Doctor of Philosophy / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Amber V. Vennum / The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how emerging adults (18-29 year olds) define commitment in romantic relationships and have created meaning from the positive and negative examples of commitment they have witnessed. Twenty (10 men, 10 women) unmarried emerging adults were interviewed individually. Through the use of grounded theory four themes emerged to explain how emerging adults have constructed their understanding of commitment: complete loyalty, investment in the relationship, continual communication, and parental influence. From observing negative and positive examples of commitment, emerging adults learned to discern healthy and unhealthy characteristics of romantic relationships, are working to be different, and have learned what to do to make a committed relationship work long term including the sub-themes of unitedly persevere, prioritize the relationship, consider your partner, give substantial effort, have fidelity. These results extend our knowledge about the model of resilient commitment, and the critical purpose of meaning making. Implications for intervening with emerging adults to strengthen future romantic relationship stability are discussed.

Examined within this study were the relations between two processes within sexual identity development, sexual identity exploration and sexual identity commitment, and risky sexual behaviors. The moderating effects of sexual identity commitment, sexual self-efficacy, and positive condom use attitudes on relations between sexual identity exploration and risky sexual behaviors were also examined. Risky sexual behaviors included the frequency of substance prior to and barrier protection use during sex, multiple sex partners, and the initiation of sex prior to age sixteen. Study participants included 322 college students attending an urban university in the Southeastern United States. All were heterosexual and reported engaging in vaginal, anal or oral sex in the past 30 days. A high percentage of study participants reported at least one risky sexual behavior in the past 30 days, and most reported not using barrier protection during anal and oral sex. No direct effects were found between sexual identity exploration and any risky sexual behavior. Only one direct effect was found between higher levels of sexual identity commitment and lower frequencies of barrier protection use for oral sex. No moderating effects were found for sexual identity commitment, sexual self-efficacy, or positive condom use attitudes on relations between sexual identity exploration and any risky sexual behavior. The findings highlight the importance of examining how to get emerging adults to consistently use barrier protection during any type of sexual behavior. The results also underscore the complexity of sexual risk-taking during emerging adulthood, and the need for continued examination of the ways in which processes associated with sexual identity development may impact sexual risk-taking during emerging adulthood.

Individuals with overweight/obesity have been found to exhibit more negative attitudes toward health care and disproportionate rates of health care delay and avoidance, compared to their healthy weight peers. The present study sought to examine potential mechanisms through which weight status influences health care utilization and attitudes. Six hundred and thirty-three students completed a questionnaire measuring weight status, perceived weight bias, patient-provider relationship, and health care utilization and attitudes. Although the majority of the paths in the proposed theoretical mediation model were supported by the present findings, there was no support for the anticipated link between perceived weight bias and the patient-provider relationship or weight-related embarrassment. Overall, these results corroborated previous findings in a novel sample, but did not provide evidence that perceived weight bias mediates the relationship between weight status and health care outcomes. Possible explanations for these findings are deliberated.

This thesis compares certain developmental characteristics and value preferences of emerging adult university students and non-student employed young people at the age between 19-25 years in the Czech republic. According to some authors this life stage seems to be a new developmental period between adolescence and young adulthood. In comparison to the USA there has not been much research done on this topic in the Czech Republic. There are some special characteristics of this phase of life that are described in the theoretical part, and tested on a sample of Czech young people which is showed in the empirical part of this thesis. The differences of how students and non- students experience this time of life are compared. It is assumed that student life style brings different impulses than the life style of employed young people. The aim of this thesis was to test the assumption that university students show the features of emerging adulthood more plentifully than people at the same age who work. According to the results of this study the assumption was confirmed. Another focus of this thesis is the topic of value orientation among this sample of young people. Value orientation is influenced by life style and is formed especially during adolescence and young adulthood. Certain types of value...

Cette étude porte sur les relations entretenues entre les modalités de mise en scène de soi au cours des interactions et le processus de construction identitaire individuel. Elle vise à comprendre pourquoi certains acteurs sont plus enclins que d’autres à conformer leurs attitudes aux individus et situations qu’ils sont amenés à rencontrer. Pour ce faire, nous avons eu recours à des méthodes qualitatives comme quantitatives. L’analyse de discours sur soi, fondée sur la lecture d’autobiographies et récits de vie, a permis de souligner la part active des individus dans le processus d’autoconstruction mis en œuvre. La diffusion d’un questionnaire permettant de mesurer leurs capacités à modeler leur face en fonction des injonctions externes (le monitorage de soi) ainsi que leurs particularités identitaires objectives (critères sociodémographiques) comme subjectives (conscience de soi et estime de soi) a révélé, grâce aux scores ainsi relevés et aux traitements de variables qui en ont découlé, toute l’importance des facteurs sociaux dans la définition des comportements individuels. Ainsi, pour comprendre les spécificités individuelles en termes de présentation de soi comme d’identité il importe tout autant d’éclairer les ancrages sociaux des acteurs que la façon dont ils les traitent, ceci afin d’approcher au plus près du phénomène de « subjectivation de l’objectif » qu’ils mettent en œuvre pour se singulariser. Fort de ce résultat, une troisième analyse porte plus particulièrement sur la période d’émergence de l’âge adulte (de 18 à 27 ans) qui est marquée par une rupture avec les injonctions normatives relatives à l’enfance et l’adolescence sans être parfaitement associée aux exigences de l’âge adulte. Cet âge de la vie, qui accorde plus de libertés aux individus en matière d’expérimentations (notamment dans les domaines des études, du travail et des relations), est associé aux scores les plus élevés en monitorage de soi. Ce résultat conduit à établir un parallèle entre les conditions de vie des individus et les modalités d’adaptation de leurs faces. Autrement dit, et pour ce qui concerne la portée générale de cette recherche doctorale, l’expérience de vie au quotidien constitue le facteur principal de la plus ou moins grande tendance des acteurs à adopter et présenter les attitudes qu’ils considèrent comme attendues d’eux. / This study focuses on relations between self-presentation modalities during interactions and individual identity construction process. It aims to understand why certain people are more disposed than other to conform their attitudes to individuals and situations they are led to meet. To do this, we resorted in both qualitative and quantitative methods. The analysis of self-speech based on reading autobiographies and narratives of life led to underline the active part of individuals in the autoconstruction process implemented. The broadcasting of a questionnaire to measure their abilities to shape their face in regard to external injunctions (self-monitoring) and their objective identity peculiarities (sociodemographic criteria) as subjective (self-consciousness and self-esteem) revealed, thanks to the scores thus raised and the treatment of variables that resulted, all the importance of social factors on the definition of individual behaviors. Then, to understand individual specificities in terms of self-presentation as identity, it is equally important to light social anchors of actors as much as how they treat them, in order to approach in closer of “subjectivation of objective” phenomenon they implement to singularize themselves. Considering this result, a third analysis focuses more particularly on the emerging adulthood period (from 18 to 27 years old), which is marked by a rupture with normative injunctions related to childhood and adolescence without being perfectly associated to adulthood requirements. This period of life, which allows more freedom to individuals in terms of experimentations (in particular in the fields of studies, work and relationships), is associated with the highest scores in self-monitoring. This result leads us to establish a parallel between living conditions of individuals and the modalities of adaptation of their faces. In other words, and about the general scope of this doctoral research, daily life experience constitutes the main factor of more or less big tendency of actors in adopting and present the attitudes they consider as expected from themselves.

Emerging adulthood is a term coined to recognize 18 to 25 year-olds who engage in self-exploration while not yet fully identifying as adults. Many emerging adult college students experience stress, anxiety, and depression. Although many colleges provide affordable and available mental health resources for students, many students who need help appear to not utilize these services. Gaining greater understanding of underlying processes that influence psychological treatment-seeking behavior is imperative. The current study sought to explore the role experiential avoidance (EA) plays as a treatment-seeking barrier in the context of emerging adulthood. Undergraduate students completed online measures of emerging adulthood dimensions, psychological symptoms, EA, self-stigma of, perceived public stigma of, intentions to, and attitudes and beliefs towards seeking treatment, treatment seeking behavior, and a demographics questionnaire. Binomial hierarchical logistic regressions and correlational analyses examined the relationship of EA and treatment-seeking behaviors, accounting for known barriers and emerging adult characteristics. After controlling for demographic variables, results indicated that EA was significantly positively correlated with self-stigma (r = .187), p < .001), perceived public stigma (r = .178, p < .001), intentions (r - .207, p < .001), psychological symptoms (r = .713, p < .001), and attitudes and beliefs (r = .009, p = .003). These and other findings are discussed further, along with the study limitations and implications, as well as possible future directions for work in this area.

Successful negotiation of emerging adult transitions predicts positive developmental outcomes across the lifespan. Emerging adults who have experienced childhood trauma are at increased risk for maladaptive development. The purpose of this dissertation study was to (a) provide descriptive demographic and health information about emerging adult survivors of childhood trauma seeking support from a university counseling center and (b) investigate the impact that different types of childhood trauma had on psychological symptoms and aspects of distress experienced by that population during college. It was hypothesized that there would be no significant differences in student distress based on single-type abuse, but that there would be significant differences based on the experience of polyvictimization, with multi-type abuse related to increased distress. Extant client data collected by the University of Oregon Counseling and Testing Center (UO-UCTC) were used to meet study objectives. Participants were college students, age 18-25 years, who voluntarily sought mental health services from UO-UCTC and who endorsed childhood trauma experiences on their intake paperwork. Results from descriptive, finite mixture modeling, logistic regression, chi-square, and multiple regression analyses revealed that (a) there were unique relationships between trauma type and a variety of demographic variables; (b) help-seeking emerging adults reported experiencing childhood emotional single-type abuse most frequently, with childhood emotional-physical abuse being the most commonly reported form of multi-type abuse; (c) the sample endorsed higher than typical psychological symptoms and aspects of distress both in terms of quantity and severity, with particularly elevated depression, family distress, and generalized anxiety scores; (d) a five-component solution emerged, classifying participants into five clusters of symptom reporting; however, no relationship was found between symptom cluster and childhood trauma type; (e) the probability of experiencing generalized anxiety and/or family distress was related to the type of childhood trauma experienced; and (f) the severity of generalized anxiety and/or family distress that participants reported was significantly related to the type of childhood trauma they experienced. Findings highlight the importance of contextualizing current abuse typologies and assessing multi-type abuse. Recommendations for expanding definitions of trauma and providing care to emerging adult survivors of childhood trauma on college campuses are discussed.

Over the past decade, there has been an increase in academic research on media and its influences on body satisfaction. To date, the majority of body image literature focuses on low body satisfaction. While low body satisfaction leads to negative outcomes, high body satisfaction leads to a host of positive outcomes. Further, in a non-academic domain, it would seem that even some media icons are starting to take part in the effort to try to promote positive appearance messages. Singers like Christina Aguilera, Colbie Caillat, and Alessia Cara have begun writing songs like Beautiful, Try, and Scars To Your Beautiful to combat the rampant standard of the thin ideal. The current study consists of an experiment to examine the effects of positive or negative appearance music lyrics and their influence on body related outcomes (body satisfaction measured implicitly through an IAT, self-reports of body satisfaction, and observed body surveillance) in emerging adult women while moderating by adherence to sociocultural attitudes of media ideals. Results revealed that participants who listened to the positive lyrics reported significantly better body satisfaction as compared to those who listened to the negative lyrics. However, those who listened to positive lyrics did not report significantly better body satisfaction compared to those in the neutral condition and those in the neutral condition did not differ significantly from those in the negative condition. Due to preconceived schema regarding how participants already felt about their appearance, perhaps they were primed to hear lyrics confirming their appearance fears (or soothing them), but failed to attend to lyrics "unappearance" related (the neutral lyrics). Therefore, when asked about their body satisfaction, their responses reflected what they attended to, namely, either the positive or negative lyrics, not the neutral lyrics.

The purpose of this study was to examine the beliefs and behaviors of Emerging Adults relating to sexual consent, and how these ideas relate to an individual’s well-being. Specifically, this study used a survey that combined multiple questionnaires that were developed by the research team as well as an existing measure of consent: Sexual Consent Scale- Revised (Humphreys, T., & Brousseau, M. 2010). These questionnaires were used to answer the two questions that are the focus of this presentation and are of importance to schools, parents and family life educators: “How does an individual’s sexual behavior, beliefs or attitudes relate to individual wellbeing?” and “How does an individual’s sexual behavior relate to sexual consent?" This study was a preliminary look into sexual consent in emerging adulthood with a focus on wellbeing. The study included a total of 74 females (77.1%) and 21 males (21.9%); One (1%) participant identified as Other. The range of ages was 18-28, with a mean age of 20.14 years (SD 2.091). A total of 37 different majors were included (Undergraduate and Graduate). Most students indicated they were single (n=51, 56.6%) and 39 individuals indicated they were in a relationship (n=39, 43.3%). The two most important findings for this presentation are: There is an “Idealized” idea of sexual consent, disconnected from behavior, highlighted by the cognitive dissonance shown in responses to two items— 93% of individuals strongly agreed to the item: “I feel that sexual consent should always be obtained before the start of any sexual activity,” yet only 11% strongly agreed to the statement “I always verbally ask for consent before I initiate a sexual encounter” and the second important finding relates to the hypothesis— “As lack of perceived behavioral control increases, scores of assuming consent will also increase”. The data showed there is a significant, strong, positive relationship between behavioral control and assuming consent (r=.570, p=.000), indicating an important connection. This research is especially important in the current political/cultural climate—promoting sexual knowledge is becoming increasingly imperative for the overall wellbeing of individuals. The baseball model of getting to “bases” and “scoring” dominates US culture and may lead to ideas of competition versus ideas of mutual pleasure and enthusiastic consent. Educating families as well as youth is an important step to changing culture. Social Learning Theory provides a unique perspective in that both behavioral skills/practice and cognition need to be addressed in sex education in order to reinforce positive sexual consent behaviors. There is evidence that the time period from adolescence into emerging adulthood shows an increase in sexual risk taking, and the theory of Emerging Adulthood marks this time period as one of transitions and exploration (Arnett 2000, 2007). Educating youth before this time period may be key to promoting healthy behaviors. This study is an initial investigation into a complex topic that can be used to facilitate a discussion on sexual consent as well as the current implications for families and parents that need to educate their children about these topics.

abstract: Sexual satisfaction has been positively linked to both individual and relational wellbeing (Christopher & Sprecher, 2000; Davison, Bell, LaChina, Holden, & Davis, 2009). Further, sexual communication has demonstrated positive impacts on sexual satisfaction (Byers, 2005); yet, research by MacNeil and Byers (2009) found that most people in romantic relationships do not share their sexual preferences with their partner. According to Tolman (2002), women seem to be especially reluctant to communicate sexually, due to the particular societal restrictions placed on expressions of female sexuality and desire. This study aims to understand how emerging adult women communicate with their sexual partners in order to increase pleasure, what barriers exist to sexual communication for these women, and how gendered social norms are expressed in the process. Based on interviews with 19 women between the ages of 20-29, the findings of this study suggest that emerging women often place more weight on social expectations of appropriate female sexual expression than relational context when choosing whether or not and/or how to sexually self-disclose. Further, the women in this study were at varying stages of renegotiating their internalization of the prioritization of male sexual pleasure over female pleasure. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Communication Studies 2019