Many Social Networking Sites have come and gone over the past decade, but Facebook continues to grow in popularity. Facebook is designed to connect people to one another through virtual networks of “friends” where members participate in the presentation of self virtually- through profile creation, maintenance, and exchanges of content. Social Networking Sites create a location for identity formation and projection that is similar, yet distinct, from face-to-face interactions. Facebook offers a unique avenue for people to control their presentation of self, while maintaining reflexive features. This study this study explores the notion of a particular “Facebook role” while specifically addressing front stage projections in relation to backstage information and the resulting differences in identity. In effect, people are “themselves” on Facebook, just a consistently “good” version of themselves.

Confirmation bias occurs when a person believes in or searches for evidence to support his or her favored theory while ignoring or excusing disconfirmatory evidence and is disinclined to change his or her belief once he or she arrives at a conclusion. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine whether emotionally charged evidence and evidence presentation order could influence an investigator's belief in a suspect's guilt. The study included 166 sworn police officers (basic training recruits, patrol officers, and criminal investigators) who completed online surveys in response to criminal vignettes across different scenarios to record their measure of guilt belief. Analysis of variance was used to assess the relationship between the 3 independent variables: duty assignment (recruit, patrol, investigator), scenario condition (child and adult sexual assault), and evidence presentation order (sequential, simultaneous, reverse sequential). The dependent variable was confirmation bias (Likert-scaled 0–10 guilt judgment). According to the study results, confirmation bias was least evident in criminal investigators with more experience and training, and both emotion and evidence presentation order can influence guilt judgment. The findings generalize to criminal investigators and attest to the importance of working to include and exclude suspects and to withhold judgment until all available evidence is analyzed. Investigators benefit from this study and through their improved decision making, society benefits as well. This study will contribute to the need for professional dialogue concerning objective fact finding by criminal investigators and avoiding incidents of wrongful conviction.

This study is an investigation into why people with depression and anxiety use complementary and alternative medicines at higher rates than the general population. The study examines perceptions of mental illness and meanings assigned to depression and anxiety, others’ perceptions of mental illness, and experiences with conventional medicine. All participants were using complementary and alternative medicine at the time of the study; their reasons for CAM use as well as how CAM affected perceptions of their illness were main research questions. I conducted three focus groups with individuals diagnosed with depression who were using complementary and alternative medicine as forms of treatment. Focus groups were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using the coding software Nvivo. Participants were also given two questionnaires that were analyzed using SPSS. This study shows that complementary and alternative medicine ultimately gives individuals perceived control, a sense of agency, action, and acceptance in regards to their mental illness.

Using ten sermons from five prominent and politically active evangelical megachurch pastors taken from the 2016 presidential campaign season, this case study utilizes frame analysis to understand the political relevance of modern evangelical sermonizing. An inductive frame analysis allows the concept of a collective action frame to be observed as a process and for patterns to emerge from the source text. Within these sermons, ministers offer self-identifying evangelicals a vocabulary with which to understand and describe their own identity. In this context, the Bible is a powerful cultural symbol that represents an allegiance to traditions that are framed as the bedrock of American exceptionalism. The boundaries that are drawn and vociferously maintained in this sample emphasize exclusion over inclusion, especially in terms of salvation and righteousness, which can emotionally motivate action. In an election year, this sample demonstrates how evangelical identity is mobilized as an electoral force.

In spite of efforts to improve diversity among the United States’ top tier colleges and universities, first-generation students of color continue to be largely underrepresented, one of the factors significantly contributing to this reality is the use of tracking in high schools. Even given the substantial research highlighting the ineffectiveness of ability grouping, the practice continues to be utilized in the majority of U.S. high schools. The findings of past studies reveal higher-track classes provide students with academic advantage while lower-track classes are noted by students’ lower consequent achievement. Attention to the makeup of low and high tracked classes further reveals the reason behind this difference in achievement may lay in that higher-track classes provide students with greater expectations, rigor and support to meet those expectations, and such belief and support likely breeds greater self-efficacy and therefore greater motivation in students. Thus, in order to provide this same uplifting environment to all students, detracking is posed as an alternative. This correlational survey study is intended to examine the effects of high and low educational tracks versus detracking upon the academic achievement of first-generation 9th grade students of color with a particular consideration of the mediating effects of self-efficacy and academic motivation. Student participants will be recruited from the Chaffey Joint Union High School district, completing a self-efficacy survey and an academic motivation survey once during the third week of the school year, and once again during the last week of the academic year. It is expected that the data will demonstrate a significant relationship between track and academic achievement such that those students enrolled in the lowest tracks will demonstrate the lowest achievement whilst no difference will be found in the achievement attained in the higher tracks versus the detracked curriculum. Furthermore, both self-efficacy and academic motivation are expected to mediate this relationship.

To explore relational processes of couple’s satisfaction this study drew on the relational spirituality framework (Mahoney, 2010) in order to test a relational religiosity model to evaluate the effects of public, private, ideological, intellectual, and experiential religiosity that were mediated by relational virtues of commitment, sacrifice, forgiveness, and sanctification and relational equality on couple’s satisfaction in two cultures. Data for this component used convenience samples of English-speaking respondents (hereafter American sample; n = 1,529) and Russian-speaking respondents (hereafter Russian sample; n = 529). Results provided evidence to partially support relational religiosity model; specifically commitment, while a statistically significant intervening element, worked alongside other relational virtues such as (a) sanctification, as hypothesized, to positively mediate the indirect effect of ideological religiosity on couple’s satisfaction for the American men, (β = .17, 95% BCa CI [.11, .24], p < .001); (b) sanctification, as hypothesized, to positively mediate the indirect effect of experiential religiosity for the Russian men (β = .39, 95% BCa CI [.12, .65], p = .002); and (c) sacrifice and forgiveness, contrary to the hypotheses, to negatively mediate the indirect (β = -.20, 95% BCa CI [-.35, -.06], p = .005) and total (β = -.27, 95% BCa CI [-.43, -.12], p = .001) effects of ideological religiosity on couple’s satisfaction among Russian women. The second approach to this topic followed the family systems perspective, to examine the effect of religiosity on respondents’ own and their partners’ satisfaction with the relationship via the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) (Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006). This dyadic approach used samples of 435 American couples (n = 870) and 129 Russian couples (n = 258). The results provided evidence to support an actor effect of husbands’ religiosity on their own couple’s satisfaction for the American (t = 2.00, p = .046, β = .15, 95% CI [.01, .29]) and Russian (t = 3.65, p < .001, β = .45, 95% CI [.21, .70]) husbands. Moreover, APIM testing provided sufficient evidence to support a positive partner effect in that husband’s religiosity predicted their wives’ satisfaction with the relationship in the American (t = 2.06, p = .041, β = .17, 95% CI [.01, .33]) and Russian (t = 2.77, p = .006, β = .37, 95% CI [.11, .64]) couples. The parallels between the cultures strongly resembled existing cross-cultural dyadic scholarship providing compelling evidence to support cultural similarities rather than differences and suggesting that cross-cultural relational dissimilarities might not exist in the ways religiosity is linked to couple’s satisfaction; however, the differences between male and female respondents in each culture might be worth studying further. Additionally, this dissertation’s results and scholarship mentioned above reveal that religiosity and couple’s satisfaction may be indifferent to cultural variations suggesting these phenomena may be universal rather than culture-specific. Outcomes of this dissertation may benefit researchers, educators, policy makers, and practitioners who are interested in relationship virtues and religiosity's effect on couple’s satisfaction, which is known to provide a positive connection to the psychological, social, physical, and spiritual well-being of couples.

Existing stigma in the form of negative attitudes towards individuals with severe mental illness by mental health practitioners, has the potential to set barriers towards recovery. A survey of 72 mental health practitioners from three disciplines were surveyed, in an attempt to measure mental health practitioner attitudes towards individuals with severe mental illness, and how their attitudes impact their belief in client recovery. This was a quantitative study, based on two Likert Scale surveys and distributed both in paper form and using Survey Monkey. Participants were gathered through a snowball effect, and consisted of 42 social workers, 18 marriage and family therapists, and 12 clinical psychologists. The Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Mental Health Practitioners was utilized in an attempt to measure stigmatizing behaviors. The Consumer Optimism scale was also incorporated in an attempt to measure practitioner’s belief in recovery. Content analysis was conducted through Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20. The findings of the study were inconclusive and did not support the original hypothesis, as no relationship between mental health practitioner attitudes towards individuals with severe mental illness and their belief in recovery was found. However, two key finding emerged through further content analysis. A positive relationship was found between negative attitudes and the practitioner’s desire to be socially distant from individuals with severe mental illness. Practitioners from inpatient work settings showed higher levels of belief in client recovery, than those in outpatient and private practice. Further research can be conducted regarding the potential reasons that inpatient mental health workers have higher belief in client recovery, in order to help outpatient agencies and private practice individuals also achieve higher levels of optimism towards recovery. The findings of negative attitudes in mental health practitioners and their desire to remain socially distant from individuals with a severe mental illness can also be a key component in recent efforts to combat stigmatizing behaviors.

Sexual assault is a growing concern across college campuses in the United States. According to the Sexual Victimization of College Women study, the victimization rate is 27.7 rapes per 1,000 ­­­­women students (Fisher, Cullen, & Turner, 2000). In response to the high prevalence of sexual assault, college campuses are now mandated to implement various forms of sexual assault prevention programming. Sexual assault prevention programming is intended to promote awareness of sexual assault and reduce the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses. Numerous studies have examined the short term effectiveness of sexual assault prevention programs (e.g., Anderson & Whiston, 2005). However, few studies have explored the effectiveness of repeated, annual prevention program participation on rape supportive beliefs. In addition, studies that have explored the efficacy of prevention programs have tended to rely exclusively on self-report measures and some have only focused on outcomes among men or women groups only. The purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of level of participation and gender in sexual assault prevention training on rape myth acceptance (RMA) and response latency to a hypothetical date rape scenario among a sample of Western college students. Results revealed no significant relationships between higher levels of sexual assault prevention programming participation and RMA scores and latency times. Additionally, there were no gender differences on IRMA scores or response latency. Findings have important implications for future sexual assault prevention programming efforts on college campuses and community settings.

Cultures, subcultures, and individuals occupy different positions in the low-context/individualistic and the high-context/collectivistic spectrum, and they shift due to factors such as urbanization, economic development and cultural globalization. In this study, I examine Sérgio Buarque de Holanda's theory of the cordial man and how it illustrates qualities of the high-context Brazilian culture. Within the framework of grounded theory, these qualities are evaluated from the perspective of intergenerational dyads--fathers and sons--that have been exposed to an urbanized and globalized environment in order to determine whether and how a shift from high-context to low-context is occurring. The participants were interviewed to explore perception of self, upbringing, decision-making process within the family, father and son relationships, intrafamilial communication, ways to influence and be influenced, history of conflict, and urbanization and globalization. Their responses revealed the extent to which their values were individualistic or group-oriented and if the cordial man behavior was also present in the intimacy of their homes. In sum, I reach three conclusions: technological and cultural globalization propagates low-context values and behaviors; sons are in a transitional state, in which individual goals are relevant enough to challenge parental expectations, but still cause guilt when pursued; and, the cordial man still exists in the urban and globalized world. Implications for families, family therapists, counselors and mediators are discussed.

Victims of childhood bullying often use passive coping strategies and experience depression, substance abuse use, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to examine adults' lived experiences of coping methods they used as victims of bullies during adolescence. Lazarus and Folkman's transactional theory of stress and coping provided the framework for the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 young adults who were bullied as adolescents. Coding analysis indicated 7 emerging themes for coping: confrontation, self-controlling, seeking social support, accepting responsibility, escape-avoidance, problem-solving, and positive reappraisal. Participants reported that some coping methods were perceived as effective. The results suggested that self-support and the support of friends and family were key factors in overcoming childhood victimization. Findings may be used by parents, teachers, counselors, and community members to assist bullied or at-risk adolescents in developing coping methods to support their ongoing personal development.