My goal was to examine potential moderators that affect emotional coordination between romantic partners. I conducted three separate empirical studies that are conceptually related. I used data collected in conjunction with Dr. Emily Butler (all 3 papers), and Dr. Shanmukh Kamble of Karnatak University, India (paper 3). Using models of two forms of emotional coordination in partners - emotion transmission and synchrony - I examined the moderating effects of attachment, cooperation and marriage type on emotional coordination between partners. The purpose of first paper was to examine the role that individual factors, specifically differences in attachment avoidance and anxiety, have on the transmission of emotions between partners. Interestingly, results were counter to hypotheses based on attachment differences in emotion regulation, which suggests the limitations of taking an individual perspective within dyadic contexts. The second paper examined how cooperation impacts emotional coordination between partners. I found that cooperation produces different emotional coordination patterns for men and women. Specifically, when both partners were at high levels of cooperation, men showed an in-phase emotional coordination pattern (changes in unison), whereas women showed an anti-phase emotional coordination (changes in opposite directions). Therefore, while both partners were engaging in similar behaviors their emotional experience was different. In the third paper, I moved to a more global analysis of factors that moderate emotional synchrony between partners. Specifically, I examined how different marriage-types in American and Indian cultures (love versus arranged marriages) impact emotional synchrony between partners. I expected that Indian-love marriages would show similar synchronization patterns to American marriages, and that both would show more synchrony in comparison with Indian-arranged marriages. Unexpectedly, Indian-love and Indian-arranged marriages were similar and both displayed lower synchrony than American couples. These findings suggest that emotional experience between partners may be influenced by the boarder culture, irrespective of marriage type. Taken together, these papers provide evidence for when emotional coordination between couples can have beneficial or detrimental effects on the relationship, depending on individual, dyadic and cultural factors.

The United States has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates among developed countries and ranks third overall in rates of teen pregnancy out of thirty countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperative Development, OECD (UNICEF, 2007). However, as a country we are spending an enormous amount of money on teen pregnancy prevention programs. For example, the Office of Adolescent Health has implemented grant funding opportunities for teen pregnancy prevention programs and provides approximately $105 million to states to design these programs. These programs include personal responsibility education and abstinence only education (http://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/oah-initiatives/tpp). If we are spending this much on these programs, why do we still have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates among developed countries? Based on what we have learned from current prevention efforts, the goal of this dissertation is two-fold, to introduce alternative theoretical approaches for prevention design and test determinants and protective factors of sexual risk-taking in adolescence. To obtain these goals, this dissertation was written using the three paper option that contains a theoretical paper and two empirical papers that test hypotheses of determinants of sexual risk-taking in adolescence and possible factors that protect youth from engaging in sexual risk-taking, such as school-wide communication and sexual education. The theoretical paper introduces alternative theoretical approaches to not only target individual behavior that may be risky, but also target the contextual constraints in which teens are operating. The empirical papers analyze possible determinants and protective factors for sexual risk-taking in youth.

The current dissertation tested a model based on a systems perspective, where inflammation was hypothesized to mediate the influence of diet and physical condition on quality of life (base model) in a nationally representative U.S. dataset (NHANES). Three additional hypotheses, regarding social support (The Buffering Hypothesis), early microbial exposure (The Hygiene Hypothesis) and life history theory (The Tradeoff Hypothesis) were tested utilizing the base model. All analysis utilized a structural equation model. This study focused on objective measurements for dietary behavior and physical activity utilizing blood serum values of nutrients and metabolic markers and anthropometric data as well as blood serum concentrations of CRP and white blood cell count. Quality of life was assessed with the number of limitations in daily living, the number of days that were affected by mental, emotional and physical limitations and the self-reported general health condition. The hypothesized model fit well to the data and the results revealed that lower intake of healthy nutrients and reduced physical condition both predicted decreased quality of life, as mediated by inflammation and explained 31.9 % of the variation in quality of life (R² = .319, p<.001). Social support further predicted quality of life directly (β = .417, p<.001) and indirectly through dietary behavior and inflammation (β = -.106, p<.001), microbial exposure significantly moderated the relation between inflammation and quality of life (β = -.127, p<.001) and higher reproductive effort predicted lower intake of vital nutrients (β = .316, p<.001), physical condition (β = .352, p<.001) and subsequent inflammation. Reproductive effort also directly predicted reduced quality of life (β = .278, p<.001). These analyses indicated that inflammation can be considered a strong mediator between lifestyle factors and resulting quality of life and that social support, microbial exposure and reproductive effort each added unique predictive value to this model.

Young adulthood is a crucial period for identity development, and an unclear sense of identity has been associated with deleterious psychological and social outcomes (Kroger & Marcia, 2011). Young adults have also identified self-sufficiency, including financial independence, as an essential aspect associated with attaining adulthood (Arnett, 2000). However, current realities such as global economic uncertainty and a shift toward greater personal responsibility for financial security may threaten the successful attainment of these essential goals (Furstenberg, Rumbaut, & Settersten, 2005). Hence, I explored identity formation (Erikson, 1950, 1968) in the domain of finance. Four socialization factors (perceived parental SES, parental financial communication, formal financial education, and high school work experience) and three beliefs (attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) were used to predict financial identity (achievement, foreclosure, moratorium, and diffusion) in a sample of college students (N = 2,098) who were surveyed at two time points approximately 2.5 years apart. Four models were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). First, using crossectional data, I tested the extent to which socialization factors and financial beliefs predicted financial identity. I found support for 79% of the hypothesized associations between the variables. Second, using crossectional data, I examined the degree to which financial beliefs mediated the association between socialization factors and financial identity. Findings indicated that financial beliefs partially mediated the association between parental financial communication and financial identity. Third, using longitudinal data, Time 1 (T1) socialization factors and T1 beliefs were used to predict Time 2 (T2) financial identity. As expected, T1 financial identity was the most robust predictor of T2 financial identity. After controlling for T1 financial identity, T1 variables were most predictive of changes in T2 foreclosure: Increases in foreclosure were predicted by perceived parental SES, parental communication, formal education, and subjective norms. Finally, T1 financial beliefs were allowed to mediate the association between T1 socialization factors and T2 financial identity. I found no evidence of mediation using longitudinal data. Findings from this study suggest that identity formation within the financial domain is consistent with identity formation in other recognized identity domains.

Shared social responsibility (SSR) has been increasingly promoted in sustainability research. While conceptual development has been expanded, empirical developments are still in their infancy. Extant SSR literature acknowledges that entities like industry, governments, consumers, and others must accept responsibility for achieving a common goal. However, a basic understanding of how consumers view this responsibility in the shared setting is lacking. Since collaborative efforts towards sustainability may be strategically more effective than individual efforts, this research investigates SSR from the consumers' perspective in order to determine how responsibility is assigned to the various entities involved in a specific form of sustainability, "green" product consumption. Perceptions of responsibility may influence future sustainability-minded consumer behavior; hence, this research offers relevant contributions for understanding the shared social dynamic. Utilizing elements of attribution theory, equity theory, and diffusion of responsibility, this research examined how ability, perceived consumer effectiveness, perceptions of equity, and group size influence consumer attribution of responsibility for future "green" product consumption. Three experiments were conducted; the first two used an online scenario-based approach while the third was administered primarily at the University of Arizona. Data was analyzed using various statistical techniques, including multivariate analysis of variance to address the study hypotheses. Results established that consumers share responsibility for future "green" product consumption with corporations, government, and other consumers - but this responsibility is not shared evenly. Under most of the conditions evaluated, corporations, and government to a lesser degree, were attributed significantly more responsibility than consumers assigned themselves. The amount of effort required to use a "green" product, ability to positively change the environment, and equity of an interaction between a consumer and a manufacturer did not affect consumer attribution of responsibility. Group size had some impact, such that consumers who were not made explicitly aware of being in a group and those interacting with one other entity evenly shared responsibility for future "green" product consumption with the others involved. Consumers in larger groups assigned more responsibility to corporations than to themselves. Social loafing was determined not to be a factor in how consumers assigned responsibility in groups of various sizes.

The Two-Step Flow of Communication suggests that opinion leaders have a greater impact on consumers' product choices and decisions than marketers. With the advent of the Internet and e-commerce, many consumer researchers expanded the study of opinion leadership to incorporate electronic Word-of-Mouth behavior (eWOM) into the Two-Step Flow of Communication. Yet, with the recent and increasing prominence of social media, there appears to be a gap within the opinion leadership literature. Several studies have examined how the Internet and social media empower opinion leaders to instantaneously influence large crowds with eWOM. Marginally few studies, however, have considered how the production of user-generated content (UGC) among opinion leaders can further expand their peer influence. Furthermore, emergent research illustrates that social media is transforming into an enclave for celebrity culture, wherein celebrities use social media to invoke gossip and fantasy in consumers. These technological and cultural shifts within the Internet and social media necessitate an understanding of how UGC, social media and celebrity culture fit within the Two-Step Flow of Communication. In order to address these gaps, the current study probed the relationships amongst parasocial interaction, opinion leadership and willingness to participate in UGC and eWOM. Specifically, parasocial interaction is a history of interactions between a consumer and celebrity that manifest into a fantasized, personal relationship. Relevant hypotheses were developed and used to construct a theoretical model. Data were collected from a nationally representative sample (n = 555) and a Structural Equation Model was subsequently run to test the hypotheses. The findings suggest that social values, knowledge and parasocial interaction are positively related to opinion leadership. In turn, opinion leadership is positively related to willingness to participate in UGC and eWOM. Parasocial interaction, too, is positively related to willingness to participate in UGC and eWOM. A mediation effect was supported whereby opinion leadership significantly mediates the relationship between parasocial interaction and UGC, but not eWOM. The production of UGC is shown to be dependent upon parasocial interaction and opinion leadership. Nonetheless, eWOM does not seem to necessitate opinion leadership and can be produced directly from parasocial interactions.

Mexican-origin adolescent girls have some of the highest rates of unplanned teen pregnancy and births in the United States. Family ecological and feminist perspectives indicate that gender and sexual socialization processes contribute to girls' ability to promote their sexual health, yet little is known about how Mexican-origin girls develop sexual agency. In this culture, mothers are a primary socializing agent about sexuality in the family, and this study examined how mother-daughter sexual communication fostered or inhibited girls' sexual agency. The narrative method "scaffolded interviewing" was used to facilitate open talk about sexuality. Interviews were conducted with 25 girls ages 15-17 and separate interviews with mothers in a southwestern city, with a pilot study first conducted to refine the interview script. Mothers and daughters were asked reciprocal questions about what girls learned about sexuality from mothers and other contexts. The Listening Guide, a voice-based relational approach, was used to interpret the data. Analysis suggested that girls whose mothers provided more open and comprehensive sexual communication, and talked to them before puberty, felt more agentic to assert their needs for sexual safety. Girls who had infrequent, content-limited communication with mothers felt less able to manage fear-based school sex education messages and peer sexual exposure. Analysis of concordance between mothers' and daughters' narratives showed that different perceptions of what constitutes sex talk and sexual autonomy inhibited daughters' disclosure to mothers about sexual concerns. These findings suggest that mother-daughter relationships are critical for sexual health promotion. Implications for educators, practitioners, and families are discussed.

Adolescence is a unique time during the human lifespan, where children develop into reproductively competent adults, and many behavioral and psychological changes develop. The goal of this dissertation is to examine the underlying functions related to the emergence of risky adolescent "behaviors," broadly defined to include both physical risks (e.g., drinking or physical fighting) and psychological risks (e.g., anxious or depressive symptoms). In this paper I (1) present a manuscript reviewing and synthesizing the relevant evolutionary theories, which bears testable hypotheses regarding sex differences in risky adolescent behavior, and (2) empirically assess these predictions in two separate but theoretically and conceptually related studies that test for theoretically-based hypothesized relations: one specific to males, one to females. Specifically, I test the proposition that males should be more likely to engage in physically risky behavior than females, and that females should be more likely to engage in affective risks (assessed as sensitivity to social evaluation). These hypotheses are generally supported, but shed light on important environmental factors that are associated with the prevalence of risk-taking, including the degree of closeness within the family, timing of pubertal development, and social status. In general, an early pubertal development and low social status are associated with risk-taking, while closeness to family buffers against the likelihood of engaging in later risky behaviors.

The peer group is a dynamic context within which children and adolescents have a wide range of experiences, both positive and negative. Friendships provide support and a sense of belonging; however, friendships can also be contexts within which competition and aggression occur. During childhood and adolescence, aggression and victimization are likely to occur in the school context and in situations where several members of the peer group are present and sometimes actively (or passively) participating. In the seminal work related to bullying as a group process, Salmivalli and colleagues identified distinct roles that children take when enacting aggression (Salmivalli et al., 1996). Salmivalli's work, in the area of participant roles, however, has focused on overt bullying, a specific subtype of aggression which has a specific meaning within the peer relations literature. To date, the participant roles have not been measured within the context of overt and relational aggression. The purpose of the present study is to examine the psychometric properties of the Overt Aggression Participant Role Scale (OAPRS) and the Relational Aggression Participant Role Scale (RAPRS), two new scales designed by the author, to measure the aggressor, assistant, reinforcer, defender, outsider, and victim roles during acts aggression, as opposed to bullying. Additional goals include: 1) exploring the associations among the roles, 2) examining measurement equivalence across gender and grade level, and 3) exploring associations of the participant roles with measures of sociometric status and depressive symptoms. Findings point toward the psychometric properties of the two scales being quite robust. The data fit the 12 factor model and the scales measure the constructs equivalently across gender and three grade groups. The aggressor, assistant, and reinforcer roles were strongly associated as were the aggressor and victim roles. Several relational roles were highly overlapping, suggesting reciprocity of roles. Few meaningful gender or grade level differences were found resulting in more similarity in the overt and relational roles than differences. The outsider role was the only role not associated with depressive symptoms. Implications for prevention and intervention are discussed.

Researchers must consider the role of context when examining the behavior and characteristics of an individual. An individual must alter development, characteristics, and behavior, to adequately meet the challenges presented within their ecology. The following dissertation presents three manuscripts that examine individual differences while considering the role ecological (spatial) and developmental (temporal) context plays on the individual. Each paper utilizes Life History Theory to examine and to integrate the study findings into a cohesive framework. Life history theory is an evolutionary-developmental theory that focuses on how allocation of bioenergetic and material resources to different developmental facets will have long-term implications for behavior, traits, and health. Each paper collectively highlights key contextual factors throughout the lifespan and seeks to understand how life history strategies emerge. Study I examined the role mother's behavior had on the development of the child unpredictability schema (i.e., worldview where children view their environment and others as unreliable). The study included 65 children and their mothers. Results revealed that child unpredictability schema was predicted by mother's mating and parental effort. A quadratic effect was also found, whereby child unpredictability schema became constant at lower levels of parental effort. Study II utilized retrospective reports of childhood parental effort from extended kin family, positive emotional environment, and traditional social values from a sample of 200 Mexican and Costa Rican college students. High levels of childcare assistance from patrilineal and matrilineal kin were associated with more positive family environment, and the association was partially mediated between kin care and slow life history. Positive associations were also found between matrilineal kin childcare and traditional Latin social values. Study III utilized a nationally-representative, all-female sample to test whether higher reproductive effort increases physical/mental deterioration in women. Results reveal that reproductive effort and illness were mediated by both antioxidant defenses and inflammation. The results of the three studies broadly support hypotheses generated from Life History Theory. Contextual factors during key developmental stages have an impact on how an individual will allocate time and bioenergetic resources - thus contributing to specific behavioral life history strategies.