The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on January 22, 2010). Thesis advisor: Dr. Amanda J. Rose. Includes bibliographical references.

Project Thesis (D. Min.)--Denver Seminary, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 207-214).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-159).

Past research has indicated that masculine socialization norms contribute to avoidance of intimacy in close relationships, which has been proposed to inhibit men’s psychological adjustment. The goal of the current dissertation was to examine associations among parental bonding, gender role conflict, affect regulation capacity, and adult attachment avoidance to describe the dynamic interaction between psychological and societal influences impacting adult attachment style. The present investigation employed a developmental contextual framework used to examine attachment and psychoanalytic theories describing the evolution of characteristic male interpersonal strategies. In the current study, it was proposed that parental bonding would predict adult attachment avoidance, gender role conflict, and affect regulation capacity. It was also hypothesized that both gender role conflict and three distinct affect regulation variables would predict adult attachment avoidance. Finally, the study aimed to test a model proposing that gender role conflict and affect regulation variables mediate the relationship between parental bonding and avoidance of intimacy in romantic relationships. Two hundred and sixty-six undergraduate men completed a series of online surveys and 10 of these individuals participated in open-ended, follow-up interviews. The relationships between study variables were examined with linear regression and mediational analyses. Qualitative data regarding constructs of interest were elicited from interview respondents and interpreted for themes. Results demonstrated partial support for mediation effects, indicating that gender role conflict, emotion regulation suppression, and emotion regulation reappraisal helped to explain the association between maternal bonding care and adult attachment avoidance. In addition, interview themes related to five content areas were described and integrated with implications for future research directions and clinical applications. Results of this study identified significant mechanisms underlying the development of men’s maladaptive discomfort with intimacy in adulthood. Findings revealed through investigation of male interpersonal connections and the origins of specific emotion regulation strategies will assist researchers and clinicians to further elucidate the construct of masculinity from a developmental contextual perspective. Study outcomes indicated that masculine gender role socialization and capacity to regulate affect should be key points of intervention for therapists working with men presenting with relational difficulties linked to early parental attachments. / text

This study was conceptualized from my own experience working on board cruise ships and from the lack of studies of relationships on board cruise ships. This thesis examines the question: how does globalization in the form of accelerated capitalism and inter- connectedness through the sharing of food and drink across national identities that takes place in the space of cruise ships affect intimate relationships of cruise employees? Through the examinations of narratives of nine ex-crewmembers, developed through qualitative interviews, by using both the phenomenological and narrative methodology a couple of prominent themes appeared. The interviewees described working on a cruise ship as “intense” and the passage of time appears faster on board ship. It appears throughout the narratives, the nature of accelerated capitalism in the cruise ship industry affects the way the majority conduct their relationships.

Today, individuals can relatively easily meet and communicate with each other over great distances due to increased mobility and advances in communication technology. This also allows intimate relationships to be maintained over large geographical distances. Despite these developments, long-distance relationships (LDRs), i.e. intimate relationships maintained over geographical distance, remain understudied. The present thesis aims to fill this knowledge gap and investigates how intimate partners who live so far away from each other that they cannot meet every day make their relationship ongoing beyond face-to-face interaction. Theoretically, this study departs from a symbolic interactionist viewpoint that invites us to study phenomena from the actor’s perspective. Conceptually, the thesis builds on the recent development in sociology of intimate lives that sees intimacy as a relational quality that has to be worked on to be sustained, and that focuses on the practices that make a relationship a relationship. Empirically, the thesis is based upon 19 in-depth interviews with individuals from Latvia with long-distance relationship experience. The thesis consists of four articles. Article I studies the context in which LDRs in Latvia are maintained, focusing on the normative constraints that complicate LDR maintenance. Article II analyses how intimacy is practiced over geographical distance. Article III examines how long-distance partners manage the experience of the time they are together and the time they are geographically apart. Article IV explores the aspect of idealization in LDRs. Overall, the thesis argues for the critical role of imagination in relationship maintenance. The relationship maintenance strategies identified within the articles are imagination-based mediated communication (creating sensual/embodied intimacy, emotional intimacy, daily intimacy and imagined individual intimacy); time-work strategies that enable long-distance partners to deal with the spatiotemporal borders of the time together and the time apart; and creating bi-directional idealization. The thesis is also one of the few works in the field of intimate lives in Eastern Europe and analyses the normative complications that long-distance partners face in their relationship maintenance in Latvia.

This project looks at the mutually imbricated relationship between space, sex, and technology in cultural output from the last fifteen years. Through an examination of sexual cruising cultures in Samuel R. Delany’s essays Times Square Red, Times Square Blue and John Cameron Mitchell’s film Shortbus, I unpack the ways in which technology is represented as a facilitator and barrier to the formation of spaces that foster queer sexual interactions. This thesis is interested in the ability of different technologies and spaces to promote the formation of heterogeneous relationships that cross categories of social difference—including race, class, and sexuality—following the HIV/AIDS crisis. Alongside an investigation of the potential of technologies of affiliation to support these kinds of interpersonal contacts, I argue that representations of technologically mediated intimacy are often limited to a hesitant ambivalence due to a cultural unease about the new types of non-normative relation offered by technology.

The existing scholarly literature that addresses the transgenerational transmission of family processes fails to answer many questions concerning adults' current relationships with partners and peers. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how adults' perceptions of their family of origin climates affect their own satisfaction with emotionally significant interpersonal relationships and their fear of intimacy in these relationships. Participants were recruited from a mid-western college. A total of 281 participants were tested.The main research question was: What is the nature of the relationship between adults' perceptions of their family of origin climate and their current relationship satisfaction/fear of intimacy. It was hypothesized that adults' perceptions of cohesion, expressiveness, independence, achievement orientation, intellectual-cultural orientation, active-recreational orientation, moral religious emphasis, and organization within their families of origin would be positively related to their satisfaction with their current friendship and partner relationships and negatively related to their fear of intimacy. It was conversely hypothesized that adult's perceptions of conflict and control within their families of origin would be negatively related to their current relationship satisfaction with friends and partners and positively related to their fear of intimacy.Family of origin climate was assessed by the Family Environment Scale which measures 10 aspects of family of origin climate. These are: cohesion, expressiveness, conflict, independent, achievement orientation, intellectual-cultural orientation, activerecreational orientation, moral-religious emphasis, organization, and control. Relationshipsatisfaction was measured in two types of relationships: partner relationship satisfaction with the Relationship Assessment Scale and peer relationship satisfaction with the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, Peer Scale. The Fear of Intimacy Scale was utilized to assess participants' anxiety or fear that influences intimacy in a close relationship or at the prospect of a close relationship. Participants also completed a demographic questionnaire.Results of a canonical correlation analysis indicated that perceptions of family of origin climate did not influence current relationship satisfaction or fear of intimacy in adults. Adults' perceptions of their family of origin climates did not influence their current relationship satisfaction and fear of intimacy. Limitations of the current study and recommendations for future research are discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

This essay is about the act of wearing contemporary jewellery has as a way of communication between human beings. I investigate the act of decorating the body as an important and basic human need.  This essay investigates the relationship between gender, feminine culture, and decoration within the Western world, thinking of jewellery as a socialisation method and not as a consequence of natural differences between sexes. This investigation presents a brief historical review of the role that jewellery has been playing in the relations between the genders and the changes it has undergone in terms of cultural process over the last centuries. I introduce to the reader the idea of performing jewellery with the aim of to highlight the relevance that decoration on the body has as a way to construct our identity.  The post-structuralist theories about gender and identity made by the feminist philosopher Judith Butler (Gender Trouble 1990, Undoing Gender 2004), and some philosophical perspectives on material culture, are used to support my investigation, to postulate that jewellery pieces can be viewed or understood  us as ‘queer apparatus’… As a way to explore and experience  jewellery as a ‘queer apparatus’, I have chosen few examples of contemporary jewellery.

This study was conceptualized from my own experience working on board cruise ships and from the lack of studies of relationships on board cruise ships. This thesis examines the question: how does globalization in the form of accelerated capitalism and inter- connectedness through the sharing of food and drink across national identities that takes place in the space of cruise ships affect intimate relationships of cruise employees? Through the examinations of narratives of nine ex-crewmembers, developed through qualitative interviews, by using both the phenomenological and narrative methodology a couple of prominent themes appeared. The interviewees described working on a cruise ship as “intense” and the passage of time appears faster on board ship. It appears throughout the narratives, the nature of accelerated capitalism in the cruise ship industry affects the way the majority conduct their relationships.