The purpose of this study was to construct a training program for parents of 4th and 5th grade children on how to initiate and maintain conversations about safe-sex and sex-related topics by using Beebe, Mottet, and Roachs (2013) Needs-Centered Training Model. The main topics arising from the needs assessment include experiencing puberty, healthy friendships, and peer pressure/media influence. The need for better communication surrounding sex can be seen from rates of teenage pregnancy in the United States remaining higher than those of other developed countries (Martinez, Copen, & Abma, 2011) as well as adolescents accounting for only a quarter of the sexually active population, but half of the population acquiring new STDs (Martinez, Copen, & Abma, 2011). Although this study does not address pregnancy and STD prevention, it encourages parents to initiate open conversation with their children about sex-related topics and to maintain this conversation so future topics (such as those concerning participating in sex) are more comfortable for both parent and child. Providing parents with information on important and age-appropriate topics for their children, as well as how to best initiate and maintain open and honest communication, can better equip parents to feel prepared for conversations with children that encourage them to act responsibly when it comes to sex-related situations in the future.

The three studies in this dissertation were posed with the common goal of revealing possible explanations for variations in the causes and consequences of interpersonal violence across regional cultures of the United States. Study 1 posed and tested two hypotheses related to the distribution of male-perpetrated intimate partner homicide across regions of the United States. The South and West, two regions characterized in full (the South) or in part (the West) by honor cultures, emerged as the regions with the highest rates of argument- and conflict- related, male-on-female intimate partner homicides in single victim/single offender incidents. Explanations provided at the individual level for cross-regional variation in the experience of severe intimate partner violence were explored in Studies 2 and 3, which had two goals. One, to determine whether the common pattern of mutual IPV in violent couples holds within the male-dominated, characteristically more violent honor cultures of the United States. Second, to determine if certain honor-based norms and values, which have been previously linked to male violence in honor cultures (Vandello, Cohen, and Ransom, 2008), can also help explain the higher rates of IPV perpetrated by women in honor cultures. Two hypotheses related to differences between honor and nonhonor cultures in severity of violence attributed to certain reasons or circumstances failed to receive support in Study 3, as well as the more general hypothesis predicting males in honor cultures will perpetrate more severe forms of IPV than males from nonhonor cultures. Results testing the final hypothesis revealed that an interaction effect between self-reported honor culture identification and subjective honor/nonhonor designation is a significant predictor of the severity of IPV victimization experienced by females. Additional findings from this analysis revealed that as severity of perpetrated tactics increased, the severity of tactics experienced as a victim also increased significantly; this finding is consistent with previous research on the mutual nature of IPV in violent couples. A number of future directions for interpersonal and intercultural research are suggested.

The primary purpose of this study was to test the assertion that Sensemaking Theory is an appropriate lens to understand church crisis by highlighting the role of communication as a central aspect of the sensemaking process. In addition, through the application of Sensemaking Theory, the secondary goal was to assist congregations as they try to avoid the negative consequences of church splits. The analysis utilized in the current study was specifically selected to develop a history of participant interpretation within a church in order to determine how members made sense of the crisis. To that end, this study followed the procedures of Miles and Huberman (1984) as modified by Dutton and Dukerich, which were set firmly within the primary Sensemaking Theory components of enaction, selection and retention (Weick, 1995). The 11 themes that were drawn from theory were the basis for research questions as well as for the four-step method of collecting, describing and analyzing the data. The extent to which the themes were applicable was the determining factor or test to determine whether Sensemaking Theory is an appropriate theoretical lens for understanding crisis within a church context. The primary research objective was accomplished by demonstrating how communication within the Unity Baptist Church (UBC) congregation spoke the crisis into existence (Weick, 1995). Rich description of conversations in which UBC members made sense of the crisis exemplified how communication is the essence of sense because sensemaking is an issue of language, talk and communication (Weick, Sutcliffe, & Obstfeld, 2005, p. 409). The research questions underlined the communicative properties of sensemaking because concepts such as enaction, commitments, capacity, expectation, emotion, selection, retention, identity and sensegiving were all formulated, mediated and confirmed through communication. Throughout the crisis-cycle, communication within the UBC membership exhibited a clear procession through the pre-crisis, crisis and post-crisis stages. Therefore, results indicated that Sensemaking Theory is an appropriate lens from which to study church crisis. Finally, the secondary objective was approximated because the study provided a context for prevention discussion. Both organizational and church leadership were offered recommendations concerning the potential avoidance or mediation of crisis.

The study of sport fandom is undertaken in a variety of disciplines, including but not limited to communication, psychology, sociology, economics, marketing and business. These investigations are significant because of the ubiquitous presence of sport fandom in world culture and its interdisciplinary adaptability in academia. To date however, there has not been a consistent conceptual or operational definition of sport fandom and related factors such as spectatorship, involvement and identification. Consequently, this lack of cohesiveness has serious ramifications, including lack of comparability in results and an inability to generate consistent evidence of the validity and reliability of the various self-report measures developed and utilized. This investigation aims to contribute to the stability of the sport communication field by applying previously refined scales (Keaton & Gearhart, 2013) and contributing to their validity portfolios through comparison with a variety of cognitive, behavioral, and physiological measures of team fandom. This endeavor will have multiple effects, namely the development of more consistent and empirically supported operational constructs of sport fandom, recognition of sport fandoms antecedents and effects, and further understanding the role of communication in this process. In service of these goals, current sport literature is reviewed, followed by an overview of theoretical foundations. Afterwards, theoretical connections between these constructs are posited. Next, the methods, procedures and manipulation checks are detailed, followed by methods triangulation and hypothesis assessment. Finally, relevant theoretical considerations are discussed.

Female politicians are heavily constrained by discourses that prescribe masculine values as natural, yet at times they draw on societal expectations of femininity that allow them to utilize such discourses to their advantage. Motherhood, a feminine yet powerful role, provides such an opportunity. Capitalizing on this acceptable avenue of female power, women have strategically relied on maternal appeals since they first entered public life, often to challenge patriarchal social structures. Utilizing Lakoffs (2002) concept of the nation-as-family metaphor and informed by the pervasive myth of the traditional family, this analysis explores the consequences of Sarah Palins use of maternal appeals related to discourses of family, politics, motherhood, and feminism. The rise of prominent conservative women like Palin engages questions about the feminist potential of maternal appeals. Conservative politicians often support ―family values,‖ including a more traditional familial structure with relatively strict gender roles. A female politicians support of this family model creates an interesting contradiction, as participating in public office necessarily involves stepping outside of the home and traditional role of a wife and mother. Despite this seeming inconsistency, Palin bases her political image on her family and role as a mother, and frames her political career as a necessary response to protect Americas children and conservative family values. She describes herself as a ferocious ―mama grizzly‖ and emphasizes that womens unique perspective and special talentssuch as motheringare valued skills that should be brought to the public sphere. She argues that not only are women capable of working just as hard as men, because of their essential nature and experiences as mothers, they bring special gifts and abilities to public office that men cannot. Through this use of maternal appeals, Sarah Palin creates room for herself in a male-dominated political arena, but because she bases her political persona on traditional family values and a tough but self-sacrificial ―mama grizzly‖ persona, she effectively reinforces expectations of femininity and motherhood that limit womens other opportunities.

The following study focuses on ways in which health care providers seem to competently breaking bad news to patients that are college age (18-25yrs old). Breaking bad news is an inevitable and daunting part of working in the health care profession. Delivering this type of news to college age students could occur more frequently than with other cohorts. Buckman (1992) presents methodology for teaching breaking bad news to health care providers in the form of the SPIKES model, which are similar to the identified essential elements of communication in medical encounters described by communication scholars (Makoul, 2001). Several interviews were conducted with college age participants who had bad news broken to them by a health care provider. These bad news situations ranged from STDs, death of a family member, life long illness, and sport injuries. Two over arching themes of effective and ineffective ways to break bad news were present in the data; the sub-categories of express caring and being direct were shown as effective ways to break bad news to college age students and robotic and non-responsive as ineffective. The findings presented in this study can provide health care providers with insight on how to improve communication skills when working with college age patients.

The overall aim of this project is to theorize and invent a method of performance based on écriture féminine. This method is meant to be useable, generative, and transferable to other practitioners. Following a heuretic practice of reading selected texts for what they suggest about making new texts, writerly method that invites expansion in future research is revealed. This project is but a beginning of an articulation and proposes only one path through these texts. The tracking of the process of reading and experimenting with performance provides a space for reflection that illuminates gaps to be explored in future work. The purpose of this study is three-fold. The first aim is to articulate a method for creating postdramatic devised feminist performance as an entry into and extension of the history of feminist performance and theater. Second, I advocate the use of écriture féminine as a generative starting point for devising rather than an after-the-fact application that subordinates performance to philosophy. The use I advocate moves beyond the application of philosophical ideas to performance examples to bring performance and philosophy into contact with one another and generate new ideas of both based on a mutually affective encounter. Finally, by using écriture féminine in this way I hope to reintroduce it into the feminist performance conversation from which it is often left out or dismissed as essentialist. I approached this project in three phases. The first phase was the close reading of Stigmata by Hélène Cixous, Strangers to Ourselves by Julia Kristeva, and The Irigaray Reader by Luce Irigaray and edited by Margaret Whitford. In this phase I gleaned compositional principles to use in performance experimentation. The second phase involved the rehearsal and experimentation process, which culminated in the public performance. In the third phase I review my close reading notes, the documentation of the rehearsal process, and audience feedback to formulate a picture of the project as a whole and reflect on what was accomplished. The project concludes with a summary and suggestion for future possibilities as well as a number of practical exercises for performance purposes.

In light of claims made by Aron (1996, 2000; Aron & Aron, 1997), this dissertation tested the influence of sensory-processing sensitivity on communication via two sets of research questions. First, are highly sensitive persons more easily aroused by stimulation, and if so does this necessarily cause a decrease in affect recognition? Results of an experimental study (N = 342) indicate that highly sensitive persons (HSPs) were more distracted by audio stimulation, causing more errors in accuracy judgments on non-verbal decoding tests, most noticeably for facial expression detection. The implication is that, when aroused by stimulation in their environment, HSPs may be less interpersonally sensitive. The question concerned with claims about highly sensitive men in relationships and their supposed feminine nature (Aron, 2000). Thus, it is asked, Are highly sensitive men (HSM) in romantic relationships, as compared to non-sensitive men, more expressive of their emotions and more understanding of partners, qualities which supposedly create greater gender role stress because they do not meet American norms for masculinity? Results demonstrate that HSM reported are expressive of negative emotions (e.g., being bothered) and experience greater gender role stress, qualities which may lead partners of HSM to report lower satisfaction. The implication is that if HSM are more easily bothered and more emotionally reactive, then they are more expressive of negative feelings, a quality which is detrimental for relationships if these complaints are viewed as criticisms (Gottman, 1990). Overall, the studies suggest the communication behaviors of HSPs are influenced in mostly negative ways because of low thresholds for stimulation. Importantly, though, effects were generally small and hard to detect in the sample sizes reported here, and the current measure of SPS seems to be inappropriate for measuring the complete conceptual breadth of the construct. A number of intrapersonal, individual, and interpersonal directions for future research are suggested.

This is a study of the theory of critical Sophistic logic that underwrote Hu Shis involvement in Chinas 20th century reform period known as the Chinese Renaissance. Hu Shi was a radical liberal reformer who played a leading role in the New Culture Movement. He pursued a two-pronged project for cultural reform. One side of the reform was focused on developing a critical pragmatic logical theory. This side was aimed at the intellectual class and appealed to the heritage of the Confucian literati. The other side of the reform was focused on lifting the peoples vernacular language from vulgarity to serve as the foundation for an aesthetically developed and nationally shared knowledge. The national language and body of knowledge would equip the common people with tools for communicating with one another to share experiences and coordinate judgments about situations of public contingency. This side of the reform appealed to the heritage of the oral tradition. Hu Shi conceived of the two sides of the reform in coordination. They would bridge the traditional divide between the intellectual and common class and unify the nation in critical rhetorical language. Hu developed the Literary Revolution to pursue goals on both sides of the reform. It would make the vernacular language the national language by elevating its status and expanding the accessibility of written materials. He wanted to make cultural exposure and education common for all. With education and literacy, the people could gain a sense of the future, a body of shared experiences, and the ability to address the most pressing problems of the day.

This dissertation explores the writings of the American public intellectual and theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971). My project is a unique contribution to Niebuhrian studies in that I approach these works from the perspective of a rhetorical theorist. My intention is to parse from Niebuhrs editorial commentaries, his philosophical inquiries and lectures, his theological treatises, and his sermonic essays an specifically Niebuhrian ethics of rhetoric. In order to accomplish this task I investigate the rhetorical situation Niebuhr was embedded in and to which he was responding to at the turn of the twentieth century. Part of the analysis of his rhetorical situation places him in conversation with other thinkers writing at the turn of the century, such as John Dewey and Walter Lippmann. From the rhetorical situation, the dissertation tackles Niebuhrs thought in three categories: Niebuhrs mythicspecifically Christianapproach to history, his dialectical approach to love, justice, grace and power, and finally, his rhetorical approach to the contemporary situations that call for judgment. I argue that Niebuhrs ethics of rhetoric are specifically Christian, in that they provide, on the one hand, the necessary mythic and dialectical tools one needs to make judgments in tragic realm of contingency, and on the other hand, the hope and faith that is required to move beyond the tragic realm of rhetoric without despair or cynicism. Niebuhrs characteristic pragmatic Christian realism, I argue, is a much-needed approach to the ethics of rhetoric, one that is important for us to understand in a globalized electric age, wherein the shared myths that found communities elude us, though we remain asked to make judgments that effect collectives we may never see face-to-face. Niebuhrs ethics of rhetoric is a guiding light for a rhetorical approach that moves past the local community, fragmented since the industrial revolution and rationalized since the Enlightenment, to a broader sense of community that is neither Jewish nor Greekneither, me might add, Muslim or Western. It is a rhetoric that moves us confidently, yet qualifiedly, into the future that is beyond tragedy.