Disgraced novelist Dan Alistair is reeling from a recent public scandal when he meets beguiling first-time author Evan Verde at a secluded writer’s retreat. When Evan uses their shared experiences to tell a twisted story, Dan becomes obsessed with uncovering his ulterior motives. Is there truth to Dan’s paranoia, or will his theories prove delusional?

Historically, the federal government has been the institution responsible for setting the nation's drug policy. Since 1996, however, the federal government's authority and legitimacy in this issue area has increasingly been challenged through state ballot measures introduced via the initiative process. While only eight percent of ballot measures historically are approved by voters (Initiative and Referendum Institute 2004), half of the 28 state ballot measures on illegal drugs have been approved by voters over the past decade. The stated goal of those supporting legalization through ballot measures is to "build a political movement to end the war on drugs" (Nadelmann 2004). Nadelmann (2004) suggests that victories in the states show that the "nascent drug policy reform movement" can win in the "big leagues of American politics" and that the successful models presented through the ballot measures will increase "public confidence in the possibilities and virtue" of regulating the non-medical use of illicit drugs. To date there has been no detailed examination of the issue framing strategies in this venue; nor has there been an effort to link the problem definition and direct democracy literatures. This dissertation links the problem definition and direct democracy literatures, using drug policy as the vehicle and applying Stone's (2002) analytic framework of problem definition to make descriptive inferences about the issue framing devices employed in state ballot measures on illegal drugs. The research examines a range of materials related to the state ballot measures on illegal drugs including the language appearing on voter ballots; the full text of the ballot measures, including ballot titles and political preambles; and the voter information statements and their authors. In addition, the dissertation describes the elements of legalization proposed by the ballot measures that were approved by voters and examines three key legal challenges to Proposition 215, one of the first ballot measures on illegal drugs approved by voters in California in 1996, including two U.S. Supreme Court cases. / Ph. D.

Enabled by advanced information technologies, the distributed work environment has become a choice of organizations. When employees and supervisors work in geographically separate locations, management challenges emerge. Performance improvement may become an issue. Performance may be improved by identifying, studying, and improving factors that affect work performance. Two factors–feedback and goal setting–were chosen for this study because of the strong evidence of the effects of these components. Positive effects of feedback and goal setting are commonly accepted in the literature concerning the traditional work environment. This study focused only on knowledge work because most work in the distributed work environment may be knowledge work. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of feedback and goal setting on knowledge work performance in the distributed work environment. A laboratory experiment was conducted using 36 student subjects. The experimental design was a 3 X 2 factorial design consisting of three levels of feedback (i.e., no feedback, task feedback, and task feedback with comparisons with others) and two levels of goal setting (i.e., no goal setting and goal setting). Subjects were randomly assigned to various combinations of these two variables. The evidence did not outright support the claim that feedback and goal setting improve task performance; task performance of the subjects was improved only under certain conditions. Task feedback did not improve task performance because of its added pressure, especially in the presence of goals. Task performance was higher for the subjects who received both task feedback and information about others’ performance than for the subjects who received task feedback only. Overall, feedback was not found to improve task performance. The study did not support the hypothesis that specific and difficult goals improve task performance. The added pressure of having difficult goals was found to have demotivating effects. The notion that the co-presence of feedback and goals is necessary to improve task performance was not supported because of the combined pressure that both components created. The subjects who had feedback and/or goals did not perform better than those who had neither feedback nor goals. / Ph. D.

Few studies have examined whether performance feedback on a given task can have implications for motivational processes on an altogether distinct task. The present study proposes and tests a model for motivational spillover in a goal-setting context. Participants (N = 201) were provided with goal-performance discrepancy feedback (GPD) on a creativity task (CT) and were subsequently asked to complete an unrelated stock-predicting task (SPT). Results indicate that GPD feedback on the CTs was positively associated with positive affect such that negative GPDs resulted in low levels of positive affect and positive GPDs resulted in high levels of positive affect. This positive affect was in turn positively related to self-efficacy for the SPT. Self-efficacy was positively associated with personal goals, and goals were positively related to performance on the SPT. These findings provide initial evidence for the occurrence of positive and negative motivational spillover in a natural performance setting. / Ph. D.

This study content analyzed interest group and candidate tweets from the 2020 American presidential election to determine what issues and substantive attributes were most salient on interest group and candidate agendas during the "hot phase" of the campaign. Cross-lagged correlations were conducted during two time periods from Labor Day to Election Day 2020 to measure agenda building effects. These tests were conducted for Democratic nominee and eventual President Joe R. Biden, and Republican nominee and former President Donald J. Trump. These tests were also conducted for two issue-based interest groups: Everytown for Gun Safety and the National Rifle Association. Findings indicate that Biden influenced Trump's campaign agenda, but Trump did not influence Biden's. The interest groups showed reciprocal influence with each other. Given the unprecedented nature of the 2020 election, the candidates were largely talking about the same issues. However, substantive attributes reveal the candidates' true issue agenda. This study offers methodological innovation by utilizing NVivo for content analysis. / Master of Arts / This study examined tweets from 2020 presidential candidates Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden, as well as the National Rifle Association, a gun rights advocacy organization, and Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy organization. These tweets were examined from September 7 to November 3, 2020, from Labor Day until Election Day. For the presidential candidates, it was found that although candidates were talking the same general campaign issues, they were using different substantive attributes when speaking of them. The findings also revealed that Biden was successful at influencing Trump's Twitter focus during the examined time period. Tweets from advocacy organizations were tested for presence of gun-related issues. The advocacy organizations spoke about the same issues as the other, but neither group was successful at influencing what the other said. This study highlights the importance of digital political public relations.

Current goal setting studies are working in two directions. The first direction is to identify the cognitive processes of goal setting and the second direction is to examine the moderating effect of task complexity on the goal-performance relationship. The objective of this paper is to integrate the two current directions by examining the moderating effects of two types of task complexity, component complexity and coordinative complexity, on the cognitive processes of goal setting. Two hundred and sixty-seven undergraduates who were taking upper level management courses participated in the study and 226 subjects were included in the final analysis. Subjects performed a stock prices prediction task on computer. Goals were assigned after the subjects have finished the pretest and the subjects were asked to answer questions on their specific self efficacy and performance valence perceptions. Subjects were also asked to set personal goals before performing the test. The cognitive processes models of goal setting for different task groups were compared with the multi-sample analysis of LISREL VII. It was found that subjects who performed the task with low component - low coordinative complexity used a simple motivation mechanism. They motivated their behaviors directly with specific self-efficacy. On the other hand, subjects who performed the more complex tasks used a more rational motivation mechanism that required more cognitive processing. The subjects set personal goals by considering performance valence and specific self efficacy, and they used personal goals to motivate their behaviors. Unlike the simple task for which specific self-efficacy directly affected performance, personal goals were found to mediate the effect of specific self-efficacy on performance for the complex tasks. / Ph. D.

The present study evaluated a brief intervention targeting reduction of heavy drinking in college females. Within the context of this brief intervention outcome study Bandura’s (1986) model of self-regulation was tested. Seventy-six heavy drinking college females (minimum of four drinking occasions during past month with Blood Alcohol Concentration estimated at .08% or greater) participated in the intervention. Subjects participated in brief individual assessment sessions and all subjects were provided with drinking reduction information and strategies. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three goal-setting conditions (no goal; proximal drinking reduction goal, distal drinking reduction goal). Within each of these three goal conditions subjects were randomly assigned to receive feedback on their drinking behavior or to not receive drinking behavior feedback. Subjects were reassessed one month and two months later on measures of drinking behavior and self-regulation variables (commitment to not drinking heavily, efficacy for not drinking heavily and discrepancy/discomfort relative to drinking heavily). Contrary to hypotheses, goal-setting, the provision of feedback, or the combination of goal-setting and feedback was not superior to assessment and information in the reduction of heavy drinking. However, all conditions revealed a significant decrease in drinking across time. Although the self-regulation variables of efficacy and commitment related negatively to future drinking behavior in univariate correlational analyses, the interaction of the self-regulation variables (efficacy, commitment and discrepancy) failed to add to the prediction of future drinking beyond that accounted for by current drinking and the main effects of the self-regulation variables. The theoretically derived hypotheses were not supported by the present study. Procedural and theoretical limitations of self-regulation relative to reduction of heavy drinking in college females, as well as the difficulties involved in changing college student drinking given strong contextual influences are discussed. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study was to explore teaching for meaningfulness in a school setting. I feel that a better understanding of teaching for meaningfulness can support the practice of teachers who desire to teach for meaningfulness. I elected to do a case study using qualitative methods while focusing for five months on a teacher's literacy program. Through this look at the everyday life of one public school teacher and her class a picture of an exemplary example of teaching for meaningfulness could be painted. Interviews, fieldnotes, journals, observations, various site artifacts, and a brief teacher autobiography comprised the primary data collection sources. Informants included a third grade teacher, eighteen third grade students, and a school language arts coordinator. / Ph. D.

The 2006 Congressional elections included some of the closest elections in recent history. Party control was on the line in both houses of Congress. As a result, candidate message strategies were subject to intense scruntiny by media and voters alike since each election played a significant role in determining which party would control the Senate. This thesis employs a content analysis of ten candidate-controlled blogs from five 2006 U.S. Senate elections to evaluate candidate issues, incumbent and challenger strategies, and message tactics used by the candidate to reach a wide classification of voters. The entire population of posts from the ten candidate blogs (N = 474) was included in this analysis. The thesis assesses candidate blog strategies and candidate gender difference through the theoretical perspectives of the issue ownership framework, agenda setting, and incumbent and challenger strategies. Findings show little evidence of intercandidate agenda setting through blogs, general adherence to assumptions of the issue ownership framework, and offer foundations for future communication research focused on candidate blogs. Recommendations for future research include a more expansive study of all campaign blogs as well as an intermedia agenda setting study to measure systematically the influence of blogs on other media. / Master of Arts

This study content analyzed candidate press releases and newspaper articles from the 2005 Virginia gubernatorial election in order to determine which issues, strategies, and audiences were most salient on candidate and media agendas during the campaign. Monthly cross-lagged correlations were used to measure agenda setting effects between the two major party candidates, among the four newspapers, and between candidates and newspapers. These correlations showed that the candidates maintained consistent issue agendas throughout the campaign but shifted their strategy and audience agendas frequently, while the newspapers generally maintained consistency for all three types of agenda. Many of the cross-lagged correlations indicated that the candidates shared reciprocal influence with the newspapers, but in some cases the candidates set the newspapers' issue agendas, while the newspapers set the candidates' audience agendas. The two candidates showed reciprocal influence between their agendas throughout much of the campaign, but Republican Jerry Kilgore set Democrat Tim Kaine's agenda during some months early in the campaign. The four newspapers studied showed a clear path of influence on issue agendas, with the Richmond Times-Dispatch influencing The Washington Post, which in turn influenced The Roanoke Times, followed by The Virginian-Pilot. Influence between the newspapers' audience and strategy agendas was mostly reciprocal. / Master of Arts