This dissertation aims to provide a deeper understanding of consumer emotions from user-generated content. In the first essay of my dissertation, “Digital Therapy for Negative Consumption Experiences: The Impact of Emotional and Rational Reviews on Review Writers and Readers,” we examine whether the manner in which a consumer writes a review can help them recover from a negative consumption experience, as well as how this influences other review readers. To test these research questions, we use a multimethod approach and collect archival data, field data, and participants’ physiological responses as well as memory recall. We employ machine learning techniques to train multilabel classifiers with review textual data and categorize online reviews into one of the three types: emotional (feelings and emotions), rational (facts, beliefs, and thought processes), and integrated (the combination of the two). We first show that, similar to writing about traumatic life experiences, when a review writer writes an integrated review about a negative experience (compared to when they only express emotional or rational aspects), they feel better afterwards and are more likely to purchase again. We also show that integrated reviews do not any have adverse effects on review readers. Finally, in two controlled experiments, we examine the underlying mechanisms for this positive effect of writing an integrated review on review writers by collecting biophysiological response data (i.e., review writers’ blood pressure and pulse) and by analyzing thought listing data. The results show that writing an integrated review about a negative consumption experience appears to lead to catharsis and cognitive reappraisal of the negative experience, which in turn lead to better outcomes. This research shows that writing online reviews can serve as a digital therapy tool that helps consumers recover from negative consumer experiences and has positive benefits for the involved firms. This has important implications for the design of review systems and for firms, especially in situations where customers have negative experiences with their products and services. The first essay of my dissertation suggests that consumers can benefit by expressing emotions (together with rational thoughts) in their online reviews. In the second essay of my dissertation, “Are Emotions Gendered? Gender Stereotypes in Online Reviews,” we examine whether the domain of online reviews is inclusive enough to allow all consumers to feel free to express their emotions. In this research, we examine whether review readers’ reactions to reviews where writers express their emotion vary with the gender of the review writer. More specifically, we examine how gender stereotypes in general, and the belief that females are more emotional than males in particular, influences review readers’ reactions to reviews as well as the manner in which review writers construct their reviews. We find that even though the domain of online reviews is a relatively private and safe place for consumers to express their evaluations of products and services, a common feature of online review system designs, that is asking review writers to provide an avatar and/or names that might reflect their gender, leads to less favorable reactions to reviews written by women (vs. men) because of gender stereotypes. Further, when the stereotype that women are more emotional than men is made salient before review writing (versus when it is not), female review writers express less emotion, possibly because emotionality has negative associations such as being “irrational,” “overdramatic,” and “sensitive.” This finding is important because other research has shown that reviews that contain more emotion are evaluated more positively by review readers. Most importantly, while we provide evidence that this stereotype is believed and has a negative impact on review writers and readers, we show that it is not true in this context – females are no more emotional than men in review writing contexts.

This study compares the development of the human cerebral cortex of 224 girls and 284 boys in a series of cross-sectional analyses as measured by EEG coherence on normal children's brains (longisectional design). Correlations of these EEG readings taken from all brain regions between a mean age of 6 months and 16 years yield measures of synaptic communication. Time series of these measures reflect the changing growth patterns across the 16 years. Time series of mean EEG coherence are oscillating waves that travel across left-right and front-back spatial gradients in both hemispheres. Growth spurts in mean coherence correlate with the genetic process of synapse overproduction and pruning spurts correlate with synapse elimination. Growth processes in neural connections evident in each hemisphere were examined in detail. Principal components analysis with varimax rotation identified in-phase patterns of connectivity for 64 electrode-pair sites. Analyses of effect-size differences in mean and variance ratios assisted in determining the developmental patterns in each of the brain regions studied. The study finds gender differences in both neurological structures and the timing of their development, with the timing differences being most prominent. Each sex's postnatal development concentrates on networks that showed less cortical growth during early fetal development; i.e, females favor the right hemisphere and males favor the left. Gender differences are greatest in the left prefrontal medial and lateral regions and the right posterior region, supporting gender differences indicated by anatomical, neurological and psychometric assessments. These regions support cognitive tasks of language expression and articulation, spatial visualization, judgment and goal setting. Fine-grain analyses of 42 intrahemisphere electrode-pair sites indicate the timing difference at some sites is a phase shift less than a year; at other sites, the difference is substantial, not easily described by a phase-shift dimension. other gender differences related to rate of development are specified. / Ph. D.

This reader-response study focuses on the influences that four readers relationships with families and friends have on their responses to several literary characters and the relationships among these characters as presented in six short stories. Four college students, two men and two women, read and responded to the stories in writing and in interviews with the researcher. The stories depict men and women confronting gender related family or individual crises concerning such topics as independence, autonomy, and the nature of the marriage commitment and male/female relationships. / Ed. D.

W. Edwards Deming/s management philosophy of continuous improvement, TQM, has gained attention in the public and private sectors as a means of resolving the "crisis" in modern American organizations. TQM's effectiveness is dependent on its principled implementation. As an imbalanced perspective, the hyper-rational masculine conventional management wisdom has thwarted real organizational innovations by limiting methods, techniques, and actions to its frame of assumptions. A radically different set of assumptions or world view, the feminine perspective, is needed to provide balance and to create the possibility of true innovation that can lead to resolution of the crisis faced by American organizations. Jungian psychoanalytic understanding of psyche structure, development, and the dynamics of repression provide the theoretical framework for understanding the importance of a principled implementation of TQM. This principled implementation will avert an masculine warping of TQM and will provide a means of balance between the masculine and feminine principles. Critical analysis of documentation and literature reveals clear evidence of TQM's congruence with the feminine principle and its potential for radical change in organizations and society. / Ph. D.

Differential item functioning on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was examined in regard to gender. The Myers-Briggs has a differential scoring system for males and females on its thinking/feeling subscale. This scoring system preserves the 60 % thinking male and 30 % thinking female proportion that is implied by the Jungian theory underlying the Indicator. The MBTI's authors contended that the sex-based differential scoring system corrects items that subjects at a certain level of a latent trait either incorrectly endorse or leave blank. This reasoning is the classical definition of differential item functioning (DIF); consequently, the non differentially scored items should exhibit DIF. If these items do not show DIF, then there would be no reason to use a differential scoring system. Although the Indicator has been in use for several decades, no rigorous item response theory (IRT) item-level analysis of the Indicator has been undertaken. IRT analysis allows for mean differences in subgroups to occur, independent of the question of DlF. Linn and Harnisch's (1981) pseudo-lRT analysis was chosen to test for the presence of DlF in the MBTl items because it is best for tests of relatively small length. The Myers-Briggs subscales range from 22 to 26 items, which is relatively small by lRT standards. lRT analyses conducted on N=1887 subjects indicated that no items on the thinking/feeling subscale showed evidence of DIF. Out of 94 items, only one extraversion/introversion item and one judging/perception item showed evidence of DIF; no Thinking/Feeling items showed DIF. It is recommended that sex-based differential MBTI scoring be abandoned, and that the distribution of type in the population be examined in future studies. / Ph. D.

There are many questions about the long-term effects of college athletic participation that have not been studied, especially issues regarding gender. Because of socialization and the structural differences in men's and women's sports, the long-term effects of sports participation may be different for men and women athletes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of competition through college sports participation on job satisfaction and life satisfaction of former men and women athletes. Research was conducted on men and women who participated at the college level in basketball, track and field, swimming and diving, and tennis from 1983-1988 at Virginia Tech. Data were collected using a mail survey adapted from the Sports Orientation Questionnaire (Gill & Deeter, 1988), the revised and abridged version of the Life Satisfaction Index-A ( Kleiber, Greendorfer, Blinde, & Samdahl, 1987) and the Index of Job Satisfaction (Brayfield & Rothe, 1951). Data were analyzed using t-tests and regression models to determine the relationship between the independent variables of gender and level of competitiveness and the dependent variables of job satisfaction and life satisfaction. No significant difference was found between gender and its relationship to job satisfaction and life satisfaction. This result may have great importance given that women experience discrimination in sports participation. It seems that women are able to overcome these adverse conditions and achieve levels of job satisfaction and life satisfaction equal to men. Level of competitiveness was not statistically significant either; however this may be due to a small variance among the sample's level of competitiveness. / Master of Arts

This study investigated the leadership perceptions of males and females from a leadership categorization (Lord, Foti, & Phillips, 1982) perspective. Subjects read vignettes of male and female student leaders which differed in terms of prototypicality of exhibited leader behaviors. Various measures were administered to assess leadership perceptions. Results showed that prototypicality of behavior accounted for general leadership impressions, while gender of the target accounted for accuracy on a recognition of behaviors measure. Subjects showed both a tendency to process information veridically and to use categorization principles. These results are discussed in terms of conditions that might emphasize gender as the basis for categorization and subsequent leadership perceptions (i.e., task complexity). It is these latter situations in which stereotypes about female leaders will be detrimental. / Master of Science

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Abstract not available

Previous research demonstrates expectations predict actual performance. These studies evaluated the influence of other variables, specifically task sex orientation, biological gender, and sex-role identification, on performance expectancies. Two studies investigated sex differences in performance expectancies: Study 1 used a task normatively favoring males; Study 2 used a task normatively unbiased by gender. Subjects were 207 undergraduates, approximately equal numbers of males and females. Experimenter sex was controlled. Performance expectancies were influenced by interactions of task sex orientation with biological gender and task sex orientation with sex-role identification, but these variables became secondary to personal experience. These findings were interpreted as having implications on initial choice and consequent involvement in novel activities and situations.