This thesis explores age differences in the ability to decode basic social cues from the face and, in particular, the eye region. Age-related declines in complex aspects of social perception, such as forced choice labelling of emotional expressions and theory of mind reasoning, are well documented.  However, research, to date, has not assessed age differences in more basic aspects of social perception such as eye-gaze detection, joint attention, or more implicit responses to emotional cues.  The first two experimental chapters of this thesis report a series of studies investigating age-related changes in gaze processing.  Both the ability to detect subtle differences in gaze direction and to subsequently follow the gaze cues given by others was found to decline with age. Age-related changes were also found in the integration of gaze direction with emotional (angry, joyful and disgusted) facial expressions, when making emotion perception and approachability judgements (Chapters 4 and 5).  Age differences in responses to happy facial expressions are further investigated in Chapter 6 by assessing sensitivity to discriminate between enjoyment and non-enjoyment smiles.  Findings indicated that older adults demonstrated a greater bias towards thinking that any smiling individual was feeling happy.  They were also more likely than younger participants to choose to approach an individual displaying a non-enjoyment smile.  The final experimental chapter explores whether the age of the face influences age-related changes in gaze following.  Age-related declines in gaze following were greatest when following the gaze cues of younger (vs. older) adults, highlighting the importance of closely matching age of stimulus and participant when investigating age differences in social perception.  Perceptual, neuropsychological and motivational explanations for these results are evaluated and implications of these research findings for older adults’ social functioning are discussed.

The correlation between social style and career satisfaction among emergency physicians was investigated. An e-mail survey was sent to a random sample of 1,000 members of the American College of Emergency Physicians in practice for at least three years; 707 had valid e-mail addresses. A twenty-item behavioral style survey instrument and a five-item career satisfaction scale were used. The study incorporated prenotification and reminder e-mails. Valid responses were obtained from 329 physicians (46.5%). No correlation was shown between social style and career satisfaction. Problems with both survey instruments were discovered. Survey respondents were unhappy with their careers, with an average satisfaction of 4.03, 1 being very satisfied, 5 very dissatisfied. Areas for future study include redoing the study using different survey instruments.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between ease of discussion of sexual likes and dislikes with a sexual partner and religious, expressive, and affectional influences in the family of origin.

This thesis examined student-participants' self-reported use of romantic relational maintenance strategies and their partners' reports of relational satisfaction. Additionally, individuals outside the romantic relationship reported on student-participants' general communicator style. The research proposed that general style reports would be predictive of relational maintenance strategy usage and of romantic partners' relational satisfaction. The study found that general style behaviors may not be indicative of relational maintenance strategy usage or romantic partners' relational satisfaction. Tests of sex differences revealed that females' expression of various relational maintenance strategies and style behaviors are associated with male partners' relational satisfaction; however, no results were obtained indicating specific behaviors expressed by males result in female partners' relational satisfaction.

This thesis examined 199 college students' reported use of relational maintenance strategies and their reports of the occurrence of sexual communication strategies within the relationship with their partners' reported relational satisfaction.

Sixty-six people who had recently experienced the death of a parent or a spouse completed a questionnaire packet to assess their current grief symptomatology and some characteristics of the relationships within their family. Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire 4-5 weeks after the death and then again six months later. The present study compared two competing models to explain whether the grief process affects the characteristics of relationships within the family system or that family characteristics affect the experienced grief symptoms.

Using an analogue format, the present study evaluated the viability of relationship and interactional concepts that have been applied to the physician-patient interaction to the field of organ donation by examining the donation request process between procurement coordinators and simulated families. Interpersonal processes were assessed using behavioral ratings by independent observers. Procurement coordinators were viewed as being more submissive than dominant and more friendly than hostile. Family members were viewed as being more hostile than friendly, more dominant and hostile than submissive or friendly, disclosing slightly more personal information than medical information, and engaging in slightly more shared decision making than providing medical information. Procurement coordinator gender and ethnicity and family ethnicity influenced interpersonal behavior. Several interpersonal variables were associated with measures of the “decision to donate” obtained from raters and simulated families. Implications for the field of organ donation and the training of procurement coordinators are discussed.

M.A. / Of late there has been an accelerated impetus in the study of marriage and its associated issues. A veritable deluge of research articles are regularly devoted to the topic, for example Hatfield and Sprecher (1986); Fincham and Bradbury (1987); Dion and Dion (1993); Kamo (1993). There has also been some recent South African research on marriage and mate selection, particularly Crous and Pretorius (1994). New books appear with striking regularity while instruments to measure aspects of relationships are readily available. These include Hendrick and Hendrick's Love Attitude Scale, Spanier's Dyadic Adjustment Scale, and Rubin's Love Scale (Tzeng, 1993). Relationships, love and marriage are becoming increasingly measurable and as more questions become answered, researchers are able to unravel some of the complexity within the field. Adams (1988) looks back at fifty years of family research to discover that it has become increasingly scientific despite dealing with so-called "soft" variables like adjustment and attitudes. When even more elusive constructs like satisfaction, contentment and love are introduced, social scientists find that the terrain might be uncomfortably abstract. However, it is anticipated that as this domain, once only the estate of poets and philosophers becomes steadily more understood, it will bear fruit by answering questions which can then be profitably applied in many couplecounselling situations. The concepts of mate selection, marriage and familial stability are at the heart of societal functioning. There are a myriad of variables that impact on these constructs, as is evident from Surra's (1990) decade review. Recent research has shed some light, albeit theoretical, on the reasons why two people form a marital dyad. Social scientists are thus slowly building a solid mass of knowledge relating to the entire process of how and why a couple eventually exist. This goes hand in hand with contemporary urgency, for the accelerating forces of career, sociological, psychological and economic pressures play havoc with older traditional values of stability and permanence in all these domains. Soaring divorce rates are only one symptom of couples and individuals buckling under these tremendous pressures. Clearly, whatever can be done to better understand the choices individuals make in forming marital dyads, can only be regarded as useful information. In the South African context, this type of research is similarly required. With the wealth of family and marriage research being done abroad, it is important to know if this information applies to South African couples. Thus the primary motivation for the study is to better understand the way South Africans love. Lee's (1976) treatise is widely accepted as a valuable model of love. To date no work appears to have been done using this model in South Africa. The aims of this study thus are: To determine if there is any relationship between the various lovestyles and marital satisfaction for a South African sample. To examine several contemporary models of love.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to explore the influence that smartphones have on personal (romantic) relationships. The thesis examines the influence of smartphones on private lives of partners. The first part of the thesis focuses on literature review presenting key studies that pursued similar topics as the research project. The research as such is described in the following chapters. The methodological basis of the project are in-depth interviews accompanied by questionnaire. The main part of the thesis is description of the research questions, the research sample, the process of analysis, and the interpretation of results of in-depth interviews and questionnaire. The achieved results were interpreted in the context of selected theoretical concepts. Mainly the concepts of Liquid modernity / Liquid love by Zygmunt Bauman and iDisorder by Larry Rosen were used. The aim of the thesis was to find out what kind of influence smartphones have on meeting a potential partner, on a consequent relationship, and also on a possible separation.

Speech perception plays an important role in how infants begin to produce speech. This study aims to understand how changes in infant selective attention to various parts of talking faces guides their understanding of speech and subsequent production. In this study, we tracked infant (4-12 months of age) and adult gaze patterns to determine where on a face they attend, when hearing and seeing the face speak in either their native (English) or a non-native language (Spanish). We also tracked infant selective attention to moving-silent and silent-static faces, to determine if this would result in different patterns of attention. The findings suggest that there are two shifts in infant attention. The first shift occurs between four and eight months of age, with infants shifting their eyes to the mouth of the talking face. The second shift occurs around twelve months of age, when infants begin to return their gaze back to the eye region when hearing and seeing their native language, but continue to attend to the mouth region when hearing and seeing the non-native language. Overall, the results of this study suggest that changes in selective attention to talking faces guides the development of speech production and is dependent on early language experience. / by Amy H. Tift. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.