<p> There is not a common, agreed upon definition of authentic leadership. There are varying opinions as to whether authenticity is a trait or a style; however, most scholars believe authenticity is a purpose and value based characteristic (Gardner, Cogliser, Davis, &amp; Dickens, 2011) that is developed over time (George, 2003). Transparency is a core concept of authentic leadership, and situational awareness is a critical skill for leaders to determine the degree of transparency that they should demonstrate. There is limited theoretical and empirical research on how transparency and self-monitoring can be used in conjunction with situational leadership and situational awareness theory. This study measures the impact of a leader&rsquo;s expression of transparency on follower&rsquo;s confidence in his or her ability with consideration of a number of covariates. The findings of this study are intended to help advance authentic leadership theory with specific focus on situational awareness and transparency as core concepts of authenticity. Implications are discussed on the advancement of leadership theory, authentic leadership, and transparency as a core concept of authenticity. </p><p> Data collection used Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and yielded 1,006 global participants who met the inclusion criteria. In general, higher degrees of leadership transparency yield higher levels of follower confidence. Situation can impact how expressions of transparency impact follower confidence. Thus, situational awareness and situational leadership are critical competencies for leaders to use transparency effectively. Leader-Member Exchange does not, generally, moderate the relationship between a leader&rsquo;s transparency and his or her follower&rsquo;s confidence. There was statistical significance in the difference in responses between geographies, but there were not statistically significant differences in the results when considering gender, years of work experience, education, age, and race in the US.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study is to investigate how participation and racing in ultra-endurance events contribute to an executive's self-leadership habits. Some research indicates that physical fitness is a key component of an executive's program (e.g., Neck, Mitchell, Manz, Cooper and Thompson, 2000; Neck and Houghton, 2006; Lovelace, Manz, and Alves, 2007; Moore, 2015, Manz, 2015). However, much of this research reflects approximately one hour of physical fitness work per day, five to seven days a week. Scant research exists on how extreme levels of exercise (i.e., 18&ndash;30 hours per week) can contribute to successful self-leadership. Some research indicates that participation in ultra-endurance sports increases self-efficacy (e.g., Simpson et al., 2014). Likewise, a growing body of research (e.g., Baker, 2015; Simpson et al., 2014) shows that ultra-endurance athletes commonly apply constructive thought patterns, behavioral strategies and natural rewards strategies synonymous with the self-leadership literature without realizing it. This study will investigate how an ultra-endurance athlete develops self-leadership habits through the formative experience of ultra-endurance racing and how he/she applies these habits away from racing. Furthermore, this study intends to lay the foundation for the creation of a prescriptive theory of self-leadership habit building that other executive leaders can apply to their own lives.</p><p>

<p> Rumination is defined as thinking about a provoking event. Previous studies had participants ruminate by themselves (i.e., engage in individual rumination), however, individuals can also experience rumination if they communally relive a provocation with others. We have termed this phenomenon &ldquo;collective rumination. Participants (<i>n</i> = 175) first completed the Revenge Planning subscale of the Displaced Aggression Questionnaire. They were then provoked, randomly assigned to either the collective rumination, individual rumination, or distraction condition, and given the opportunity to aggress. Results indicated that collective rumination produced significantly higher amounts of aggression relative to both individual rumination and distraction. This effect, however, was moderated by revenge planning. Specifically, collective rumination increased aggression for participants with low and mean levels of revenge planning but did not impact aggression for those high in revenge planning. Furthermore, there was a strong positive correlation between group cohesion and aggression for participants who collectively ruminate.</p><p>

<p> Two varying types of multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessments (MSWO) were conducted with three 21-year-old participants with low-functioning autism. The first preference assessment was parent-led. This was done by using a revised version of the RAISD, a parent interview tool, to gain the top ten items the parent viewed as being most reinforcing to their child. The experimenter then utilized those 10 items to conduct the multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessment. All three participants were also given a standard multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessment utilizing 10 generally common used reinforcing items that are typically available in a classroom setting. Upon yielding the results of each type of preference assessment, an alternate treatment design was utilized to determine reinforcing effects of the varying preference assessment results. A baseline phase occurred where participants completed a matching-to-sample file folder task, that they have all shown 100% competency with in the past, to record the duration and accuracy it took the participants to complete the activity while receiving no reinforcement. Duration and accuracy for the matching-to-sample file folder activity were then compared to determine if they would increase their speed and accuracy when presented the opportunity to gain the parent-led and standard preference assessment result&rsquo;s reinforcer upon completion. Results showed students displayed shorter durations for both types of preferences, however slightly favored the teacher-led assessment. Accuracy was generally the same for baseline and both types of preference assessments.</p><p>

<p>There is a growing amount of research evaluating behavioral approaches for skill acquisition in sports. Few of these studies have focused on yoga and skill acquisition. There is a need for a low effort yet effective way to teach yoga postures to individuals who do not take private yoga classes and may practice at home. This study evaluated the effects of using a picture-based task analysis and self-evaluation on the skill acquisition of yoga postures. A multiple baseline across yoga postures was used. During the task analyses intervention, the participants received a task analysis, performed the posture, and scored the task analysis upon the completion of the posture. Results showed that the task-analysis and self-evaluation increased the accuracy of all the poses.

<p> Pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed childhood psychiatric disorders, estimated to occur in one to four percent of children, and typically portends a chronic and debilitating prognosis. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological research was to explore the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics surrounding the lived experiences of parenting a child with OCD and to discover the types of parental attributions present in the parent-child interactions. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis, data was collected through parental interviews with semi-structured, open-ended questions and daily parenting journals. Nine parents participated and eight themes emerged from the interviews identifying a range of emotions within their parenting experiences: relief, fear, guilt, anger, anxiety, sadness, feeling judged, and joy. Analysis of the daily journal data indicated (a) high levels of expressed emotion in families influenced the types of attributions parents formed, (b) high levels of expressed emotions encouraged family accommodation, and (c) subjectivity was present in parental attribution formation. The specific focus on the parents of children with OCD in this research was expressed as validation to give meaning to their parenting experiences. The significance of this study was based on the prevalence of childhood OCD and the lack of understanding the daily lived experiences of parenting a child with pediatric OCD. Considerations for future research include increased sample diversity, the recruitment of more fathers, parental attribution retraining, and sibling interviews.</p><p>

<p> Transformational leadership research has been extensive over the last several decades (Bass &amp; Stogdill, 2008). While there have been a number of studies of transformational leadership within the Indian culture, there are less which explore the Indian transformational leadership and Indian follower relationship from the follower&rsquo;s perspective. The researcher has not come across research which measures the relationship, if any, between the Indian transformational leader and job satisfaction of the Indian follower. Research has been conducted on overall Indian employee job satisfaction but none which includes the variables of Indian manager and Indian follower. A quantitative study is proposed to examine on whether a relationship exists between the variables of Indian transformational leadership and the job satisfaction of Indian followers. To measure Indian transformational leadership, the researcher will be using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) which has been used by researchers for many decades (Avolio &amp; Bass, 2004). To measure job satisfaction, the researcher will be using the Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) which also has been used by researchers for many years (Spector, 1997). Further methodology of the study can be found in Chapter 3. The findings and conclusions of the study will be reviewed in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 respectively.</p>

<p> This paper reviews existing literature on Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) and the benefits and challenges associated with conducting the cornerstone of behavioral observation, Systematic Direct Observation (SDO), in schools. It also presents literature on Direct Behavior Rating (DBR) and its application to conducting an FBA. The purpose of this study was to evaluate paraprofessionals&rsquo; ability to generate believable data using DBR to assess functional relationships relative to SDO and to examine their perceptions regarding DBR&rsquo;s acceptability. In the study, paraprofessionals (<i>n</i> = 7) observed the behavior of 16 students in their classroom setting and then completed DBR ratings of disruptive behavior and four potential consequences (adult attention, peer attention, escape/avoidance, access to tangibles). Concurrently, an expert observer collected SDO data using a combination of a 15-second partial interval recording system and frequency count. Estimates of the true occurrence of disruptive behavior and the percentage of disruptive behavior met with each consequence were calculated based upon the SDO data. Differences in agreement between the DBR and SDO data were examined to obtain an understanding of the degree of association between the two observation methods. The results of this study indicated strong levels of agreement between the DBR and SDO data for overall disruptive behavior. However, despite a visual analysis of the data that suggested similar conclusions would be reached regarding the function of the disruptive behavior, weaker levels of agreement were found regarding the similarity of the data for each of the consequence targets. Results did indicate paraprofessionals perceived DBR to be an acceptable tool for collecting data related to functional contingencies. Guidelines for implementing DBR when conducting an FBA, limitations of the study, and suggested directions for future research are discussed.</p><p>

<p> Similar to the pattern observed in people with substance abuse disorders, laboratory animals will exhibit escalation of cocaine intake when the drug is readily available and will exhibit increased drug-seeking behaviors after long periods of abstinence. Additionally, there are long term changes in neuron structure, receptor function, and neurotransmission associated with abstinence from cocaine in humans and animals. DNA methylation is an epigenetic modification to the DNA structure that mediates mRNA expression to confer different cell types, but has recently been implicated in learning and memory mechanisms. The long-term control that DNA methylation has over gene expression in animals makes it a prime candidate for controlling gene expression over the course of abstinence in animals with previous drug experience. Therefore, here, I investigated the contribution of behavioral contingency of cocaine administration on escalation of cocaine intake and re-exposure to cocaine cues as well as DNA methylation and gene expression within the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) in adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. I exposed rats to daily training for saline (1 h/ day) or cocaine (0.25 mg/kg/inf) in limited- (1 h access per day), prolonged- (6 h access per day), or limited + yoked-access (1 h contingent + 5 h non-contingent access per day) for 15 days. Rats were then put through forced abstinence for 1, 14, or 60 days, and then the dmPFC was dissected out. Saline- and prolonged-access rats were additionally separated into cue- and no cue- conditions after 60 days of abstinence, where cue rats were re-exposed to the operant chamber without cocaine delivery for 2 h. These studies led to 4 main findings. 1) cocaine contingency affects mRNA expression for glutamatergic genes, 2) DNA methylation changes dynamically throughout abstinence, 3) re-exposure to cocaine cues rapidly alters DNA methylation and mRNA expression, and 4) DNA methylation, hydroxymethylation, and transcription factor binding all contribute to altered mRNA expression.</p><p>

<p> Research surrounding the prevalence and impact of adversity during childhood has surfaced as a possible key to addressing the impact of chronic stress on children during their early years and well into adulthood. The research has suggested that when resilience is present, due to protective factors being in place, there may be neutralization of the negative impact and outcomes due to the physiological effects of chronic stressors. Identifying which protective factors have the greatest neutralizing impact may provide educators, physicians, and parents better aid in the prevention and healing of children who have been exposed to chronic adversity. This research provides insight into the negative impact of adversity and the neutralizing impact of resilience on physical, psychological, and emotional well-being</p><p>