The goal of this dissertation is to examine minority stress in the lives of gay and lesbian individuals and couples. To do this I conducted three separate, but empirically and conceptually related studies using data from 68 self-identified gay men and lesbians. Of these, 38 participants were coupled (n = 19 couples). All three studies were informed by minority stress theory. In the first study I examined individual (N = 68) and partner (n = 38) correlates and associations with concern for safety because of sexual orientation and harassment because of sexual orientation. Comfort with homosexuality was the strongest negative predictor of concern for safety because of sexual orientation. Further, involvement with gay related activities was found to be the strongest positive predictor of harassment because of sexual orientation. In the next two studies I examined the daily influence of minority stress for same-sex couples (n = 19). In the second study I examined how daily public displays (PDA) of affection are associated with daily relationship satisfaction, daily concern for safety because of sexual orientation, and daily harassment because of sexual orientation. I found daily PDA to be positively associated with concurrent and lagged relationship satisfaction, positively associated with concurrent and lagged concern for safety, and concurrent, lagged, and prospective increases in harassment because of sexual orientation. In the third and final study I examined the moderating effect of daily relationship satisfaction on the relationships between daily concern for safety and harassment in predicting daily physical health and well-being. I find that daily concern for safety and harassment are not associated with daily physical health suggesting that the negative effects of minority stress on physical health are more cumulative and do not fluctuate from day-to-day. I also find that daily relationship satisfaction does moderate the relationship between daily concern for safety and harassment and their daily well-being in unexpected ways. Collectively, this dissertation illustrates the complex influence of minority stress in the lives of gay and lesbian individuals and couples in two ways: first, as it pertains to how personal characteristics and behaviors (e.g. involvement with gay related activities and engagement in PDA) are associated with minority stress overall and on a daily basis; second, by illustrating the daily influence of minority stress on daily physical health and well-being. In conclusion, in these studies I highlight the complexity of life and how minority stress, stress that is unique to gay men and lesbian individuals and couples, complicates otherwise beneficial behaviors. Further, I illustrate the long and short term ramifications minority stress has on gay men and lesbian individuals and couples.

Estimates suggest that 40% of the food grown in the United States ends up in landfills. Household losses are the highest contributor to volume of waste overall, and individual households are estimated to discard around 15% of their total acquired food inventory. Consumers are generally waste averse and a vast majority have been shown to object to wasting food in particular, yet almost all consumers discard a substantial volume of potentially edible food each year. This exploratory qualitative study sought to uncover underlying psychological mechanisms behind this discrepancy between attitude and behavior by exploring the decision-making processes that consumers engage in as they acquire, prepare, consume and discard food. By exploring the patterns of thinking that shape household provisioning practices through an initial in-depth interview, a two-week long household food diary and a follow-up interview with 17 diverse consumers, a grounded theory emerged to explain this counter-intuitive behavior pattern. Extending research from behavioral economics and decision making literature, data from this study suggests the following: 1) people evaluate cost of goods based on incomplete value estimations that fail to account for the costs associated with discarding potentially edible foods; 2) costs associated with the act of shopping are salient and encourage less frequent provisioning trips; 3) people do not adequately account for costs associated with overbuying and storing food; and 4) consumer strategies aimed at maximize efficiency in food acquisition through less frequent shopping trips may actually result in increased inefficiency in the form of greater waste and higher overall cost of goods. Based on emergent findings, a strategy for waste avoidance is presented along with managerial implications.

Counterfeit consumption is becoming widespread, developing into a problem of international significance. In an attempt to develop a refined understanding of the motivations and decision-making processes of consumers' deliberate counterfeit-consumption behavior, this empirical study not only integrates the theory of planned behavior and insights from self-regulatory theories, but also extends these theories by re-conceptualizing the relationships among key constructs with the inclusion of action desire. This research also introduces and integrates a new construct, namely consumers' Perceived Counterfeit Detection (PCD) by important others.Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods consisting of in-depth interviews and a self-administered paper questionnaire, this research empirically tested a proposed goal-striving model for deliberate counterfeit-consumption behavior, using structural equations modeling. Results demonstrated PCD's existence and supported a refined goal-striving model, based upon which effective strategies to decrease consumer's counterfeit consumption are discussed.

During adolescence many youth spend increasing amounts of time gaining new knowledge and skills outside of their home in environments such as structured afterschool activities. In these settings, youth have meaningful opportunities to explore new interests, develop varied competencies, and seek social support from peers and adults. As youth get older rates of participation in structured activities decline. Given the role that structured activities can play in nurturing positive youth development, gaining a better understanding of how peers may affect youth's choice to participate in structured activities is important. This study used logistic regression to examine the role of peer influence and how the perceptions of close friends (direct peer influence) and other peers (social norms) impact a youth's decision to participate in structured activities as well as use alcohol and marijuana. Additionally, the association between youth participation in structured activities and reported use of alcohol and marijuana was examined. Study results indicated that youth who reported engaging in specific types of structured activities, specifically performing arts and volunteering, reported lower rates of alcohol and marijuana use respectively. Direct peer influence was an important factor in substance use whereby for each additional best friend a youth had that participated in school activities, students were less likely to have used alcohol or marijuana. Findings are interpreted using an ecological systems perspective and demonstrate that gaining a better understanding of the influence that direct peers and social norms exert on youth behavior has important implications for promoting the positive development of youth.

The study's purpose was to identify the perceived needs and concerns of three generations in a family with an older adult aging in place in Mississippi. This mixed-methods study used snowball sampling in addition to recruitment by community leaders such as Extension agents to collect data through semi-structured interviews and structured questionnaires that asked about current and future problems among aging adults in rural communities in Mississippi. Three generations of Mississippians participated in the study, including older adults (G1; n = 22), adult children (G2; n = 23), and young adult grandchildren (G3; n = 19). Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS Statistics, while qualitative data were managed with MaxQDA. Physical and mental health concerns were identified across all three generations. Financial concerns, including paying for basics such as food, medical and health care costs, and transportation issues, were most often reported by the two younger generations rather than the older adults. Services that assist with caregiving of older adults, including respite care, home health, and adult daycare options, were identified as services G2 and G3 family members reported as families currently needed or anticipated to need soon. Implications of the findings for families, community leaders, policymakers, non-profit organizations, and for-profit businesses are provided.

No description available.

Extensive research has clearly revealed that people of all ages can enhance their health by simply incorporating moderate levels of physical activity into their daily routine. Physical activity significantly reduces the risk of morbidity and mortality from coronary heart disease while providing protective benefits from hypertension, diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis, and colon cancer. Physical activity can lead to positive psychological improvements by decreasing levels of anxiety and depression, and enhancing self-esteem. However, despite the tremendous physical and mental health benefits, 60% of American adults do not regularly engage in physical activity and 25% are completely inactive. Moreover, only 34 % of Virginians engage in regular physical activity. Immense progress has been made in terms of understanding physical activity behavior. Many techniques based on theoretical models have been developed for intervening with physical activity behaviors and designing of programs. The Transtheoretical model is considered one of the most promising approaches for enhancing physical activity behavior. This model integrates current behavioral status with a person's intention to change his/her behavior and suggests that individuals attempting to adopt a health behavior progress through five stages of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. The concepts of self-efficacy (degree of confidence) and decisional balance (perceived benefits and barriers) are often used in conjunction with the stages of change for physical activity interventions to help individuals progress through the five stages of change. A survey was conducted among 243 Family and Consumer Sciences educators and clientele in Virginia's Cooperative Extension program. Attitudes, preferences, stages of change, perceived incentives and barriers, along with desired education channels and activities were analyzed to provide a basis for development of effective Extension publications and programs aimed to increase and improve levels of physical activity. Results from this study indicate that almost half of the respondents are not regularly engaging in physical activity and 31% are not engaging in any activity. Data revealed significant relationships between the stages of exercise change with respondents' levels of confidence (p<.0001) and with decisional balance scores (p<.0001). Participants who lead sedentary lifestyles or participate occasionally in physical activity (precontemplation contemplation, and preparation stages) viewed the barriers of physical activity to surpass the benefits. Consequently, these participants had low confidence in their ability to participate in physical activity. On the other hand, participants who exercised on a regular basis (action and maintenance stages) perceive the benefits for physical activity to outweigh the barriers. Furthermore, these participants had high confidence in their ability to exercise in challenging situations. Results from this study also suggest that stage of exercise change may be related to an individual's educational level. Regardless of age and gender, educational channels in which respondents selected to receive physical activity information were brochures and newsletters. In addition, activities in which respondents were most frequently engaging were walking and yard work. The activity that subjects selected as a means to increase physical activity levels was also walking. The results from this study can help Extension agents and specialists develop appealing physical activity educational materials and programs that meet the needs of FCS clients. These programs may help FCS clients incorporate regular physical activity in their daily lives, moving closer to achieving the State's objective for increasing physical activity among Virginia adults and, thus, leading to improved quality of life. / Master of Science

This research aims to examine a framework to test the relationships between consumers' perceptions of a retailer's brand personality and outcome variables (i.e., positive word-of-mouth about and patronage intention toward the retailer) by applying identity and social identity theories to reveal possible factors influencing these relationships in both department and discount retailer image formats. This research hypothesized that retailer brand personality should influence consumers' behavioral outcomes through private and public forms of self-congruity. The more positive the perception of a retailer's brand personality, the higher the private and public self-congruities with the brand personality. In addition, considering the unique, tangible nature of a store's environment, this research suggested that retailer brand identity (RBI), a consumer's perception of oneness with a retailer brand, should play an important role in the retailer brand personality-behavioral outcomes framework by mediating the influences of both private and public self-congruities on various behavioral outcomes. Moreover, the relationships among two forms of self-congruity and perceived RBI should be moderated by the shopping conspicuousness situation (i.e., whether co-shopping with important others or alone and whether shopping in an environment in which one is visible to important others or is relatively secluded) and consumer shopping involvement (i.e., whether consumers see shopping as an important and self-relevant activity). To test the study's hypotheses, data were collected from a sample of 616 general consumers via a self-administered questionnaire provided through the website of an online survey research firm. This research used a 2 (retailer image format) X 2 (shopping situation conspicuousness) between-subjects quasi-experimental design in which subjects were randomly assigned to one of the four treatment groups who read a scenario that provided a description of a retailer image format of either a hypothetical department (n = 311) or discount store (n = 305) and a description that manipulated the shopping situation as being either high (n = 303) or low (n = 313) in shopping conspicuousness. Results revealed that the retailer brand personality scale, adapted from BPS, a brand personality scale developed by Aaker (1997) and other scales specifically used to measure retailer brand personality (Dardin & Babin, 1994; d'Astous & Lévesque, 2003; Helgeson & Supphellen, 2004) comprised two positive dimensions (i.e., Modish and Genuine) and one negative dimension (Inactive). Each dimension influenced the behavioral outcomes of Word-of-Mouth and Patronage Intention differently. Perceived Genuineness was the most influential dimension among the three, exerting direct and indirect influences through increasing Private and Public Self-congruities and overall RBI on both WOM and Patronage Intention. However, Modish had only a direct negative effect on Patronage Intentions whereas Inactive had indirect effects on both behavioral outcomes through a combined (direct and indirect) negative effect on overall RBI. This research also revealed that overall RBI, driven by its affective and evaluative dimensions, fully mediated the influences of Private and Public Self-congruities on behavioral outcomes, suggesting overall RBI as an important factor in the retailer brand personality-behavioral outcomes framework. Moreover, the relationship between Public Self-congruity and overall RBI was found to be stronger in the high Shopping Conspicuousness Situation whereas the relationship between Private Self-congruity and overall RBI was found to be stronger in the department store image format. The moderating role of Consumer Shopping Involvement on the relationships among self-congruities and overall RBI was not significant. Theoretical and managerial implications of these findings and limitations of the study are provided.

Currently our world consumes the equivalent of 1.6 earths per year. Although the production has become resource-efficient by using fewer natural resources to produce one dollar of GDP, per-capita consumption in the US firmly increases. Individuals consume an ever-increasing quantity of goods and services which inevitably leads to environmental damages in terms of pollution, deforestation, climate change and psychological disorders such as reduced wellbeing, unhappiness, and anxiety. Past research has suggested that embracing sustainable consumption - where consumption of products and services have minimal impact on the environment, and improvement in society's wellbeing-might mitigate the detrimental effects of over-consumption. Increasingly studies in this stream propose that adopting a psychological approach, specifically by enhancing individuals' inherent capability known as mindfulness may aid in boosting sustainable consumption behaviors. However, only few studies have investigated the decision-making processes associated with mindfulness that could show a detailed picture of how mindfulness - receptive attention to and present moment awareness is positively associated with sustainable consumption behaviors. Conceptual model for this study was built based on mindfulness-related mechanisms, namely re-perceiving, systematic processing, and ability to overcome need for fulfillment. Using a four-step conceptual model: mindfulness-cognitive personality variables-values and beliefs variables-sustainable consumption behaviors, this research empirically examines how trait mindfulness is associated with sustainable consumption behaviors. Embracing a broad definition of sustainable consumption in terms of its impact on environment (composition) and level of consumption (volume), this research includes both pro-environmental and downshifting consumption behaviors. By utilizing an online survey method, data was collected from 1005 respondents in Amazon Mechanical Turk (Mturk). Findings from self-reported measures suggested that while mindfulness directly and positively associated with sustainable behaviors, significant indirect relationships are explained by cognitive personality variables such as cognitive flexibility, need for cognition, attention based self-regulatory control, and values/beliefs namely altruistic values, self-acceptance values, materialistic values, and perceived consumer effectiveness. Comparing empirical models using measures of both socio-cognitive based mindfulness and meditation based mindfulness demonstrated that the former has both direct and indirect relationships with sustainable behaviors while the latter showed only indirect relationships through cognitive personality variables and values/beliefs. By identifying cognitive personality variables that are closely associated with mindfulness, this research teases out the tenets of mindfulness that are more relevant for sustainable consumption behaviors. Also, the recognized cognitive personality variables in this research have been rigorously studied in consumer behavior research, hence finding their relationships with mindfulness might help uncover applications of mindfulness in mainstream consumer behavior research. In addition, by supporting relationships involving cognitive personality variables and values/beliefs relevant for sustainable consumption, this study may offer insights for policy makers and practitioners in maneuvering consumers' mindfulness and their sustainable behaviors to bring about change in their sustainable consumption behaviors.

Cognitive dissonance theory and selective information exposure literature postulate that individuals ignore preference-inconsistent information and selectively process new information. Previous studies on selective information exposure have shown that preference-inconsistent information is not persuasive for consumer decision making. Given the limited amount of past research about the effect of preference-inconsistent information on decision-making in broad domains of consumer behavior studies, the current study investigated how preference-inconsistent information can persuade consumers to switch to a sustainable product alternative. The purpose of this study is to investigate the process how preference-inconsistent sustainability-related information can be considered as important, consequently changing consumers' initial preference to green alternatives. A series of online experiments was conducted using a shampoo product category. Study 1 tested a baseline effect on whether consumers in the preference-inconsistent condition were persuaded to change their initial choice significantly compared to those in the preference-consistent condition. Study 2 tested the effect of preference-inconsistent sustainability-related information in the acceptance process, focusing on the role of brand commitment and information quality. Study 3 examined the effect of preference-inconsistent sustainability-related information in the evaluation process, investigating the impact of consumer environmental concern and PCE. Findings of Study 1 revealed that consumers in the preference-inconsistent condition were significantly persuaded to change choice to a sustainable alternative, which is not consistent with selective exposure literature. However, Study 1 findings were not sufficient to determine what specific factors influenced respondents to be persuaded, which provides justifications for Study 2 and Study 3. Findings in Study 2 and Study 3 conclusively demonstrated the importance of the credibility of preference-inconsistent information in the acceptance process. Also, findings suggested that the effect of credibility is stronger than that of brand commitment in the acceptance process. Regarding brand commitment, the results have shown that high commitment consumers had a higher acceptance of inconsistent information which is opposite to expectations. Further, the findings demonstrated the importance of environmental concern and the conditional effect of PCE in the evaluation process. Moreover, results supported that the relative weighting of sustainability attributes is driving the effects of environmental concern and PCE as a mediator on persuasion outcomes in the evaluation process. The current study contributes to understanding the process in which the preference-inconsistent information can be effective in influencing consumer choice. Moreover, findings from this research can provide implications for selective exposure literature and sustainable consumption literature. Practically, the results of the study provide implications to guide marketers and information providers in establishing effective ways to change consumers' behavior in sustainable consumption context.