An explanatory study of disclosure avoidance behaviors of husbands and wives was carried out with a quasi-experimental design. A sample of 60 married individuals (30 couples) was obtained in south Georgia. Data were collected by self-report questionnaires and interviews conducted in positive, negative, and neutral nonverbal communications conditions. Six instruments were administered concerning the areas of interest: sex role attitudes, spousal validation, marital equity, disclosure avoidance behaviors, and demographic data. / Four hypotheses were constructed to test the relationship between the independent variables sex role attitudes, spousal validation, marital equity, and the valence conditions in the triads with the dependent variable disclosure avoidance. The hypotheses were derived from a social penetration theory perspective. / The multivariate data analysis indicated a significant relationship between sex role attitudes and the disclosure avoidance behaviors of husbands and wives. A significant relationship was also found between spousal validation and disclosure avoidance behaviors. No significant sex differences were found. / Conclusions drawn from multiple regression analyses of the data have suggested that sex role attitudes and spousal validation perceptions were significantly more important than sex differences to disclosure avoidance behaviors. Traditional wives were significantly more disclosure avoiding than traditional husbands or modern husbands and modern wives. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-06, Section: B, page: 2012. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether attributions about an incident of spouse abuse would be altered by whether the abuser was drunk at the time of the abuse and the severity of the physical beating. Many researchers have suggested that drunken individuals are held less responsible for inappropriate or deviant behavior because of alcohol's disinhibiting effects. In addition, previous studies have found that attributions of responsibility increase with the seriousness of the act's consequences. College undergraduates were asked to read one of nine scenarios depicting an episode of spouse abuse. These scenarios varied on the basis of three conditions of antecedent behavior (drinking, under work stress and no information), and three levels of violence severity. Subjects then completed attributional measures identifying level of responsibility and prediction of reoccurrence, as well as making determinations of recommended social and legal consequences. The results indicated that drunken abusers were held more responsible for their aggressive behavior than sober ones, although subjects believed that the abuse was less likely to reoccur and made no distinctions in recommended legal and social consequences. Increased severity of the abuse resulted in greater attributions of responsibility and predictions of reoccurrence, as well as stronger social and legal consequences. A second study used the same procedures with a sample of women in spouse abuse shelters. The shelter sample also recommended stronger legal measures in the more severe violence situations, but made no attributional distinctions. The relevance of these results to the role of alcohol as a disinhibitor was discussed, as well as recommendations for further research. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 44-10, Section: B, page: 3238. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1983.

An experimental study which tested the effect of the receiver's judgement that a source motivation to deliver a message was biased, or non-biased, upon the report of message comprehension, persuasion and the perception of the source's credibility was conducted. The effect of the receiver's self-esteem was tested across three levels. The 228 subjects were students from a laboratory high school. Message comprehension was significantly higher in the bias-expectancy confirmed group. The main-effect for self-esteem showed a positive linear data pattern. The persuasion and source credibility data was non-significant due to message complexity. / A seven factor self-esteem measure was developed and tested. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-01, Section: B, page: 0435. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

A major focus of the study was to compare the effectiveness of overt and covert modeling. Overt modeling was defined as visually observing a model while covert modeling involved a process of verbal description followed by mental rehearsal. The subjects included 48 graduate students at a large, southern university. Random assignments of subjects were made to one of four treatment groups. All subjects were exposed to the modeling of line patterns. They either saw the line patterns being drawn by a videotaped model or heard a verbal description of the patterns. In addition, subjects in two groups had the opportunity for mental rehearsal of the line patterns while those in the remaining group did not. The treatment groups, then, were as follows: (1) visual observation of a videotaped model without an opportunity for rehearsal, (2) visual observation of a videotaped model with an opportunity for rehearsal, (3) verbal descriptions of an audiotaped model without rehearsal, and (4) verbal descriptions of an audiotaped model with rehearsal. Subjects were assessed on their immediate and delayed recall of the line patterns. / Apriori tests were conducted on the data as well as 2 x 2 x 2 repeated measures ANCOVA. Results indicated that visual observation was significantly better than verbal description on the immediate reproduction measures. No significant differences, however, were found on the delayed measures. In addition, no significant differences between rehearsal and non-rehearsal conditions were found. Also, no significant differences were found between the four treatment group means. / In the past, the effects of verbal description in covert modeling has been ignored in favor of "imagining a model." It is now clear that verbal description is an important factor in covert modeling and that imagining a model is a form of mental rehearsal rather than a modeling stimulus as previously thought. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-01, Section: B, page: 0348. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

In recent years hypnosis and a technique called guided memory have both been reported to enhance eyewitness memory. The effects of these two treatments, administered separately and in combination, on eyewitness recall, recognition, and suggestibility were examined. Two control groups, one that received motivational instructions and one that did not, were used. One hundred undergraduates were placed in an emotionally arousing situation where they were led to believe that they would be videotaped giving an impromptu speech and then be publicly evaluated on that speech. Next, they were exposed to a six-minute videotape of the "last session" in which a student confederate gave a speech and was harshly criticized by another confederate posing as a professor. After a two-day delay, subjects' memory of the videotape was tested with questionnaires and photo lineups that contained both leading and nonleading items. In contrast to previous research findings, hypnosis did not produce less accuracy on suggestive questions or lineups. Subjects in the hypnosis conditions did not significantly differ from controls on either leading or nonleading questions or in confidence about the accuracy of their answers. On the photo lineups, hypnotized subjects were found to correctly identify the critic confederate at significantly higher rates and the speaker confederate at near significantly higher rates than controls. Hypnosis subjects were also found to fall for the suggestion in one of the leading lineups significantly more often than controls, but their overall rate of correctly rejecting this target-absent lineup was not significantly different than controls. Hypnosis did not affect confidence in lineup choices. Guided memory did not aid recall, but did interact with hypnosis to improve recognition on one lineup. Motivational instructions were not found to influence subject / behavior. Greater hypnotic susceptibility generally aided recall accuracy across conditions. A curvilinear relationship between self-reported anxiety at the time of recall and performance was found for both recall and recognition measures across conditions. This study failed to find significant support for either Orne's (1979) or Wagstaff's (1982a) criticisms of using hypnosis with eyewitnesses. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-10, Section: B, page: 4343. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 30-02, Section: A, page: 0813. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1968.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 31-10, Section: A, page: 5520. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1970.

A field experiment was conducted to assess the relationship between description accuracy and identification accuracy. Forty-seven female bank and savings and loan association tellers interacted with an experimental confederate who attempted to cash an altered United States Post Office money order. Several hours later the tellers were asked to describe him, estimate the duration of their interaction with him, and identify him from a photograph lineup which did or did not include his picture. In addition, tellers were given accurate, neutral, or inaccurate postevent information concerning the target person's appearance. The effect of the postevent information on tellers' descriptions and identifications was not significant; tellers in each of the three conditions performed equally well. In contrast to a guideline set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court for the evaluation of eyewitness evidence, there was no relationship between description accuracy and identification accuracy. These results were interpreted in terms of encoding specificity theory and generalized to crime situations involving eyewitnesses. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-09, Section: B, page: 3118. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.

The months following treatment for alcoholism are crucial ones and the incidence of relapse is high. Many alcoholics lack the support systems and social skills for smooth reentry and readjustment to a sober existence in a community that is often alien. / A structured training program was designed to address a number of specific issues related to aftercare and posttreatment functioning of alcoholics. Components of the training program included: identification and utilization of community resources, identification of alternative activities, development and maintenance of social support systems, and identification and resolution of potential relapse situations. The training consisted of eight 1-hour sessions. The subjects were 92 white male alcoholic inpatients at the Alcohol Dependence Treatment Unit at Bay Pines VAMC. Patients who agreed to participate in the study were randomly assigned to the training group (n = 43) or the traditional treatment control group (n = 49). Pretreatment data included sociodemographic information, drinking history, subjective rating of drinking problem, support systems availability and occupational functioning. Follow-up was conducted 9 months after discharge from the in-patient treatment program. Data collected at follow-up included reported drinking behavior since discharge, social/occupational functioning, subjective rating of drinking problem, support systems utilization, participation in aftercare. Data were categorized and analyzed using Chi Square and t-tests. Significant differences were found in controlled drinking behavior between the two groups. The author concluded that the training program may be more effective, relevant and appropriate if implemented postdischarge rather than during inpatient treatment. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: B, page: 2603. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.

Elderly persons' interactions might be colored by age-related stereotypes. This would occur if observers' attributions were affected by beliefs about the elderly as a group. This research investigated whether such a link between stereotypes and attributions exists during a dyadic interaction. It also examined the hypothesis that stereotypes operate as baselines against which subsequent evaluations could be made. / Undergraduate students served as subjects. They were presented with two different versions of transcripts: a standard version and one in which the speaker forgot common words and told an anecdote of a childhood experience. Half the subjects were told that the speaker was 30, the remainder that he was 65. After reading the transcript, subjects responded to structured questions about the speaker and his behavior during the interview. / It has been proposed that stereotypes would be reflected in the attributions. Results did not support this hypothesis. Verbal behavior, as given in the transcript, affected ratings of the likelihood that the speaker had chronic memory problems, was busy and absent-minded, and had a past orientation. Age did not affect these attributions. / Subjects' impressions of the speaker's cognitive functioning were affected by his speaking style. Speakers with memory difficulties were thought to have poorer cognitive functioning. Age and speech style interacted to affect ratings of activity, evaluation, and instrumentality. In all these areas, younger speakers with memory problems were viewed less favorably than those without. The opposite pattern was found for older speakers. Speech style had a more pronounced effect on the ratings of younger speakers. / Results suggest that clearly specified behavior may be more important than stereotypes in affecting an observer's explanation of an event. Age does seem to influence an observer's subjective impression, however. The strength of the expectancy that an individual will behave in a given way may also vary with age and may be responsive to stereotypes. / In everyday life, stereotypes may affect decisions about the elderly as a group. On an individual level, however, the elderly seem capable of overcoming stereotypic expectancies. They should thus be encouraged by the results of active and assertive involvement with others. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: B, page: 2604. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.