher paternal depressive symptoms were associated with higher externalizing behavioral problems in children. Unexpectedly, higher maternal depressive symptoms were associated with lower externalizing behavioral problems. Also, unexpectedly, the associations between maternal and paternal coparenting alliance and both child behavioral outcomes were not statistically significant. Further, when mothers reported lower coparenting alliance with their child's father, the negative association between fathers' depressive symptoms and children’s internalizing behavioral problems was not attenuated; in fact, children had higher internalizing behavioral problems. My findings suggests father's depressive symptoms are an important point of consideration given the deleterious effects parental depressive symptoms can have on children, and the risks for depressive symptoms among formerly incarcerated fathers. Further, my findings have implications for addressing and treating fathers' depressive symptoms when children are relatively young in order to lower internalizing behavior problems from persisting across and beyond childhood.

No description available.

Thesis advisor: Maureen E. Kenny / Childhood obesity is one of the most significant threats to the health development of children in the United States. A relationship has been found between mental health conditions, such as depression, and obesity development. Obesity prevention initiatives frequently target children's health behaviors due to their important role in the development of childhood obesity. Yet despite their importance, relatively little is known about the association between mental health factors and children's health behaviors. In addition, self-efficacy and self-regulation, cognitive factors which have been found to have a prominent role in behavior change, may also be correlated with children's health behaviors. These cognitive factors may also interact with mental health factors to predict children's health behaviors. The current study sought to investigate whether or not internalizing behaviors, self-efficacy, and self-regulation significantly predicted healthy eating behavior, unhealthy eating behavior, and physical activity behavior in preadolescent children. The study was a secondary data analysis of the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) Phase II-III data. Internalizing behaviors were found to have a significant relationship with unhealthy eating behaviors for both boys and girls, however, the relationship was positive for girls and negative for boys. Among the cognitive factors, sports self-efficacy and self-regulation, sports self-efficacy was found to be a significant predictor of physical activity behavior for both boys and girls. In addition, the moderating relationship between internalizing behaviors and self-regulation as a predictor of physical activity behavior was supported for boys. Findings from the study indicate individual psychological factors, such as mental health and self-efficacy may have a significant influence on children's health behaviors. Results also suggest factors at the psychological level may be interacting with one another, along with factors at the biological and social levels of development, to influence health behaviors. The current study highlights that investigating the psychological factors influencing health behaviors may yield an important contribution towards understanding obesity development. These findings have implications both for identifying children at risk for developing obesity, as well as, the design and implementation of obesity prevention initiatives. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology.

Problem behaviors early in the preschool year have been negatively linked to a variety of school readiness outcomes, including language, literacy and mathematics, both at the end of preschool and later on as children transition to elementary school. In order to inform preschool intervention efforts, the current study extends this research by examining the unique influence of internalizing and externalizing behaviors on children's growth in academic skills throughout the preschool year. Additionally, in order to identify mechanisms that may explain the associations between problem behaviors and academic growth, the potential mediating role of specific learning behaviors-competence motivation, attention/persistence and attitude toward learning-were examined. A sample of 275 four-year-old children enrolled in a large, urban Head Start program in the Southeast United States participated in the study. Teachers completed ecologically valid measures of children-s problem behaviors at the beginning of the year and children's learning behaviors mid-year. Data on children's academic achievement were collected at three time points (fall, winter and spring) by independent direct assessors. A series of latent growth models were conducted to examine children's growth in listening comprehension, alphabet knowledge, vocabulary, and mathematics across the preschool year. Results indicated that children made significant progress in all academic domains. Internalizing and externalizing behaviors were negatively associated with baseline academic scores, yet positively associated with rates of growth in some academic domains over time. Furthermore, children's attention skills and persistence were found to be important mediators of growth in alphabet knowledge and mathematics. Implications for early childhood research and practice are discussed.

This thesis analyzed if undergraduate students at a Southern university use the term outercourse to describe sexual behaviors that exclude penile-vaginal intercourse. A literature review revealed that no universal definition of outercourse exists and no forward progression toward a more cohesive definition was observed. Furthermore, 22 various sexual behaviors were recognized as possible outercourse behaviors. Following the literature review, a quantitative study with a minor qualitative component was conducted at a large Southern university. For this phase, 426 students responded to a 34-item online survey. After providing basic demographic information, students were asked to select the single term to describe sexual behaviors that do not include penile-vaginal intercourse. Furthermore, students were asked to determine whether or not they would classify 28 various sexual behaviors as outercourse. The respondents were provided space after each behavior to qualify or elaborate upon any uncertainty they had about the classification of a behavior. Frequencies were tabulated for the qualitative responses to each behavior. The number of comments ranged from 2 to 85 and sadomasochistic activity garnered the most comments (85). Frequency statistics were computed for all quantitative variables. Crosstabs were calculated to determine the demographic characteristics of respondents and non-respondents for each behavior. The results revealed that a majority of the respondents were female (67.4%) and heterosexual (95.5%). Respondents preferred the term "fooling around" (63.4%) instead of outercourse (3.4%) to refer to sexual behaviors that exclude penile-vaginal intercourse. The respondents determined ten behaviors to be outercourse, five behaviors to not be outercourse, and 13 behaviors could not be classified due to the lack of a majority response. For each of the sexual behaviors, approximately 25% of the sample did not provide a response. Crosstabs revealed that freshmen students were more likely than their upperclassman counterparts to omit a response to a behavior. In contrast, juniors were most likely to respond to the sexual behavior questions. The findings from this thesis have provided a catalyst for future interdisciplinary research endeavors and practical implications for health educators and medical professionals who work with undergraduate students.

Summary According to Ferris & Judge(1991), Ferris & Mitchell(1987), the policies of human resources such as promotion, selection, rotation and etc. are affected by political behaviors. As Gandz & Murray (1980) proved, political behaviors indeed exist in different kinds of organizations and groups, especially in public sectors. The study tested the formal employees in Kaoshiung County Government. Those employees are from passing the official examinations or other departments. The rank and classification of the jobs in the organization are complete; employees have many chances to get promotion and rotation. Therefore, it is a good case for examining how often political behaviors being used and how their effects are. The study distributed 410 questionnaires; there are 225 back, and 185 effective samples. Analyzing data and proving the hypotheses through SPSS, there are several findings as follows: 1. Civil servants think that to have the chance of promotion or rotation, to use ¡§having good relationship with important persons¡¨ is necessary. 2. Civil servants think that to have the chance of promotion or rotation, to use ¡§recommendation from the supervisor¡¨ is necessary. 3. The upward political behaviors that civil servants mostly used are:(1) Provide precedent or some ideas that other county governments do. (2) Ask instructions from supervisors, and discuss the solutions. (3) Provide some relevant references that support his viewpoints to the supervisor. 4. The upward political behaviors that civil servants think most effective are same as the behaviors mostly used. Through analysis, the relationship between the using frequency and the using effectiveness of the upward political behaviors are positively related. In other words, the higher the using frequency, the better the using effectiveness. 5. Male subordinates think that using ¡§expert authority¡¨ and ¡§reasonable defense¡¨ would increase not only the chance of promotion and rotation, but also increase the satisfaction of promotion and rotation system. 6. Male subordinates in higher level think that using ¡¨social intercourse and social party¡¨ and ¡§reasonable defense¡¨ can increase the speed of promotion and rotation. As to male subordinates in lower level, they think that using ¡§expert authority¡¨ can increase the speed of having promotion and rotation. 7. The subordinates in higher level think that using ¡§affective strategy¡¨ and ¡§social intercourse and social party¡¨ would cause the unfairness of promotion and rotation and decease the satisfaction of promotion and rotation system. 8. Seniority, higher-educated subordinates think that using ¡¨expert authority¡¨ and ¡§reasonable defense¡¨ of the upward political behaviors would increase the speed of promotion and rotation and the satisfaction of promotion and rotation system. However, for those who have less years spent on the job think that using ¡§social intercourse and social party¡¨ of the upward political behaviors would cause the unfairness of promotion and rotation and decease the satisfaction of promotion and rotation system. 9. The marriage of supervisors significantly moderates the relationship between the frequency of using upward political behaviors and the speed of promotion and rotation. When supervisors use ¡§political strategy¡¨ of the upward political behavior, those who unmarried has more significant effect on increasing the speed of promotion and rotation than those who married. 10. The marriage of supervisors significantly moderates the relationship between the frequency of using upward political behaviors and the satisfaction of promotion and rotation system. When supervisors use ¡§affective strategy¡¨ of the upward political behavior, those who unmarried has more significant effect on increasing the satisfaction of promotion and rotation system than those who married.