This research addresses the question of whether individuals or groups induce deeper message processing of persuasive messages. An interaction between group entitativity and whether the group is an ingroup or an outgroup is predicted, where ingroups low on entitativity and outgroups high on entitativity are expected to induce deeper message processing. Entitativity measures the extent an aggregate of people is seen as a group (D. T. Campbell, 1958). Previous research shows contradictory results. S. G. Harkins and R. E. Petty (1987) have shown that high entitativity causes more message focus than low entitativity. R. J. Rydell and A. R. McConnell (2005) have shown that low entitativity causes more message focus than high entitativity. Hypotheses were not supported by the data. Post hoc analyses suggest that motivation to process persons and messages was greatest in the high entitativity ingroup condition. Predictions were revised by adding motivation as a variable. / by Karoly I. Balazs. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Research on social judgment typically emphasizes one of three processes that enable unequivocal understanding of events with ambiguous causality. In the social influence perspective, people are susceptible to the interpretations offered by others. In the explicit attitudes perspective, people interpret events in line with their consciously held attitudes and values. In the implicit attitudes perspective, people interpret events in line with unconscious biases. The model investigated in the present study assumes that these processes vary in salience depending on people's mindset. Participants with low versus high implicit racial bias toward Blacks read a narrative concerning this altercation under either a lowlevel or a high-level mindset and then read a summary that blamed one of the parties or they did not read a summary. As predicted, low-level participants allocated responsibility to the African-American if they had a high implicit racial bias and to the White if they had a low implicit racial bias, regardless of the summary manipulation. Contrary to prediction, however, high-level participants' allocation of responsibility did not reflect their explicit prejudicial attitudes. Instead, they corrected for their implicit biases in their trait inferences and affective reactions, in line with research suggesting that a high-level mindset promotes self-regulatory processes in social judgment. / by Susan D. Sullivan. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

Jealousy is a response to a situation in which a person feels a combination of different emotions, such as love, anger, sadness and fear when an affectionate interaction is happening between a loved one and someone else. This paper discusses the definition and onset of infant jealousy, the physiological basis of jealousy, whether maternal factors play a role, as well as studies on jealousy and EEG patterns. It has been argued that infants, as young as six-months-old display jealous-like behaviors. During jealousy evocation conditions, infants demonstrate negative emotions such as protesting or crying, diminished distancing, and heightened gaze toward their mother during maternal inattention. Approach/withdrawal behaviors and electroencephalography (EEG) activation were studied in the context of an infant jealousy paradigm. In this investigation, 45 mother-infants dyads were exposed to a social versus non-social condition during maternal inattention. During the social condition, infants demonstrated increased approach-style gaze and reach and negative affect. EEG was collected during all conditions on a subsample of 15 infants and in agreement with adult jealousy literature (Harmon-Jones, Peterson, & Harris, 2009), infants displayed left midfrontal EEG asymmetry, and displayed more approach motivations during the social doll condition indicative of jealousy approach motivations. / by Alexis K. Blau. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This thesis presents a critical disability discourse analysis. It examines the discursive construction of disability and the personal and political positioning of disabled people. Focusing on disclosure, identity, activism, theory and policy issues relating to disabled people, the naturalisation and invalidation of the disabled body is explored and critiqued. Organised in three parts, the thesis begins by considering some significant historical moments, the sociolegal context and the recent politicisation of both disabled people and disability research. Disability is argued as embedded in, and institutionalised by, political regulatory structures and research that risks de-politicisation of it is critiqued. Part two considers theories, methods and the text data collected for the research. This defines the theoretical orientation to discursive psychology, discourse analysis and critical disability studies. Disability is articulated as an object in, and for interaction and its construction linked to historical, social and political structures that regulate and sustain the human subject. The text data used in the thesis is then presented in terms of the collection process and the organisation of extracts within the current thesis. The forms of text data collected include transcriptions of discussion groups with disabled people, front line workers and senior managers, policy documents, publicity imagery and Hansard records of parliamentary debates. Part three then presents a critical disability discourse analysis using this text data. Drawing on the framework of discourse analysis as articulated by Potter and Wetherell (1987) the discursive function, construction and variation of disability talk and textwork is critically considered. This reveals dilemmas of positioning and ideology during moments of disability disclosure. Analytical commentary argues that disability identity is constructed by an interpretative repertoire embedded in the antithesis of desired and valued life. The construction of ‘barriers’ in social model texts are also explored in discussion groups and local policy documents. This shows the recent distortion and colonisation of the social model, and suggests that the metaphor of ‘barriers’ used to signify the structures that disable people has lost its once radical and resistive power. Hansard records are then used to explore implications and dilemmas which arise regarding agency, autonomy and the disabled body in relation to dominant discourses of individualism and the challenges this poses for an ‘independent living’ reform strategy. The thesis concludes by asserting a discursive mode of disablism. This is suggested as a useful driver for research and initiatives to expose and challenge everyday discourses and practises that perpetuate the invalidation of the disabled body.

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Forced displacement is the crises of our time as it has reached an unprecedented magnitude and rate, which exceeds the capacity of the international relief system and required efforts from global citizens, institutions, governments and communities. Social psychology has an important role in this needed mass response, to provide a better understanding of how the forcibly displaced people deal with their situation and how they are affected by it. Taking into consideration the sharp gap of resources available to the international relief system, it is especially important to understand the natural mechanisms of support the affected communities have, which can be an effective tool to build more efficient interventions and to empower marginalised communities and individuals. This research project aims to explore one possible mechanism underlining social support among refugees of conflict in developing countries, and sought to answer three main questions: how refugees help each other? Does sharing an emergent identity of being a “refugee” facilitate support among them, similar to people affected by disasters? Does this shared identity-based support impact their health? After conducting a systematic literature review (Paper 1) of psychosocial support among refugees of conflict in developing countries, we identified that the main challenge was the stressors arising from the exile environment (secondary stressors) and found indications of shared identity-based support among them. To do further exploration with social identity in mind, we conducted an 8-month ethnography (Paper 2) with Syrian refugees in Jordan that revealed an emergent shared “refugee” identity which seems to stem from a sense of common fate and motivates providing help to other refugees in addition to creating new social networks in exile that facilitates support efficiently. To better understand the secondary stressors (Paper 3), we conducted a survey (N = 305) and combined it with ethnographic data to find that Syrian refugees in Jordan suffer the most from financial stressors, due to loss of income and high living expenses; environmental stressors arise from exile and are either circumstantial (e.g., services and legal requirements) or created by this environment (e.g., instability and lack of familiarity); social stressors, directly related to social relations (e.g., discrimination & exploitation). In order to explore the process of support and the exact role of shared identity, we conducted two surveys (Paper 4) among Syrian refugees in Jordan (N = 156) and Turkey (N = 234) and used path analysis to build a model, which suggested that shared social identity is an important predictor of providing support and collective efficacy, which in turn has a positive association with general health of the refugees. We found indications that such positive associations could have a buffering effect in counter to the negative effect of stressors and stress on the health of refugees. We do acknowledge the stigmatic nature of a “refugee” identity and that there are other sources of support among the refugees. Nevertheless, we suggest that shared social identity can be a valuable resource in the field of psychosocial support among refugees of conflict in developing countries, especially if incorporated in the design of community level intervention.

Markus and Kitayama (1991) developed self-construal theory, and proposed that independent and interdependent self-construals would account for cultural variations in cognition, emotion and motivation. Based on this theory and Vignoles and colleagues' (2016) reconsideration of self-construal measurement, this thesis investigates if a multi-dimensional model of self-construal helps explain cultural differences better than previous studies using the conventional two-dimensional model, as well as reporting the development of a scale that unpacks eight different ways of being independent and interdependent in multiple cultures. The thesis includes three studies. Focusing on the cultures of China and the UK, Study 1 explores if a seven-dimensional self-construal model (Vignoles et al., 2016) helps provide previously missing evidence for the predicted mediation effects of selfconstrual on cultural differences in cognition, emotion and motivation. The results show that Chinese and British participants are significantly different in six dimensions of self-construal, and explicit self-construal significantly mediated cultural differences in certain aspects of cognition, emotion and motivation. In the same two cultures, Study 2 examines individualism and collectivism priming techniques, using the seven-dimensional self-construal model to detect what two commonly used selfconstrual primes actually manipulate. The results indicate that Similarities vs. Differences with Family and Friends task (SDFF) and Sumerian Warrior Story (SWS) cue different aspects of self-construal. Effects of SWS show a similar profile across the two cultures, whereas SDFF has a much stronger effect on Chinese participants than British participants. Study 3 reports the development of a new self-construal scale. By introducing a new factor and extending the participants to 13 countries, the final version is a 48-item eight-dimensional self-construal scale. The importance of the multidimensional model and the new measure are discussed.

We can easily and reliably identify the gender of an unfamiliar interlocutor over the telephone. This is because our voice is “sexually dimorphic”: men typically speak with a lower fundamental frequency (F0 - lower pitch) and lower vocal tract resonances (ΔF – “deeper” timbre) than women. While the biological bases of these differences are well understood, and mostly down to size differences between men and women, very little is known about the extent to which we can play with these differences to accentuate or de-emphasise our perceived gender, masculinity and femininity in a range of social roles and contexts. The general aim of this thesis is to investigate the behavioural basis of gender expression in the human voice in both children and adults. More specifically, I hypothesise that, on top of the biologically determined sexual dimorphism, humans use a “gender code” consisting of vocal gestures (global F0 and ΔF adjustments) aimed at altering the gender attributes conveyed by their voice. In order to test this hypothesis, I first explore how acoustic variation of sexually dimorphic acoustic cues (F0 and ΔF) relates to physiological differences in pre-pubertal speakers (vocal tract length) and adult speakers (body height and salivary testosterone levels), and show that voice gender variation cannot be solely explained by static, biologically determined differences in vocal apparatus and body size of speakers. Subsequently, I show that both children and adult speakers can spontaneously modify their voice gender by lowering (raising) F0 and ΔF to masculinise (feminise) their voice, a key ability for the hypothesised control of voice gender. Finally, I investigate the interplay between voice gender expression and social context in relation to cultural stereotypes. I report that listeners spontaneously integrate stereotypical information in the auditory and visual domain to make stereotypical judgments about children's gender and that adult actors manipulate their gender expression in line with stereotypical gendered notions of homosexuality. Overall, this corpus of data supports the existence of a “gender code” in human nonverbal vocal communication. This “gender code” provides not only a methodological framework with which to empirically investigate variation in voice gender and its role in expressing gender identity, but also a unifying theoretical structure to understand the origins of such variation from both evolutionary and social perspectives.

In a patriarchal society where women are viewed as a weaker sex and are compelled by ideology and social norms to attach themselves to men through romantic relationships and the institution of marriage, how do never-married women fare? In particular, how do never-married women over the age of 30 navigate a social world where there is constant pressure to marry? This study explores the social experiences of never-married women over 30 residing in Eastern Tennessee. Thirty never-married women completed a structured personal interview and an online survey was completed by 14 never-married women (ages 30-45) currently residing in Eastern Tennessee. The structured interview and survey focused on key variables associated with the interpersonal relationships, identities, social perceptions, and internet-based social networking (MySpace, Facebook, etc.) of never-married women.

When strangers meet, there is a high level of uncertainty due to the infinite number of possible alternatives in behavior between the two people. Previous research indicates that communicators will attempt to reduce the level of uncertainty by using available verbal and nonverbal information of the other, by seeking similarities with the other, and by observing the situation itself. This information is used to predict attitudes and beliefs, as well as to attribute characteristics of the other. Other studies indicate that a person will increase her level of self-monitoring activity when the level of uncertainty is increased.