The phenomenon of addiction has been a subject of investigation for a number of academic disciplines, but little has been written about addiction from a philosophical perspective. This dissertation inserts philosophy into the conversations taking place within the multi-disciplinary field of “Addiction Studies.” It contends that the philosophical accounts of human action given by Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas provide means for an analysis of many of the conceptual confusions in the field of Addiction Studies, including those surrounding the concepts of choice, compulsion, and habit. It argues that the category of habit in these two thinkers is richer and more complex than contemporary conceptions of habit and that the category of habit in its Aristotelian and Thomistic guises is indispensable for charting an intelligible path between the muddled polarities that construe addiction as either a disease or a type of willful misconduct. Furthermore, it suggests that recognizing the distance between Aristotle’s social context and the modern social context affords powerful insight into the character of modern addiction, and that an exploration of the parallels between the habit of addiction and Aquinas’s development of the habit of charity offers suggestive inroads for thinking about addiction as a moral strategy for integrated and purposive action.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Notre Dame, 2004. / Thesis directed by George S. Howard for the Department of Psychology. "April 2004." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-94).

Thesis (M.D.)--University of Hong Kong, 1966. / Typewritten.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes vita. Title from PDF of title page. Document formatted into pages; contains 114 pages. Includes bibliographical references.

Understanding participation behavior in online communities has become increasingly of interest to IS scholars. A central puzzle related to the existence and development of virtual communities is why community members are willing to share their valuable knowledge with other members for free. In other words, what are the factors influencing members’ decisions to participate in discussions? This dissertation theoretically articulates how habit will affect individuals’ participation behavior in online communities. In addition, it proposes that a threshold of behavioral repetitions is required for individuals to develop a participation habit. A methodology of estimating the threshold is also developed. The proposed habit hypothesis is tested empirically using panel data reflecting 130,882 postings by 22,457 members over a 6-month time period. The empirical context is a firm-hosted online community, Dell Community. It includes 115 discussion boards. The results show that a threshold does exist for the formation of a participation habit. Once the habit is formed, it has significantly positive impacts on community members’ participation behavior. In larger and more active online communities, community members demonstrate a stronger habit effect. The effects of habit are also stronger among highly-ranked community members than among low-ranked community members. In addition, the results show that posting behavior in the more distant past has less impact on current posting decisions. This research extends the existing literature on online communities by considering the effects of a new factor, habit. It also deepens the current understanding of habit formation by articulating the role of a threshold on habit formation. / text

No description available.

This thesis was funded by the Department of Human Services (South Australia) to test the acceptability of nicotine patches to pregnant women and to assess the safety of nicotine patches for pregnant women, at least in terms of overall exposure to nicotine. The study was conducted in the antenatal clinics at the Women's and Children's Hospital, Adelaide and was a pilot for a planned larger study. If the pilot indicated that the nicotine patches could be used safely by this group of women, the larger study would examine the effectivemess of patches in a smoking cessation program. Four focus groups, three with pregnant women and one with their care providers, were used to elucidate issues for pregnant women related to smoking and the use of nicotine patches to aid cessation. / Thesis (MAppSc(Pharm))--University of South Australia, 2000

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Irvine, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 145-157).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 156).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.