Previous research has demonstrated that men and women employ different speech styles that result in an uneven power dynamic. To better understand the increasingly common interactions that take place using video-mediated communication, such as Skype and Google Hangout, the present research examines these gendered patterns in video-mediated communication (VMC). Mixed-gender dyads will be formed and ask to complete a desert survival task via VMC or in person while software analyzes their use of aggressive positive, and tentative language, as well as measuring speaking time for each party. Interpersonal perception and the use of intrusive interruptions and will also be examined. Drawing from research in Social Information Processing Theory, it is expected that users compensate for the difficulties of a communication medium in order to achieve a normal interaction. As such, men are anticipated to use more intrusive interruptions, aggressive language, and speak more than women, regardless of condition. Women are anticipated to use more positive and tentative language in both VMC and face-to-face conditions. Dominant language is also expected to mediate the relationship between gender and perceived dominance. Future research should examine the effect of race in these interactions, as well as how this dynamic effects gender non-conforming persons.

Previous research has provided a helpful, albeit narrow, understanding of task interruptions as related to outcomes such as wellness and performance (e.g., Eyrolle & Cellier, 2000). Building on this foundation by viewing interruptions through the broader theoretical context of the theory of mental workload, this study sought to explain the cognitive processes underlying the negative performance effects often associated with interruptions and to apply an intervention aimed at mitigating these effects. Specifically, mindfulness has emerged as a promising method for reducing the cognitive burden of interruptions. This study examined the effects of intrusions (a type of interruption) on psychological strain and performance through perceived mental workload. Although perceived mental workload did predict strain outcomes, the overall mediation models failed to reach significance. Results also failed to support the hypothesized effect of state mindfulness as a potential moderator. A set of post hoc analyses, however, found that intrusion perceptions acted as a mediator between intrusion condition and psychological strain outcomes. Further, this mediation was moderated by state mindfulness, which in turn was moderated by the intrusion time. Specifically, the indirect effect of intrusion condition on strain outcomes was such that individuals experienced more strain if they received an intrusion compared to those who were not given an intrusion, unless they completed the form quickly and were also low on state mindfulness, in which case there was no difference in strain outcomes based on whether they experienced an intrusion. Together, these results suggest that intrusion perceptions play key roles in strain outcomes, and that moderators of these relationships should be further explored.

This study drew upon the affective events and mood-congruent cognition theories to help explain how one domain influences the other. Affective events are things that happen to which people react emotionally and state affect is a result of those affective experiences. This study proposed that state affect generated in one domain would spillover and influence mood-congruent experiences in the receiving domain. Through an integration of organizational stressor-strain models (e.g., job-resources demand theory) and positive psychology, this study further proposed that positive events are resource-building and will work to prevent or buffer against strain responses to resource-depleting negative events. Finally, this study explored how individual differences in domain integration and work- and family-role salience moderate the foregoing relationships, particularly because studies investigating these effects have produced mixed results. To address these empirical questions, this study used the daily diary method to examine daily affective spillover effects from work-to-family and from family-to-work in a full-time working sample over the course of two weeks. This method was employed to help bolster confidence about the temporal precedence of work-family affective spillover and employee health and wellbeing outcomes. One-hundred and forty-four participants filled out diary questionnaires three times daily during the work week and one time daily during the weekend. Daily diaries assessed the participants’ exposure to a number of domain-specific affective events, state affect, physical symptoms, and sleep quality. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to test this study’s hypotheses. Overall, the results of this study support affective spillover as the linking pin between the two domains, which has health and wellbeing implications for employees. Specifically, tests of this study’s hypotheses indicated that exposure to affective events throughout the workday was related to state affect at the end of the workday, which then related to the number of valence-congruent affective events within the family domain. Exposure to those family-related affective events was related to corresponding changes in state affect, which not only persisted to the next morning but impacted employee health and wellbeing in terms of psychosomatic complaints. These findings are in line with both the affective events and mood-congruent theories. Only one significant moderating effect was observed. There was a positive relationship between negative affect at the end of the workday and the number of negative family affective events endorsed by participants who were lower on domain integration, but not among those who were higher on domain integration. The direction of this effect was surprising and may suggest that setting up strong boundaries between life domains creates unattainable expectations, which may increase negative outcomes for an employee. In sum, family-related affective experiences are an important variable to consider when investigating the effects of affective spillover on work-related experiences and health and wellbeing. The failure to do so may result in a considerable loss of information and contribute to mixed study results.

The effects of family functioning and tangible support from family members are examined in an opiate addicted population. The study specifically assessed drug use, self-efficacy, and quality of life as treatment outcomes of interest. There have been mixed findings in the literature in regards to how families influence rehabilitation from substance use. Specially, previous research has shown that families can further patients’ recovery, while other findings have shown that families can impede patients’ recovery from substance use. The aim of this study was to analyze potentially contributing factors related to the family system, to gain a stronger understanding of how families influence recovery for patients receiving treatment for their opiate addiction. The study included 110 participants who were patients from a medically assisted recovery facility. The participants took survey measures regarding beliefs about their self-efficacy, quality of life, family functioning, and tangible support received from family members. The participant’s drug use information was verified through facility databases of current urine screens and prescription use. Survey results did not substantiate the hypotheses that tangible support influences treatment outcomes. However, hypotheses that family functioning would positively influence self-efficacy and quality of life were supported. The belief that family functioning would have a negative relationship with the participant’s drug usage was not corroborated by the data, as there was no relationship found between these variables. Finally, there was no moderating relationship observed between family functioning, tangible support, and treatment outcomes. This was contrary to expectations that a moderating relationship would be present. Implications of how the study’s findings can inform research and clinical interventions in an opiate addicted population are discussed.

This study examines the psychology of fictional and real-life serial killers and the behavioral similarities between them. Three fictional murderers, mainly Macbeth (William Shakespeare’s Macbeth), Buffalo Bill (The Silence of the Lambs), and the Creature (Frankenstein),as well as real life killers such as Charles Manson, Ed Gein, and Edmund Kemper were researched in depth. The data for this study was gathered from a variety of sources such as biographies, television interviews, published novels, articles, and documentaries. This study also focuses on predispositional factors and personality traits that led these killers to a life of crime. While no single behavioral trait was found to be present in every murderer studied, some of the psychological factors that were found to have predictive value included: abusive upbringings, mother hate, adoption, pornography, and brain damage were also reliable predictors in the lives of fictional and nonfictional perpetrators.

Current literature has suggested that the role of the college president has perhaps become too ambiguous, complex and demanding for an individual to perform for an extended period of time. The purpose of the study was to assess the relationship between perceived role ambiguity, role conflict, role frustration and job satisfaction of selected private college presidents in the Southeastern United States. The method of the study was correlational in design. Using a thirty-seven item questionnaire developed by the author, data were collected from 141 college presidents of institutions within the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The institutions were private in governmental structure, with an enrollment not exceeding 2500 students. Limited demographic data pertaining to each college president were also collected. Multiple regression was used to determine if relationships existed between role ambiguity, role conflict, role frustration, job satisfaction and the demographic variables of age, race, number of years served as a college president, years of administrative experience, years president at their current institution, and if their current presidency was their first presidency. Results of the study suggest there are significant relationships between role ambiguity and role conflict (r =.22), role ambiguity and role frustration (r =.23), role ambiguity and job satisfaction (r = $-$.46), role conflict and role frustration (r =.67), role conflict and job satisfaction (r = $-$.43), role frustration and job satisfaction (r = $-$.43). However, role ambiguity was not perceived by the respondents in this study to be detrimental to the performance of their job. Role conflict and role frustration were perceived to be a concern to the respondents. Even with the diverse demands of the president's office, respondents in this study seem to be satisfied with the position of president, based on the composite analysis of individual questions on the instrument designed to measure job satisfaction.

The purpose of this study was to identify personality types among dental hygiene school administrators and faculty and to determine if correlations existed between leader style, ideologies of leader style, perceived effectiveness, and personality type. Selected demographic variables were also examined. The dimensions of personality investigated were derived from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: extroversion, introversion, sensing, intuition, thinking, feeling, judging, and perceiving. The leadership behavior dimensions were the two dimensions of the real and ideal Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaires: consideration and initiating structure. Effectiveness was measured by a 39 item Likert-type instrument based on Tucker's (1981) categorical listing of chairperson activities and responsibilities. The study was conducted using a random sample of faculty and administrators from 32 dental hygiene programs across the United States. Thirty-two administrators and 148 faculty were surveyed. Responses were received from 23 administrators (71.9 percent) and 96 faculty (64.8 percent). Personality type was correlated with subordinate perception of leader style, ideal leader style, and effectiveness, with the strength of the relationships ranging from weakly negative to moderately positive. Among the correlations observed, those between real initiating structure and introversion, thinking and feeling were significant at the.05 level, as were the relationships between ideal consideration, and thinking and feeling. Relationships significant at the.05 level were also found between instruction and extroversion, introversion, sensing, intuition, and judging and between budget and resources and extroversion. Gender of the administrator and length of tenure did not account for significant differences in leader behavior ratings or effectiveness scores. Age of the administrator, however, was found to account for significant differences in leader behavior ratings, but not effectiveness ratings. A negative relationship was observed between amount of administrative training and effectiveness scores indicating that as administrative training increased effectiveness decreased. Ideal scores reported by faculty were significantly higher than real scores reported by faculty, but no significant difference was observed between the real and ideal scores reported by administrators. Administrators rating low on real consideration and real initiating structure received the lowest effectiveness ratings.

This study sought to examine leadership through the medium of film, specifically the genre of the western. The western is iconographic; representative of the American ethos, the western embodied the "frontier myth." The purposes of this study were to examine how leadership was portrayed in a selected sample of western films dating from 1945 to 1995, and to categorize and characterize the leadership methods exhibited in each film. Qualitative in design, the study was concerned with broad description and discovery. Using observation as the data collection technique and content analysis as the research method, the study examined a sample of 29 pre-selected western films released between 1945 and 1995. Individual samples displaying leadership dynamics were drawn from each film through the use of verbatims and character analysis. Each film was examined for examples of leadership in order to gain a better understanding of the role that leadership played in the western and to ascertain leadership models exhibited in the genre. Conclusions of the study emphasized the diverse portrayals of leadership exhibited through this genre. The western showed a depth of character in relation to leadership, displaying a variety of styles, motifs, and characteristics representative of several leadership theories. Some of the concepts of leadership, and the underlying theories and styles portrayed, revealed a universal quality about leadership that transcended theoretical research. The western was a multi-faceted venue through which to study leadership, providing a unique perspective on the dynamics involved in the leadership process both through theory and by praxis.

The present study explores the process through which the regulation of emotions at work, also known as emotional labor, depletes self-regulatory resources, specifically energy, and distally impacts health behaviors in the form of less physical activity and more unhealthy eating. Differences in relationships between two forms of emotional labor, surface acting and deep acting, as well as differences between psychological and physical energy depletion, are explored. Additionally, the roles of trait mindfulness and future temporal focus are examined as between-individual differences moderating the proposed relationships. Multi-level analysis of daily diary data collected from participants (N = 108 participants) over ten work days (N = 1,273 total days) demonstrates that surface acting at work, but not deep acting, is negatively related to after work energy levels, such that participants reported less energy on days when they engaged in more surface acting. No significant differences in strength of relationships for physical versus psychological energy depletion were found. After work energy depletion related to less time and intensity spent on physical activity, but no support for an overall mediated effect was found. No significant effects were found for unhealthy eating, or future temporal focus, while trait mindfulness did positively relate to energy levels in several models. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as future research directions, and methodological recommendations for researchers wishing to conduct similar studies are presented. As one of the first attempts to examine the mechanisms linking emotional labor and health behaviors, this study highlights the intricate nature of the relationships examined and the resultant need for both broader and more targeted multi-faceted research at multiple-levels of analyses to further explain the complex story of work and health.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of sexual abuse on body image of United States military service members and veterans. Participants completed an online questionnaire (n = 63) that measured their demographics, military status, sexual abuse experiences, combat experiences, relationships during deployment, and body image. Average scores on body image measures from participants who experienced sexual abuse (n = 10) were compared with average scores on body image measures from participants who did not experience sexual abuse (n = 49). Results indicate that there was not a significant difference in body image between service members who have and who have not experienced sexual abuse; however, results approached statistical significance for analyses evaluating whether service members lower in rank were at an increased risk for experiencing more sexual abuse than service members of higher rank. Implications include intervention that focuses on overall military body perception and treatment of alternative effects of sexual abuse. This research contributes to the literature as one of the first studies to assess the relationship between body image and sexual abuse in service members of the U.S. military.