Thesis (Ph. D.)--Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2005. / Amy Bruckman, Committee Member ; Jack Feldman, Committee Chair ; Dianne Leader, Committee Member ; Larry James, Committee Member ; Ruth Kanfer, Committee Member. Includes bibliographical references.

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on March 26, 2010). Thesis advisor: Dr. Jamie Arndt. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2009. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 75-81). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 137-144). Also available online in Scholars' Bank; and in ProQuest, free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1993.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 1989. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Florida, 1983. / Description based on print version record. Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-119).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 86-93).

In a series of five studies, I used the Internet and computed-mediated technologies as tools to revisit the longstanding issue within the fields of personality and experimental social psychology: "person by context" interaction on social communicative behaviour. The effects of the personality trait of shyness were examined in visually anonymous and non-anonymous conditions to see if the interaction of the person and context influenced social communication. Participants were paired in dyads and instructed to converse using a text-based online Instant Messenger program. Dyads were randomly assigned to converse with webcams or without webcams. For some types of behaviour (e.g., self-disclosure), shyness and level of visual anonymity interacted (Studies 1 and 2). Shy individuals disclosed more personal information in a visually anonymous context than a visually non-anonymous context. For non-shy individuals, self-disclosure was not influenced by the context. For other types of behaviour (e.g., affective language), the effect of shyness was consistent across context. To determine the specificity of the shyness-anonymity interaction, other person-anonymity interactions were examined (e.g., self-esteem, loneliness, sex of the participants) (Studies 3 and 4). Finally, the influence of the shyness-anonymity interaction on social communicative behaviour was examined in a cooperative performance-related task (Study 5). These series of studies suggest that anonymity is a particularly salient contextual cue for shy individuals. Furthermore, the moderating effects of anonymity on shyness do not generalize to other characteristic of the person. Instead, anonymity moderates the other characteristics (e.g., self-esteem) uniquely. The present findings have theoretical implications to the study of person by context interactions by identifying how such interactions influence specific aspects of social communication. These findings also have practical or clinical implications. For example, the treatment of social difficulties related to high shyness, low self-esteem, or high loneliness, may involve specific treatment plans building off of modifications in anonymity. Shy individuals benefit from using the Internet as a social medium in which they can control the level of anonymity as is demonstrated by their bolder behaviour during visually-anonymous conversations. The present findings also suggest that the Internet and computer-mediated technologies can be used in novel ways to study longstanding questions in personality and experimental social psychology. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

No / Mainstream health psychology supports neoliberal notions of health promotion in which self-management is central. The emphasis is on models that explain behaviour as individually driven and cognitively motivated, with health beliefs framed as the favoured mechanisms to target in order to bring about change to improve health. Utilising understandings exemplified in critical health psychology, we take a more socially situated approach, focusing on practicing health, the rhetoric of modernisation in UK health care and moves toward democratisation. While recognising that within these new ways of working there are opportunities for empowerment and user-led health care, there are other implications. How these changes link to simplistic cognitive behavioural ideologies of health promotion and rational decision-making is explored. Utilising two different empirical studies, this article highlights how self-management and expected compliance with governmental authority in relation to health practices position not only communities that experience multiple disadvantage but also more seemingly privileged social actors. The article presents a challenge to self-management and informed choice, in which the importance of navigational networks is evident. Because health care can become remote and inaccessible to certain sections of the community, yet pervasive and deterministic for others, we need multiple levels of analysis and different forms of action.