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The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of IQ on subtypes of sociable and withdrawn behaviors in children with language impairment (LI). Research has suggested that children with LI are more likely to experience difficulty with social interaction than their typically developing peers (Brinton & Fujiki, 1999; Rice, 1991). The Teacher Behavior Rating Scale (Hart & Robinson, 1996) was used to compare sociable and withdrawn behaviors in 19 children with LI and 19 children with typically developing language. IQ scores for each participant were obtained by administering the Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (Bracken & McCallum, 2003). These scores were used as a covariate in group comparisons of sociable and withdrawn behaviors. Comparisons indicated that classroom teachers rated children with LI as displaying more withdrawal and less sociable behaviors than typically developing children even when IQ was controlled.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of cohabitation on children in kindergarten and how this varies by race. Many researchers have shown that children being raised in cohabiting families do not perform as well as children being raised in married parent families (Manning and Seltzer 2009; Artis 2007; Raley et al 2005). Furthermore, demographic trends show that cohabitation among Latinos is very similar to marriage, whereas among whites they are two very different things (Choi and Seltzer 2009). My research combines these two ideas to investigate how cohabitation may affect Latino children differently than it affects white children in terms of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. I hypothesize that though whites will be negatively affected by cohabitation, Latinos will not have this negative effect. Evidence supports hypotheses and suggests that, indeed, Latino children are not as negatively affected by cohabitation as Whites.

Behavioral disruptions are highly prevalent, affecting almost all persons with dementia at some point during the course of their illness (McConnell, 2014). These behavioral disruptions in persons with dementia are commonly associated with decreased quality of life in the person exhibiting the symptoms as well as their caregivers (Fauth, Zarit, Hofer & Stephens, 2006). The purpose of this doctoral project was to design an intervention to promote socialization and engagement among people with dementia. A review of evidence-based interventions was conducted to identify effective non-pharmacological interventions to decrease behavioral disruptions in persons with dementia. The most promising interventions for reducing symptoms of behavioral disruptions in persons with dementia identified in the literature include music therapy, animal-assisted therapy, massage, activities-based interventions, behavioral management and combination therapies incorporating two or more of these interventions. Incorporating these effective interventions, a new program, Connections, was developed. The program includes a series of different daily interventions to be provided in a skilled nursing facility over the course of six weeks for residents with mild to moderate dementia. The Connections program is guided by a person-centered care philosophy and utilizes an evidence-based approach. Connections is designed to address the unmet psychological needs in people with dementia, such as fear or a sense of loss of control, lack of meaningful activities, loneliness and a lack of social interaction and decrease the behavioral disruptions.

Administrators and coaches in universities and colleges have focused on their students' moral development since the beginning of the higher education system. Students who participate in sports activities have acknowledged that they develop many life skills, including ethical behaviors, that can translate to non-sport environments, such as the classroom. Students who participate in organized sports programs in college often acknowledge their coach as a significant source of their development, due to the amount of time athletes and coaches spend with each other. Recently, instances of cheating have become widespread throughout American higher education. In this dissertation, I seek to evaluate the role that coaches, and overall sports participation has on the development of students' ethical behaviors both within sports and outside of the sport environment. I conducted three quantitative studies to evaluate the role that coaches play in the development of ethical behaviors in sports (as measured through sportsmanship), the similarities and differences in sportsmanship between participation in varsity or club sports, and the role that sports participation has on self-reported instances of cheating. I find that coaching behaviors that instill sportsmanship behaviors are similar to behaviors identified in youth sports and that the coaching behaviors are more predictive of coaches caring that their athletes act in a sportsmanlike way within varsity athletes than club athletes. Lastly, this study also indicates that participation in recreational sports programs is related to self-reported instances of cheating. The three studies identify that sports participation influences the development of ethical behaviors within college students.

Within the last few decades there has been an abundant increase in the amount of violent video games and movies shown within the media. Many of these violent videogames and movies include reckless driving behaviors or certain car scenarios that engross the viewer into wishing to imitate the actions they see on the screen. With that being said, majority of these viewers are adolescents or emerging adults who are beginning to drive and are prone to replicating what they see as adequate driving behaviors. The intent of this thesis is to indicate whether or not the amount of risky driving behaviors an adolescent or emerging adult is exposed to, the more likely they are to replicate these scenarios. Through the UCF sona system participants answered questions related to risky driving behaviors, safety habits, and how often they viewed or played certain videogames and movies. Overall, the results of the study indicate that participants exposed to risky driving behaviors in the media replicate these actions themselves. Further research and results should be taken into effect in order to raise awareness among adolescents and emerging adults who are at their early stages of driving.

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Employees’ information security policy (ISP) related behaviors have been paid attention by previous studies in the past decades. Among different factors that are influential on employees’ ISP behaviors, different leadership styles have been tested under the information security context; however, as one leadership style that is highly related to employees’ positive organization behaviors, the role of ethical leadership has been largely overlooked under the information security context. In addition, most research in the past decades overly focused on employees’ performance on ISP in-role behaviors, including ISP compliance and violation behaviors, where extra-role behaviors – security behaviors that are beneficial to an organization’s information security protection but not required by the organization – have long been overlooked as well. Therefore, this primary focus of this research is to test the role of ethical leadership in influencing employees’ ISP-related behaviors, including both in-role and extra-role behaviors through the mediation mechanism of the theory of planned behavior. To test the 11 hypotheses in this research model, I conducted two studies using different methods following McGrath (1982)’s suggestion, including a survey-based experiment and a cross-sectional survey. Both studies were conducted using a two-phase study design, including a preliminary investigation and main investigation. The findings of this research showed positive influences of ethical leadership on both ISP in-role and extra-role behaviors directly and indirectly through three mediators, including subjective norm about security behavior, behavioral control over security behavior, and attitude toward security behavior. Furthermore, the findings suggested attitude toward security behavior did not significantly influence ISP extra-role behavior. This research contributed to research streams of information security, ethical leadership, and theory of planned behavior, and provided managerial suggestions to organizations by showing how the ethical leadership influences employees’ two information security behaviors and the paths of improving employees’ information security performances in the organization.