Scholars historically have separated friendships and romantic relationships into two qualitatively distinct relationship categories. Contemporary research examining passionate friendships, however, has identified qualities within platonic relationships that appear to mimic characteristics typically associated with romantic relationships. Primary critiques of the existing passionate friendship literature include exclusively examining females, including samples that predominately identified as lesbian, bisexual or questioning, and research utilizing solely qualitative designs. The current study used a quantitative design to investigate 375 emerging adults' (18-26 years of age; 149 males, 226 females) friendship experiences. Specifically, four quasi-independent variables (i.e., biological sex, sexual orientation, gender-role orientation, and cross vs. same-sex dyads) were examined as factors associated with passionate friendship. Findings from this study indicated that both males and females experience passionate friendship, and that these experiences are not specific to individuals who identify as non-heterosexual. Additionally, results from this study shed light on the occurrence of passionate friendship experiences observed in both cross- and same-sex dyads. Characteristics of passionate friendships (e.g., levels of attachment, thought preoccupation, intensity of the relationship) were also examined using a newly created measure. Female participants and individuals whose closest friend was described a cross-sex friend scored higher on nearly every continuous scale of the designed measure. Additionally, sexual orientation and gender-role orientation yielded significant results on several of the identified subscales, with sexual-minority individuals and those who claimed androgynous or masculine gender-role orientation obtaining higher scores. Finally, predictability of passionate friendship occurrence was evaluated and indicated that passionate friendships may be predicted based on existing demographics or personality characteristics of an individual.

This dissertation argues that it is possible to retrieve Aristotle’s conception of political friendship in a manner that is relevant for contemporary democracies. First, I offer an account of Aristotelian political friendship that can respond to various conceptual worries within both Aristotle scholarship and contemporary political philosophy regarding the coherence of an account of "friendship between strangers," that is, friendship among people who do not know each other personally. The first two chapters closely examine Aristotle's conception of political friendship as depicted in various passages in the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics and develop a clear and robust account of Aristotelian political friendship. Chapter 1 argues for an interpretation of Aristotelian political friendship in terms of what I call the mutual-care model of friendship, as opposed to what I call the modern-narrow model which takes friendship to be a personal and intimate relation. This interpretation of friendship as a relation of mutual care thus creates the conceptual space to respond to the worries regarding the incoherence of political friendship as a concept. Chapter 2 defends the view that Aristotelian political friendship is a form of utility friendship that requires its participants to jointly commit to collectively advantageous political goals. Second, I apply the account of Aristotelian political friendship that I introduced in the first two chapters to contemporary democracies. To this end, Chapter 3 investigates whether members of contemporary democracies have reasons to participate in a relationship of mutual care with their political fellows. I argue that the primitive value of political membership constitutes a reason for every member of a democratic polity to minimally care for their political fellows qua parts of their political community. Chapter 4 examines the relationship between affective polarization and political friendship. I maintain that affective polarization undermines political friendship by concealing the ground of friendship, i.e., the perception of a joint commitment to shared political goals. I argue that political friendship can be reestablished in affectively polarized societies through systematic efforts to raise political fellows' awareness of shared political goals. / 2026-10-04T00:00:00Z

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A significant, yet understudied issue that demands attention is the experience of peer victimization among adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Research indicates that youth with disabilities, including those with ASDs, are victimized more frequently as compared to their typically developing peers. However, little is known about the peer victimization experience for adolescents with ASDs beyond its frequency of occurrence. This study examined relations between peer victimization and individual, peer, and parent factors and outcomes including internalizing and externalizing symptoms among adolescents with ASDs. No significant indirect effects were found for peer victimization on relations between individual social-cognitive and emotion regulation factors and internalizing or externalizing symptoms. Moderating effects of peer (i.e., friendship companionship, closeness, and help) factors on relations between peer victimization and internalizing and externalizing symptoms were not supported. Significant direct effects were found as higher levels of friendship companionship and help were associated with lower levels of internalizing symptoms. Parental knowledge moderated the relations between both adolescent-reported and parent-reported peer victimization and internalizing but not externalizing symptoms. Study findings have implications for prevention and intervention efforts including adolescents with ASDs and directions for future research.

Thesis advisor: Andre Brouillette / Thesis advisor: Brian P. Dunkle / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Royce Yat-Pui Lee. / Includes questionnaire in Chinese. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-55).

This thesis is a response to the abstract phenomenon of bereavement as well as to the death of an actual beloved. It situates mourning as ethically and politically significant, reading it as an instance of crisis for the bereaved subject as well as for the culture in which she is located. Via theorists as diverse as Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray, Jacques Derrida, Dominick LaCapra and Donald Winnicott, the thesis considers the enabling potential that is implicated in this crisis. It suggests that mourning has the capacity to manifest productively as a form of localised intervention or "revolt" that simultaneously invigorates the inner life of the subject and subverts certain ideological aspects of contemporary, Western culture. In particular, the thesis suggests that the significance of productive mourning lies in its capacity to attenuate, via an anti-elegiac approach to narrative, the normative discourse of "identity", a crucial element of the discursive network that sustains a socio-political system mired in the "truth" of liberal individualism. Productive mourning facilitates an interrogation of the self-other/subject-object dialectic embedded in Western culture. This interrogation might be conceived as a deconstruction of the subject in its privileged status relative to alterity, the deconstruction of, in other words, "identity" and its processes. The thesis is informed by the author's experience of bereavement and mourning following suicide. Utilising a fictocritical approach, it performs a commentary in addition to an argument, evincing a unique approach to delineating the personal, cultural and ethical significance of loss.

Providing a new perspective on The Adventures of David Simple and its sequel David Simple: Volume the Last, this thesis reveals the utopian disillusion that causes the collapse of the ideal community in Sarah Fielding¡¦s novels. David Simple idealizes human relationships, but at a price of glossing the weakness in David and his family members that stains their ideal utopia. The problematic feminine utopia and the simulated intention of the utopian leader¡XDavid Simple¡Xgive rise to the ruin of this benevolent community. The thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter attempts to interpret the novel by emphasizing what it glosses over rather than by celebrating the admirable virtues in the David family; such a skeptical frame of mind with respect to Sarah Fielding¡¦s David Simple is rarely seen. Chapter Two connects Utopianism further with Sarah Fielding¡¦s novels. Sarah Fielding adopts not only the traditions of the utopian genre but also innovates it in David Simple. Some features of it, however, develop utopian disillusions that can hardly be overcome. In the third chapter, we switch our focus to the feminine perspective, reading the novels as a feminine utopia. The ambiguities within their feminine utopia within the utopian community bring on its final failure. Chapter Four investigates the human relationships of the David family, exhibiting the unspoken intentions of the protagonist¡XDavid Simple. Both in The Adventures of David Simple and in Volume the Last, money is an essential instrument for plot movement; David wisely uses money to exchange it for friendship and a new-styled family. We are stunned to find that, what David searches for, however, is not true friendship. He attempts to reconstruct an ideal family by collecting friends. At the end of the novels, David successfully purchases a new family, but he disappoints the expectant readers who shared his adventure for more than nine years in searching for and believing in true friendship. The conclusion of this thesis indicates the need of a suspicious attitude in reading David Simple. Such an attitude does justice to the growing darkness in Fielding¡¦s own vision, and deepens her achievement as a writer.

Abstract This thesis proposes to scrutinize and analyze the contrasts that abound in Sarah Fielding¡¦s novel, The Adventures of David Simple. Contrasts pervade the novel because they exist in the themes, between the paired protagonists, and between part one and part two. The hero, David Simple, is characterized by his extreme benevolence that rarely exists among us. He seems uncommon by prioritizing friendship over anything else. He is an extremist in point of godliness, innocence, spirituality, sentimentality, and benevolence. With like-minded friends, David sets up a utopian community that grows from four to eleven members, but at last only two female members survive. The annihilation of David¡¦s secluded utopia brings about the enigma that good seems to go unrewarded. This thesis attempts to draw on feudalism and capitalism to explain the decline of David¡¦s utopia by analyzing the patron-client relationship that evolves between David Simple and Mr. Orgueil. Chapter one gives an overview of this novel, mentions the novel¡¦s reception by major critics, and introduces each chapter that follows. Chapter two delineates the thematic structure of the novel. Major themes are Christian spirit, friendship, and envy. Sub-themes are composed of thematic contrasts between innocence and sophistication, spirituality and materialism, sentimentality and rationality, and benevolence and malevolence. Chapter three analyzes parallels in the contrasts between Cynthia and Mrs. Orgueil in order to prove my hypothesis that Cynthia equals Mrs. Orgueil in temperament, in intelligence, and in persistence. Chapter four explores the contrasting notions of happiness between David and Mr. Orgueil. These contrasts are those between godliness and worldliness, innocence and sophistication, spirituality and materialism, sentimentality and rationality, and benevolence and malevolence. This analysis of contrasting notions of happiness will lead me to conclude that both David and Mr. Orgueil attain transient and earthly happiness when they are alive, but only David attains eternal and heavenly happiness at the end of the novel. To sum up, the threshold of heavenly happiness is death. The prerequisite for an approach to that threshold of permanent happiness is benevolence, which avails to transcend sublunary happiness.