Although the current literature calls for generally increased attention to culture-specific influences in therapeutic settings, much more needs to be known regarding specific groups. Accordingly, this exploratory phenomenological study addressed the lack of awareness of the pendejo construct and its perceived threat as a stigmatizing attribute among indigenous Puerto Ricans. Since this phenomenon is believed to jeopardize self-other relationships including therapeutic relationships, the purpose of the study was to describe the pendejo concept as a cultural dimension of Puerto Rican psychology. The research focus included participants' personal and collective experiences of the pendejo construct, with attention directed to how this phenomenon was represented as a cognitive distortion, a self-referent in discourse, and manifested behaviorally. The study employed data collected via in-depth interviews with 8 successful, college-educated native Puerto Ricans. Transcribed data was organized by categories, coded by significant statements and distilled into structural and textural descriptions that revealed a marked similarity of participants' descriptions of the pendejo experience in terms of definitions, assumptions, emotional and behavioral responses, propensity and consequences. Psychological manifestations included escapist behaviors, cognitive distortions (people are out to "take me for pendejo"), and negative self-referents ("I am a pendejo") that translate into nonclinical paranoid tendencies and introjected hurt feelings. Awareness of this phenomenon can help culturally oriented therapists assist Puerto Rican clients toward becoming more assertive and proactive persons. This can lead to positive social change by enhancing mental health and interpersonal behavior within this population at the individual and the collective levels, as well as adding new insight to the literature.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 120 p.; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-120). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

African-American students commonly experience many personal difficulties while attending predominantly Caucasian universities. According to the literature, these students often report feelings of isolation and alienation, and have comparatively high attrition rates, even when compared with members of other minority groups. Researchers have found that for African-American students, the experience of affiliation counters feelings of isolation. Participation in athletics is one way for students to feel that they are important members of the university community. This study was a qualitative investigation of small samples of African-American and Caucasian athletes and nonathletes at a large, public, predominantly Caucasian university. Particular attention was paid to African-American students and the relationship between athletic participation and feelings of affiliation within the university community. Students participated in a semi-structured interview, completed The Participation Motivation Questionnaire, The Collective Self-Esteem Survey, and the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale, and responded to selected stimuli from the T.A.T and R.A.T.C. For all of the athletically involved individuals in this study, regardless of race, athletic participation has been important throughout life. These students view their childhood athletic involvement as having provided a valuable and enjoyable learning experience in which they increased their self-awareness and self-confidence, and in which they developed and used skills in cooperation and competition. At the university, students of both races acquired valuable skills and insight that they believed would be useful in their lives after college. For African-American students who experienced feelings of alienation at the university, athletics gave them a peer group in which they could feel safe and accepted. Several of the African-American students spoke about negative experiences before college associated with their being visibly distinct from the majority. Athletic participation gave these students a way to be visible in a positive way, and to feel like important members of the larger university community.

The purpose of this study was to explore relationship satisfaction among adult, cohabitating heterosexual and homosexual dyads. The United States has the highest rate of divorce among all the industrialized nations. Divorce has been linked to declines in mental and physical health, financial and social instability, unhealthy patterns of over-compensation, and higher levels of separation among the offspring of such couples. Hawaii has the fourth lowest rate of divorce in the country, despite also having the one of the highest rates of interethnic marriage worldwide. Researchers of relationship satisfaction and minority issues have yet to explore the correlates of relationship satisfaction and the veracity of attachment theory, the leading theory addressing couples' interactions, in this subpopulation. This study was grounded in Bowlby's attachment theory. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale was used to measure relationship satisfaction as it interacted with 3 independent variables: each couple's attachment style combination, as measured by the Experiences in Close Relationships scale; place of nativity and rearing; and parental separation status. A factorial analysis of variance indicated statistically significant attachment and parental separation status main effects as well as a statistically significant attachment by parental separation status interaction effect among 160 diverse couples. Place of nativity and rearing did not have a statistically significant impact on relationship satisfaction however. Establishing effective couples' relationship education programs can promote social change by reducing relationship dissolution and enhancing physical, mental, and financial well-being among couples and their offspring.

This qualitative study focused on mothers who were sexually abused as children and whose children disclosed incest before turning eighteen. It describes the ways nine women between the ages of 30 and 49, who volunteered to be interviewed, discussed their history of multigenerational sexual abuse and its impact on their lives and their parenting. Semi-structured clinical interviews which took approximately two to three hours each, provided the data for the study. The interview questions were divided into three sections. The questions in the first section asked for the participant's ideas about the parenting relationship. The second section included questions about how she discovered and responded to the sexual abuse of her children. The third part asked for information about how her parents responded to her own childhood victimization, and for her ideas about multigenerational patterns of abuse. Each interview was adapted to be sensitive to the emotional needs and level of understanding of each participant. Embedded in the interview questions were two social-cognitive developmental assessments: one which looked for stages of self-understanding, and one which looked for levels of conceptualizations about the parenting relationship. A high level of correspondence was found between the results of the two assessments. The interviews were transcribed and then analyzed in two phases. The theme analysis is a summary of the major relevant content themes which emerged during the early combing of the data. Among these themes are participants' ideas about connections between childhood sexual victimization in their own lives and childhood incest in their children's lives, and their thoughts about breaking multigenerational patterns of abuse. The next phase, the developmental analysis, summarizes and demonstrates how each of the six themes was negotiated by participants at three different stages of social cognitive development. Many consistencies were found in the ways women at each developmental stage described their thoughts and ideas about abuse in both generations. The results speak to the usefulness of social cognitive developmental schemas in explaining and organizing the various ways mothers who are coping with multigenerational victimization make meaning of their experiences. They indicate a strong relationship between social cognitive development and how people understand, recover from, and change patterns of multigenerational sexual abuse in their families. The findings have implications for clinical practice. They suggest that clinicians attempting to facilitate recovery from sexual victimization might better meet the differing needs of clients when equipped with an understanding of the ways in which social cognition develops and has impact on the process.