This thesis examined 199 college students' reported use of relational maintenance strategies and their reports of the occurrence of sexual communication strategies within the relationship with their partners' reported relational satisfaction.

This study examines the concepts of social style and gender to determine if a relationship exists between the two constructs. The hypotheses suggested a direct relationship between the categories of the BSRI (masculine, feminine, androgynous, and undifferentiated) and the Social Style Analysis (driver, amiable, expressive, and analytical). Ninety-four participants completed two self-report surveys. Chi-square analysis performed on the data found a significant relationship between feminine and amiable as well as androgynous and expressive. While the analysis suggested that masculine/driver and undifferentiated/analytical were not independent, the relationship found was not significant.

This study investigated communicative parameters in parent-adolescent and peer discussions about sex. While most sexual health interventions rely on communication and the dissemination of information, little research has sought to elucidate how talk about sex is mediated by the social and cultural context in which it occurs. This study was undertaken with the purpose of obtaining a better understanding of the way in which contextual factors mediate talk. In order to do this, oral histories of participants' first knowledge of sex and first sex experiences were accessed. Participants of different ages were interviewed with a view to exploring how social and cultural factors mediating talk changed over time. / Thesis(M.A.)-Universityof KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

Do men and women write differently and if so, do these stylistic differences represent differing world \iews and/or do they indicate divergent decisions that are made by the gendered individual with respect to the positioning inherent in the interactive communicative process? In this thesis I consider how men and women write and interact, as well as the topics of their conversations, by examining the postings that characterize a specific semiotic Internet site: Anthro- L@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu. Created solely by and through language, a net community is the ideal environment in which to conduct a field study which examines the use of gendered language. In cyber 'public' space, where social interaction in largely stripped of bodily cues, net participants rely on the power of discourse to convey the 'self. I shall show that men and women make different choices as to how they will represent themselves in net public space, and that these choices are conveyed through the preference of specific styles of writing. Although conceptualizations of public space, academic praxis, and individual socialization all contribute to stylistic differentials, I illustrate through my methodology that Gender is the master status that primarily informs communicative decisions. 'Legitimate' language in our culture is constructed on the rational paradigm which characterizes public institutions; this paradigm is the fundamental principle which informs our system of [male] Langue. Posting acts on Anthro-L offer evidence that those who do not 'speak', or choose not to speak within the framework of this model, are conceived as 'other1, and are silenced through desertion, by - play and trivialization. / 29 cm.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 156-171). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2009. / Includes abstract. Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Title from first page of PDF file (viewed March 23, 2010). Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in print.

No description available.

This study is designed to investigate individual differences in response to emotional and sexual infidelity and by doing so place the Big-5 model of personality in another important social context.

The purpose of this cross-sectional and exploratory study was to describe an interaction model of parental and adolescent attributes and sexual communication influences on intentions for contraception and condom use in Mexican high school students between 14 and 17 years of age. This study utilized a secondary analysis of data from an existing experimental study. Concepts from the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Social Cognitive Theory, and the Ecodevelopmental Theory provided the contexts with which to guide this study. The study sample consisted of 756 adolescents and their parents. A SEM model building approach was used to guide the analyses. The model fit indices suggested that the sample data did not have an acceptable fit to the combined measurement model (X²[subscript (30)] = 92.215, p = 0.0000, CFI = 0.97, TLI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR= 0.04). Based on the correlation coefficients, the observed variables of parents' and adolescents' familialism and religiosity and adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use were excluded from the structural equation modeling analyses. Two alternative models were constructed form the original and both had an acceptable fit, but based on the theoretical background, one was selected (X²[subscript (15)] = 27.289, p = .0265, CFI = .99, TLI = .99, RMSEA = .03, SRMR = .02). The revised model parents' attributes (self-efficacy for sex communication and beliefs toward sex) showed a strong relationship (r = 0.80) with parents' sexual communication (communication about sex and comfort with sex communication). An additional moderately strong correlation was found between adolescents' sexual communication (communication about sex and comfort with sex communication) and parents' sexual communication (r = .31). Although the final model in this study did not explain the direct and mediator effects on adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use, findings add new information in relation to the phenomenon of parent-adolescent communication about sex in Mexico. Several conclusions were also drawn from the relationships among parents' attributes, adolescents' attributes, parents' sexual communication, adolescents' sexual communication, and adolescents' intentions for contraception and condom use. Findings from this study are congruent with similar research and can be useful in developing intervention programs to prevent HIV/AIDS in Mexican adolescents.

xvi, 108 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Risky sexual behavior (RSB) places adolescents at risk for unplanned pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection, and research is needed to understand the predictors of adolescent RSB and targets for future intervention. The current study used the social contextual model of problem behavior development to examine family, peer, and individual influences on adolescents' sexual behavior and the relationship between RSB and other problem behaviors. Data were previously collected from 998 adolescents and their families. First, I examined the level of agreement between adolescents' and parents' perceptions of family relationships, parental monitoring, and adolescents' friendships and which perceptions were more strongly related to adolescent problem behavior. Pearson bivariate correlations between parent and adolescent perceptions were small. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that adolescent report was a better predictor of problem behavior than was parent report. Second, I assessed whether positive family relations, parental monitoring, family conflict, and parent-adolescent communication about sex in earlier adolescence were related to RSB in later adolescence. Structural equation modeling results suggested that the timing and frequency of parent-adolescent communication about sex and parent monitoring in earlier adolescence were related to RSB in later adolescence among the sample as a whole; results varied somewhat by gender. Third, I examined participants' membership in four risk behavior groups in late adolescence (low problem behavior, RSB only, substance use only, and RSB plus substance use), identified family, peer, and individual factors that differentiated teens in each group, and explored differences by sex and ethnicity. Females were more likely than males to report engaging in a combination of RSB and patterned substance use, and African Americans of both sexes were more likely than European Americans to report engaging in RSB in the absence of other behaviors. The variable that most reliably distinguished among risk groups for both males and females was friend drug use in late adolescence. Discussion considers reasons for these findings and highlights the roles of parent monitoring, parent-adolescent communication about sex, and gender and sociocultural factors in RSB prevention. / Committee in charge: Ellen McWhirter, Chairperson, Counseling Psychology and Human Services; Joe Stevens, Member, Educational Methodology, Policy, and Leadership; Elizabeth Stormshak, Member, Counseling Psychology and Human Services; Anthony Biglan, Member, Not from U of O; Yvonne Braun, Outside Member, Sociology