The purpose of this study was to examine how sexual satisfaction in older marriages (marriages with at least one spouse between the ages of 55 and 75) was affected by family-of-origin distress (recent measure of recollection of childhood experiences) and marital distress (measure of current marital relationship) for husbands and wives. The hypotheses of this study were that both family-of-origin distress and marital distress would have negative effects on sexual satisfaction for older couples, with marital distress having a direct, negative effect on sexual satisfaction and with family-of-origin distress having an indirect, negative effect on sexual satisfaction through its influence on marital distress. The sample consisted of 614 older couples (approximate average age of 65 for husbands and 62 for wives) who participated in the Project Couple Retire research project which provided the data for this study. Each participant completed the Project Couple Retire questionnaire which included the Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Revised (MSI-R) (1997), the Personal Assessment of Intimacy in Relationships (PAIR) (1981), and other instruments measuring various factors relating to older marriages. A conceptual model was created consisting of three latent variables: sexual satisfaction, family-of-origin distress, and marital distress. The latent dependent variable, sexual satisfaction, was measured by the MSI-R sexual dissatisfaction (SEX) scale and the sexual intimacy scale of the PAIR inventory. One of the latent independent variables, family-of-origin distress, was originally measured by both the MSI-R family history of distress (FAM) scale and an additional instrument from the Project Couple Retire questionnaire measuring history of abuse. However, the history of abuse measure was eventually dropped from the study due to poor measurement fit. The other latent independent variable, marital distress, was measured by the affective communication (AFC) and time together (TTO) scales of the MSI-R. The data in this study was dyadic, with each variable including data from both husbands and wives. Therefore, both actor and partner effects were examined. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the conceptual model. Findings indicated that both family-of-origin distress and marital distress negatively affected sexual satisfaction in older marriages for both husbands and wives when considering both indirect and direct effects.

Black health disparities are a salient public health issue with blacks in every socioeconomic level at a greater health disadvantage than their white counterparts. In particular, disparity in infant mortality rates between blacks and whites have widened in recent decades to differentials never before experienced in the United States. Social ecologists investigating the myriad of individual and environmental risk factors have failed to fully account for the persistent differential. This study examines the relationships between individual and environmental influences on the health risk experienced by blacks, whites, as well as the differential between the two populations. This multi-level analysis was conducted using five-year aggregate data centering on the 2000 decennial census (1998 - 2002) as the most recent census data available. During the study period, the 193 census tracts in Orange County, Florida, experienced 504 infant deaths which included 242 black and 241 white infant deaths. Using the infant mortality target rate developed for Healthy People 2000 as the ―normal‖ infant mortality rate, risk was calculated as the percentage of deviation from the ―normal‖. A rate was also calculated to demonstrate the difference between black and white percent deviations from the ―normal‖. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationship between socioeconomic influences (Socioeconomic Disadvantage), social risk factors (Social Disorganization), and behavioral risk factors (Poor Behavioral Choices) using a latent variable approach based on a conceptual model which integrated the social determinants of health framework and conflict theory. iv In this study, an inverse association was found between socioeconomic disadvantage and infant mortality risk for black infants. This finding is contradictory to the expected finding and may have been due to multicollinearity or the operationalization of the endogenous study variable for black infant mortality risk. Thus, this study highlights the complexity of unraveling the interrelationship between social and economic risk factors. The results of this study demonstrate the importance of the latent variable approach in public health research as well as the need to broaden the approach to selecting indicators. This study concludes with specific policy recommendations aimed at improving the health outcomes of vulnerable populations using the social determinants of health framework.

Policing is more difficult than ever before in today’s world since types of crime and criminal profiles change as a result of technological development and globalization. Police organizations should review their organizational and operational strategies to improve the fight against contemporary crimes and criminals. Behaviors and performance of police officers are very important in fighting crime. In this struggle, especially today, officers should exhibit organizational citizenship behaviors and perform better. One of the most important factors affecting these two concepts in organizations is organizational support. The literature stresses the social exchange cycle and reciprocity rules in the relationships of organizations and their members. In this cycle, if the organization cares about its members and if members perceive that the organization is supportive, they feel obliged to behave positively, perform better, and help the organization to reach its goals and objectives. If they don’t perceive organizational support, they won’t care about the organization, either. Hypotheses were developed based on these assumptions in the literature. This study tested these assumptions in Crime Scene Investigation units of the Turkish National Police (TNP). Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the relationships among variables of Perceived Organizational Support (POS), Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB), and Perceived Performance (PP). Measurement models for these three latent constructs were developed by deriving the indicators from the literature. Most earlier studies tried to figure out reasons of the OCB. This study has a different perspective that investigates both reasons and results of OCB. A survey was developed to measure the latent variables of the study, and 405 of approximately 3,000 Crime Scene Investigators in the Turkish National Police responded to the iv survey. Results of the study showed that the relationship between POS and OCB is positive and significant. This is consistent with the literature. The relationship between OCB and PP is also positive and significant, and this is also consistent with the literature. However, the relationship between POS and PP is negative and insignificant. This result contradicts the results of previous studies in the literature and can be attributed to the subjective nature of measuring individuals’ perceptions. According to the literature, perceptions are subjective rather than objective; therefore, data coming from reports of individual perceptions may not reflect the actual situation. Demographic information of the participants served as the control variables of the study. Information about the education level, rank, age, gender, size of the unit, and tenure of the respondents was collected by way of the conducted survey, and the effects of these variables were analyzed on the endogenous variable of the study, Perceived Performance. This study found no significant relationships between these control variables and Perceived Performance. Therefore, all these control variables were removed from the Structural Equation Model of the study. This study revealed that the TNP needs to be more supportive toward its members in order to have officers show organizational citizenship behavior and perform better. The TNP should revise its policies, especially regarding rotations from one province to another, working hours, rewards, and overtime pay. These are all indicators of organizational support and will result in a higher performance level among officers.

Over the past decade, many studies have provided some understanding on what influences association members‟ decision to attend a meeting; however, more systematic and theoretical research is necessary. The decision making process of attendees is a complicated human behavior practice. The major contribution of this study is adopting the sense of community (SOC) model from psychology to gain a better understanding of the attendee behavior. By doing so, this study will add a theoretical foundation to the existing research in the meeting industry. Also, this study will contribute to the SOC research in psychology by applying the concept to a different setting. This study investigates whether annual conferences build a SOC among association members. First, the SOC of association members at the conference will be analyzed. Second, the influence of SOC on members‟ satisfaction with the conference will be studied. Lastly, the direct and indirect relationship between SOC and future intentions (i.e., return to next meeting, membership renewal, and membership recommendation) will be examined. Data was collected through an intercept survey approach at three annual conferences of national/international associations. The questionnaire consisted of four sections: sense of community, satisfaction with the conference, future intentions, and member profile. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the factor structure and structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships, and Spearman‟s rank order correlation was used to see the strength of the relationship between respondent characteristics and sense of community. The results showed that sense of community was a strong predictor of future iv intentions. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed in the final chapter.

Crisis management has become one of the most important public policy areas in recent decades with greater numbers of manmade and natural disasters. History showed that well-implemented crisis management policies can save lives and reduce costs in a disaster. Literature offered various suggestions for more effective crisis management policies with different techniques utilizing different theoretical frameworks. Informal relationships among crisis management employees were suggested to have a positive impact on crisis management effectiveness. Yet it was not demonstrated with advanced statistical tools if there is such a relationship. This study considers crisis management effort as a network effort and employs complex adaptive systems theory in order to understand factors influencing effectiveness of crisis management networks. Complex adaptive systems theory presents that more open communication lines in a given network or an organization would increase effectiveness of it since inner processes of the network or organization would obtain more information from the chaotic environment. Quality of informal relationships (casual relationships, social capital etc.) was hypothesized as a tool to open more communication lines within an agency which would eventually increase effectiveness of the network constructed by the organization. Based on the theoretical framework, adaptiveness capacity of the agencies was also tested in order to understand a correlation between adaptation and effectiveness of crisis management networks. Multiple case-study method was employed to identify incidents that can represent crisis management in full perspective. Terrorist attacks carried upon by the same terrorist network hit New York in 2001, Istanbul in 2003, Madrid in 2004, and London in 2005 were selected. First response phase of crisis management and policy changes after and before the attacks were discussed. Public administration processes and other social-economical conditions of countries were examined in terms of crisis management structure. Names of key agencies of selected crisis management systems were suggested by a social network analysis tool-UCINET. Six key agencies per incident were targeted for surveys. Surveys included a nine-item-quality of informal relationships, four-item-adaptiveness capability, and ten-item-perceived effectiveness of crisis management networks-scales. Respondents were asked to fill in online surveys where they could refer to their colleagues in the same incidents. 230 respondents were aimed and 246 survey responses were obtained as a result. Surveys formed a structural equation model representing 23 observed factors and 2 latent constructs. Confirmatory factor analysis was utilized to validate hypothesis-driven conceptual models. Quality of informal relationships was found to have a significant positive impact on perceived crisis management network effectiveness (Standardized regression coefficient = .39). Two of the adaptiveness variables, openness to change and intra-organizational training were also positively correlated with the dependent variable of the study (Standardized regression coefficient = .40 and .26 respectively). Turkish and American groups' differences suggested a social-economical difference in societies. Majority of the respondents were some type of managers which made it possible to generalize the results for all phases of crisis management. Discussions suggested improved informal relationships among crisis management employees to provide a better crisis management during an extreme event. Collaborative social events were offered to improve crisis management effectiveness. An agency's openness to change proposed that a crisis management organization should be flexible in rules and structure to gain more efficacy. The other adaptiveness variable, intra-organizational training efforts were proposed to have certain influence on effectiveness of crisis management network. Factors built latent construct of perceived crisis management effectiveness were also found out to be important on crisis management, which of some are ability to carry out generic crisis management functions, mobilize personnel and resources efficiently, process information adequately, blend emergent and established entities, provide appropriate reports for news media etc. Study contributed to the complex adaptive system theory since the fundamentals of the theory were tested with an advanced quantitative method. Non-linear relationships within a system were tested in order to reveal a correlation as the theory suggested, where the results were convincingly positive. Crisis management networks' effectiveness was demonstrated to be validated by a ten-item-scale successfully. Future research might utilize more disaster cases both natural and manmade, search for impact of different communication tools within a system, and look at the relationships among members of crisis management networks instead looking within an organization.

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Statistische Modelle menschlicher Kognition und Verhaltens stützen sich häufig auf aggregierte Daten und vernachlässigen dadurch oft Heterogenität in Form von Unterschieden zwischen Personen oder Gruppen. Die Nichtberücksichtigung vorliegender Heterogenität kann zu verzerrten Parameterschätzungen und zu falsch positiven oder falsch negativen Tests führen. Häufig kann Heterogenität mithilfe von Kovariaten erkannt und vorhergesagt werden. Allerdings erweist sich die Identifizierung von Prädiktoren von Heterogenität oft als schwierige Aufgabe. Zur Lösung dieses Problems schlage ich zwei neue Ansätze vor, um individuelle und gruppenspezifische Unterschiede mithilfe von Kovariaten vorherzusagen. Die vorliegende kumulative Dissertation setzt sich aus drei Projekten zusammen. Projekt 1 widmet sich dem Verfahren IPC-Regression (Individual Parameter Contribution), welches die Exploration von Parameterheterogenität in Strukturgleichungsmodellen (SEM) mittels Kovariaten erlaubt. Unter anderem evaluiere ich IPC-Regression für dynamische Panel-Modelle, schlage eine alternative Schätzmethode vor und leite IPCs für allgemeine Maximum-Likelihood-Schätzer her. Projekt 2 veranschaulicht, wie IPC-Regression in der Praxis eingesetzt werden kann. Dazu führe ich schrittweise in die Implementierung von IPC-Regression im ipcr-Paket für die statistische Programmiersprache R ein. Schließlich werden in Projekt 3 SEM-Trees weiterentwickelt. SEM-Trees sind eine modellbasierte rekursive Partitionierungsmethode zur Identifizierung von Kovariaten, die Gruppenunterschiede in SEM-Parametern vorhersagen. Die bisher verwendeten SEM-Trees sind sehr rechenaufwendig. In Projekt 3 kombiniere ich SEM-Trees mit unterschiedlichen Score-basierten Tests. Die daraus resultierenden Score-Guided-SEM-Tees lassen sich deutlich schneller als herkömmlichen SEM-Trees berechnen und zeigen bessere statistische Eigenschaften. / Statistical models of human cognition and behavior often rely on aggregated data and may fail to consider heterogeneity, that is, differences across individuals or groups. If overlooked, heterogeneity can bias parameter estimates and may lead to false-positive or false-negative findings. Often, heterogeneity can be detected and predicted with the help of covariates. However, identifying predictors of heterogeneity can be a challenging task. To solve this issue, I propose two novel approaches for detecting and predicting individual and group differences with covariates. This cumulative dissertation is composed of three projects. Project 1 advances the individual parameter contribution (IPC) regression framework, which allows studying heterogeneity in structural equation model (SEM) parameters by means of covariates. I evaluate the use of IPC regression for dynamic panel models, propose an alternative estimation technique, and derive IPCs for general maximum likelihood estimators. Project 2 illustrates how IPC regression can be used in practice. To this end, I provide a step-by-step introduction to the IPC regression implementation in the ipcr package for the R system for statistical computing. Finally, Project 3 progresses the SEM tree framework. SEM trees are a model-based recursive partitioning method for finding covariates that predict group differences in SEM parameters. Unfortunately, the original SEM tree implementation is computationally demanding. As a solution to this problem, I combine SEM trees with a family of score-based tests. The resulting score-guided SEM trees compute quickly, solving the runtime issues of the original SEM trees, and show favorable statistical properties.

Information seeking and information avoidance are the mechanisms humans natural used for coping with uncertainties and adapting to environmental stressors. Uncertainties are rooted in knowledge gaps. In social sciences, the relationship between knowledge gaps and perceived risk have received little attention. A review of the information science literature suggests that few studies have been devoted to the investigation of the role of this relationship in motivating information-seeking behavior. As an effort to address the lack of theory building in the field of information science, this study attempts to construct a model of information seeking under risk (MISR) by examining the relationships among perceived risk, knowledge gap, fear arousal, risk propensity, personal relevance, and deprivation and interest curiosity as antecedents to motivation to seek information. An experimental approach and a scenario-based survey method are employed to design the study. Partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) analysis was conducted to test the relationships in the proposed model. Perceived risk was found to be a highly significant predictor of information seeking in moderately high-risk situations. Similarly, personal relevant has a significant negative effect on perceived risk and its interaction with knowledge gap motivates information seeking.

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