This sequential, mixed methods study explored students' attitudes towards collaborative learning and their responses to collaborative learning problems in relation to their identity salience. Identities are motivators of human actions that impact an individual's self-esteem and behavioral tendencies (Stryker, 1968). An individual has three identity aspects that are related to different behavioral tendencies: individual, relational, and collective aspects. The identity aspect that an individual acts out across a variety of situations is their identity salience. Implied by the identity salience theory, students' behaviors may be detrimental or beneficial to the effectiveness of collaborative learning based on their identity salience. Results of the study revealed a possible relationship between students' identity salience and their attitudes, prior experiences, working preferences, and priorities in collaborative learning. In addition, results of the study also disclosed students' behavioral tendencies in dealing with collaborative learning problems including group tension, the free-rider effect, and role taking in relation to students' identity salience. Findings of this study can be used to support further investigations on personalized student grouping for effective collaborative learning. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the opinions of African American college students as they relate to suicide. A questionnaire was distributed to 92 individuals in a computer classroom setting. Their responses were then analyzed to investigate whether ethnic identity salience influenced the students’ perspectives of suicide. Regression analysis revealed that ethnic identity salience did not influence acceptability and normality of suicide in the African American students. Analysis also demonstrated that ethnic identity salience did not effect whether the African American students viewed suicide as being related to mental or moral illness. Seventeen of those who took the questionnaire also participated in interviews. The interviews allowed the respondents to voice their opinions on suicide in the African American community. Nine key themes were discovered during the interviews. Suggestions for suicide prevention and interventions that are more effective, and the directions for future literature on the subject, are discussed.

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This study was designed to examine the attitudes of undergraduate students toward interracial dating. The study examined the influence of race, gender, and previous interracial dating experience on interracial dating attitudes. The independent variable of racial identity salience was also examined. A final sample consisted of 389 students, recruited from first year political science classes at the University of North Texas. An 11- item self administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. The results indicated that race and previous interracial dating experience was associated with college students' attitudes. A weak association was also found between greater racial identity salience and less positive interracial dating attitudes. Future research should further examine racial identity salience and its role in partner selection.

Organizational citizenship behaviors are extra-role behaviors that are costless to the organizations / however they play important roles in filling the gaps that are not prescribed in job descriptions or contracts of the employees. Organizational citizenship behaviors are important for lubricated functioning of the organizations. Although there are quite a number of studies on organizational citizenship behaviors, previous research has not considered identity salience among their antecedents. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between identity salience and organizational citizenship behaviors. The second purpose of this study was to investigate the moderating effect of occupational commitment on the relationship between identity salience and organizational citizenship behaviors. A survey was conducted at the project groups of seven companies and 13 non-profit organizations, each of which has multinational work-force. The number of the participants was 242. After the outlier analyses, 204 cases were left for further study. Regression analyses were performed on the data to test the relations of the variables. In line with the expectations, saliences of gender, national, and occupation identities negatively predicted several dimensions of organizational citizenship behaviors. Contrary to the expectations, occupational commitment did not moderate the relation between identity salience and organizational citizenship behaviors.

This dissertation study examined how the activation of national identity influences consumer evaluations of ads using patriotic appeals. Specifically, this study proposed that (1) priming of national identity through the cues within media-context would activate consumers’ national identity, making it momentarily salient, and this increased national identity salience, in turn, would affect consumer responses to the ads using patriotic themes; and (2) the impact of national identity salience on evaluations of patriotic ads among ethnic minority consumers (i.e., Asian Americans) would be different from that among majority consumers (i.e., Caucasian Americans). As expected, findings from this study showed that activating consumers’ national identity through a national identity prime (i.e., a news story about a national event) led to favorable responses to the ads featuring patriotic themes. Further, results of this study indicated that the effect of national identity salience on increasing evaluations of ads using patriotic themes was significantly stronger for ethnic minority consumers than was for majority consumers. / text

Subordination of judgment is a fundamental threat to auditor objectivity. Subordination of judgment occurs when auditors agree with their superiors either in spite of or without forming their own independent judgments. Many audit procedures rely on independent, critical thinking at every level of the audit team; however, a number of studies suggest that auditors tend to agree with superiors even when a superior's views clearly run contrary to generally accepted accounting principles. While there is general agreement among scholars that subordination of judgment is "bad," very little attention has been given to moral biases that might influence an auditor's tendency to subordination of judgment, or to potential remedies that could mitigate an auditor's tendency to subordinate judgment. Moral Foundations Theory suggests that individuals tend to make intuitive, normative evaluations of situations based upon a set of personal moral biases or preferences called "moral foundations." Two specific moral foundations could influence subordination of judgment in divergent ways. The moral foundation of loyalty-respect may make agreement with a superior's views seem more acceptable than would disagreement. Meanwhile, the moral foundation of fairness may make an auditor more sensitive to the observance of rules, resulting in less subordination of judgment when a superior's views run contrary to professional rules. Social Identity Theory suggests that in-group favoritism may exacerbate subordination of judgment in general; however, strengthening an auditor's professional identity salience (PIS) could strengthen an auditor's objectivity. PIS is the temporary, heightened awareness of an auditor's identity as a professional and their role as guardian of professional rules. As a result, PIS may interact with an auditor's innate sense of fairness, resulting in less subordination of judgment than when professional identity is less salient. Results supported the hypothesis that auditors tend to subordinate their judgment to that of a superior, but not that PIS mitigates the effect of subordination of judgment. Results also supported the hypotheses that the moral foundations of loyalty-respect and fairness influence the tendency of auditors to subordinate their judgment to that of a superior. Specifically, auditors with higher levels of loyalty-respect were more likely to agree with a superior who suggested an incorrect accounting treatment than auditors with lower levels of loyalty-respect. Whereas, auditors with higher levels of fairness were less likely to agree with a superior who suggested an incorrect treatment than were auditors with lower levels of fairness. Therefore, this dissertation provides evidence that moral foundations bias professional judgment and decision making in auditing and calls for further research into the influence of moral heuristics.

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