abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine how a profile owner's (PO's) response to a friend's comment on Facebook impacts social attractiveness of the PO. A 3 (response type: denial, humble, no response) x 2 (sex of the participant) between-subjects experiment was conducted using 297 participants who were recruited from a large public university and a community college in the southwest United States. It was hypothesized that being humble and accepting of implied negative behavior statements would increase the social attractiveness of the profile owner compared to denial or no response. A one- way ANCOVA with social desirability as the covariate was used to analyze the data. Results were non-significant for the main effects of response type but were significant for the main effects of the sex of the participant with male participants finding the profile owners more socially attractive than female participants. The results suggest that a PO's response to a negative Friend comment does not impact the PO's social attractiveness. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Counseling 2014

Asian international students (AIS) are becoming increasingly more populous in American universities each year. While AIS are enrolled in the same required classes as American students, it has been observed that frequent interaction between AIS and American students is rather uncommon. Due to obvious social hesitation between the two groups of students during classroom discussion, the study presented was initiated in order to unveil possible reasons for this social integration dilemma. Social Attractiveness, Perceived Homophily and Attributional Confidence scales were selected in order to determine possible factors contributing to this dilemma. In order to pursue explanations for the dormant socialization between the two groups of students during class, a survey was administered to a convenience sampling of 426 undergraduate students enrolled in upper-level courses at the University of Central Florida. Results indicated that passive classroom behavior was perceived as less socially desirable by American students. In fact, participants determined that students reflecting passive classroom behavior were less socially attractive, less similar, and less predictable than students that demonstrated active classroom behavior. Ethnicity factors did not play a key role in determining social appeal. These findings provide evidence that the social integration dilemma facing AIS and American students has much more to do with perceived social behavior and cultural differences regarding classroom behavior than with racial prejudice or ethnicity factors.

This study first examines the effectiveness of stealing thunder in increasing the target’s liking for the discloser. The study further inspects liking relative to the amount of information known about the discloser prior to their initial interaction. Additionally, the target’s perception of the negativity of the information revealed is observed. 120 subjects participated in an experiment during which they were either exposed to the negative information via the confederate or the experimenter or were not exposed at all. Results, although interesting, were largely inconsistent with the hypotheses. This could have been due to several factors namely, poor experimental execution and unreliability of measurement. However, stealing thunder, with further testing, has several implications for the current state of the stealing thunder literature and future research.

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Tidigare forskning visar att det finns en koppling mellan musiksmak och social attraktion mellan människor, eftersom delad musiksmak ofta innebär delade personliga värderingar, och delade personliga värderingar kan innebära större chans för social attraktion. Målet med undersökningen har varit att ta reda på om musiksmak har någon korrelation med personliga värderingar, och vilka algoritmer som i så fall skulle kunna användas för att beräkna korrelationen. En modell ställs upp för en teoretisk perfekt matchningsalgoritm mot vilken de undersökta algoritmerna testas och jämförs praktiskt. Studien, som är uppdelad i tre delar, undersöker algoritmerna närmare med hjälp av testdata i formen av datorgenererade värden i den första och andra delen. Den första delen använder data i formen av heltal (antalet förekomster av musikpreferens) och den andra använder data i formen av binära tal (förekomst eller ej av musikpreferens). Den tredje delen använder sig av användardata, från 13 deltagare, från Spotify samt från en enkät om personliga värderingar. Resultaten visar ingen uppenbar korrelation mellan personliga värderingar och musiksmak, vilket troligtvis beror på datamängderna; det kan vara så att det krävs mer detaljerad och strukturerad användardata än den som inhämtats och använts i denna undersökning för att få tydliga resultat. / Earlier research shows that there is a connection between music taste and social attraction between people, because shared music taste usually means shared personal values, and shared personal values could mean greater chance for social attraction. The goal with the project has been to find out if music taste is correlated with personal values, and what algorithms can be used to calculate that correlation. A model is defined for a perfect matching-algorithm against which the studied algorithms are tested and compared practically. The study, which is divided into three parts, investigates the algorithms closer using test data in the form of computer-generated values in the first and second part. The first part uses data in the form of integers (the number of occurences of a music preference) and the second part uses data in the form of binary numbers (occurence or not of a music preference). The third part uses real user data, from 13 participants, from Spotify and from a survey regarding personal values. The results show no apparent correlation between personal values and music taste, the cause of which is most likely the data; it could be that it takes more detailed and structured user data than the one used in this study to get clear results.