There is a substantial body of literature establishing relationship satisfaction as a significant predictor of an individual’s psychological and physical wellbeing. This study expands that literature by studying an individual’s intention to strengthen and sustain the physical well-being of his/her residence as a function of his/her relationship satisfaction. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model provides the overarching framework for this study. Fundamental to the ecological theory is the interaction between an individual and its surrounding environments. Based on this, the study aims in exploring the interactions between an individual’s internal (relationship satisfaction) and external (residential well-being) environments. The study has two primary research questions: Can “relationship” be used as a predictor of individual’s intentions to maintain and improve the physical well-being of his/her residence? Does the type of family structures affect this association? The study intends to answer these questions by studying the relationship satisfaction of 1395 homeowners in Florida and their intentions to prepare their homes for hurricanes and improve their residential energy-efficiency. Here, hurricane preparedness and residential energy-efficiency are used as indicators for improving residential well-being. The motivation behind conducting this study is to understand the larger range of impact relationship satisfaction can have in an individual’s life.

This dissertation illuminates health inequalities by focusing on two motivational goods. One is expecting good things to happen: being optimistic, in other words. Another is feeling good, in terms of emotional well-being. While previous research has demonstrated the value of these psychological resources to understanding social inequality, basic questions remain about how and why these resources bring about health inequalities. In Chapter Two, I use data from the 2005 Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) to examine interactions between optimism and autonomy at work as they relate to psychological distress and positive emotion. I utilize my results to shed light on how autonomy matters to mental health: findings are consistent with autonomy as a lack of oppression or as a "strong" social situation, rather than autonomy as an opportunity to thrive. In Chapter Three, I test hypotheses about optimism in the context of relationship- and work-based crises, using data from the 2004 General Social Survey. I find that dispositional optimism is associated with increases in self-esteem and health; its effect on these outcomes intensifies around the time of relationship crises and is stronger for women than for men. In Chapter Four, I draw and build upon a capital activation perspective to argue that emotional well-being activates education. Using a representative panel sample of middle-aged adults (MIDUS: 1995-2005), I indeed find that emotional well-being activates education, leading to especially favorable gains in health, sense of control and voluntary association involvement - or, more strikingly, to no effect of education at low levels of well-being. Moreover, an auxiliary fixed-effects analysis of activation (based on the MIDUS 1995 Identical Twins sample) replicates these findings. In total, I find that capital activation is a powerful source of social stratification that rivals the importance of capital itself.

Psychological resilience, conceptualized as the ability to bounce back from stress (Tugade, 2011), has garnered increased attention across various fields of psychology and related disciplines. Despite its popularity, researchers have yet to come to a consensus regarding the nomological network of this construct, as well as its distinctiveness from conceptually similar constructs (i.e., hardiness, grit). In this paper, I use meta-analytic techniques (Hunter & Schmidt, 2004) to quantitatively synthesize three decades of previous empirical work on resilience and related-constructs and their correlates, integrating findings from more than 400 studies. Results show that resilience overlaps substantially with big-five personality traits as a set and shows consistent, though more moderate, relationships with social support variables. Furthermore, results indicate that resilience and hardiness are not isomorphic constructs, as they demonstrate differential relationships with dispositional and situational correlates. Results also show that resilience and hardiness are both moderately to strongly related to health and well-being outcomes, in the anticipated directions, as well as proposed mediators in the literature (i.e., positive emotion, adaptive coping). However, incremental validity analyses consistently show that both resilience and hardiness only increment very marginally (i.e., on average 1-3% of the variance) over the big-five personality traits in predicting health and well-being outcomes. Taken together, this large-scale quantitative summary calls into question the distinctiveness of resilience from existing dispositional traits as well as its predictive utility in the health and well-being domain. Implications for future research, theory development, and measurement issues are discussed.

A study will be conducted to determine whether Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), improves the sexual well-being of survivors of sexual assault by decreasing experiential avoidance. The hypotheses for this study are that 1) Levels of reported sexual well-being will increase in participants in the ACT condition; 2) Based on ACT’s explicit emphasis on reduction of experiential avoidance (Hayes, 1999; Hayes, 2016), it is hypothesized that levels of reported avoidance will decrease in participants in the ACT condition; 3) Due to the link between avoidance and sexual problems in female survivors of sexual assault proposed by Ensink & Van Berlo (2000), it is hypothesized that avoidance will act as a mediator in the relationship between ACT and sexual well-being such that lower levels of avoidance will be correlated with higher levels of sexual well-being. A minimum of 128 female college students who have survived sexual violence will be recruited and randomly assigned to receive either the ACT condition or the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) condition, which will serve as a control. Prior to experiencing therapy, participants will take the Demographic and Sexual History Questionnaire, adapted from Byers & Lemieux, 2008. After going through therapy, participants will take a survey measuring sexual well-being and avoidance. Since there are no established measures for sexual well-being, it will be measured by creating a composite score from three measures: sexual self-esteem, sexual functioning, and sexual anxiety.

Mastitis and milk quality affect every dairy farmer across the globe. Sand bedded freestalls are the industry standard for cow comfort, welfare, and the control of environmental mastitis. Compost bedded packs may be a viable alternative to the sand bedded freestall. Compost bedded packs are maintained at a consistent level of moisture, nutrients, and aeration to favor compost microorganisms. Greater bacteria counts in bedding have traditionally been associated with increased mastitis rates and mastitis pathogens can be found in the pack and on the teats of cattle housed in even well managed compost bedded pack barns. In spite of this, herd SCC often remains low in well managed herds. The relationship between stress and comfort in the housing environment was a primary focus of this research. Cows housed in environments with low stress and high comfort may be better able to defend themselves against pathogens. Establishing changes in immune function in response to housing environment would improve milk quality by contributing to the knowledge of how mastitis-causing pathogens are contracted. An additional goal of this research was to determine the effect of compost bedded pack barns on thermoduric bacteria populations. Due to the increased temperatures associated with composting, thermoduric bacteria capable of surviving pasteurization are of potential concern in compost bedded packs. This research will investigate potential differences in thermoduric bacteria counts between compost bedded packs and sand bedded freestalls.

Based on a sample of 1,012 late adolescents and young adults (ages 18-26), the current three interrelated studies tested a series of specific questions and hypotheses focused on understanding Internet Addiction. Study 1 sought to directly compare psychometric properties of four of the most widely used Internet addiction scales based on citation metrics (Internet Addiction Test, Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire, Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale 2 and Chen Internet Addiction Scale), and to aggregate the best items across all scales into a new measure using bifactor IRT analyses. The resulting 10-item Aggregated Internet Addiction Scale (AIAS) consists of the best performing items from the original scales, representing each of Griffiths’ six conceptual criteria, and matches each original scale in performance (reliability, test information, relationship with covariates) with considerably lower item count. This offers an important alternative to scholars seeking a reliable and valid measure which is consistent with Griffiths’conceptual work. Study 2 tested a set of hypotheses based on a behavioral model of Internet addiction in which online activities are used and reinforced as a maladaptive coping strategy to manage stress. If Internet is used to disengage from stressors, it may become associated with the desirable outcome (reducing stress), while not actually solving it; rather, it would exacerbate the underlying problems and therefore create more stress. Stress was found to be positively associated with Internet addiction symptoms; in addition, this effect was mediated by reliance on problem disengagement coping strategies. Self-control was found to moderate the relationship of stress and coping strategies (with exception of problem disengagement); however, it did so in an unexpected direction. At lower levels of self-control the relationship of stress and reliance on engagement strategies becomes more positive, and conversely, more negative for emotional disengagement The moderation, however, had little impact on the indirect effect. Finally, the third study tested a series of hypotheses based on Uses and Gratifications theory (UGT) and the existing literature on predictors of Internet addiction. Specifically, it compared low self-esteem (LSE), perceived social self-efficacy (PSSE), and self-control (SC) as predictors of Internet addiction. Building on UGT, specific online behaviors were examined as mediators of the relationship between known predictors and Internet addiction. Social networking was hypothesized to mediate the pathway from LSE and PSSE to Internet addiction; and the use of internet for entertainment was hypothesized to mediate the path from SC to Internet addiction. Using structural equation model SC was found to be the strongest predictor of Internet addiction, both directly and indirectly through entertainment use. After controlling for SC and entertainment online use, social networking and the hypothesized underlying predictors (LSE and PSSE) had no remaining explanatory power for Internet addiction. There three predictors overlapped to some degree, where SC explained the largest amount of unique variance.

Heavy Work Investment (HWI), the extent to which individuals invest energy and effort into doing their work, has recently been studied in regards to job-related outcomes and work-life conflict. However, research is negligible on the influence HWI (i.e., workaholism and work engagement) may have on psychological well-being when an individual performs “meaningful” work. Specifically, the present study investigated the role of HWI in the relationships between work meaningfulness and the psychological well-being outcomes of perceived stress, life satisfaction, and the emotional exhaustion sub-dimension of burnout. The existing literature on work meaningfulness, the extent to which an individual considers their work to be valuable and worthwhile, provides positive implications for an individual’s well-being. Additionally, given that workaholism is considered “bad” and that work engagement is considered “good”, the aim of this study was to shed light on whether the presence of HWI moderated the relationship between work meaningfulness and psychological well-being. The sample contained 219 individuals who were either full time working professionals or part time working college students. Hayes’ PROCESS Command was used to test the moderation and mediation effects. Results indicated that workaholism and work engagement did not moderate the relationships of interest. However, work engagement did mediate these relationships. Implications, limitations, and avenues for future research are discussed.

The role of the nurse manager is important in organizations and influences outcomes such as the safety and quality of care provided on a unit, satisfaction, turnover of nursing staff, and overall health of the work environment. Stressors for managing nurses can impair physical and emotional health and lead to poor patient and staff satisfaction, safety, and outcomes. The evidence-based practice project will explore nurse managers' well-being and self-care activities. The theoretical framework of the project is the Relationship-Based Care Model as well as Kotter's change theory. The literature suggests that self-care activities can reduce stress and improve well-being. A group of nurse managers who have accountability for inpatient hospital units will be recruited to participate in the project through public discussion boards and email groups of organizations that support nurse leaders. They will be educated through a self-guided learning module about stress and self-care and then will be asked to participate in self-care activities 3 times weekly for 4 weeks. Following the education, the nurse managers will complete a researcher-crafted posteducational assessment to evaluate whether the education and activities met their needs, whether they learned new information, and the helpfulness of the project. Nurse managers participating in regular self-care are able influence positive social change by role modeling healthy coping skills to nurses providing direct care to patients. Self-care promotes effective stress management and contributes a healthier work environment.

For more than 50 years, researchers have recognized complications associated with obesity and pregnancy as a problem for mothers and their unborn children. Despite this recognition, the rates of obesity and mortality in pregnant women have continued to rise. Using the health belief model, the transtheoretical model of behavior change, and the social cognitive theory as the theoretical frameworks, this phenomenological study examined barriers that might hinder the health of obese pregnant women and their unborn children. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 women who had a body mass index of 30 to 50, were between the ages of 18-55, and were at 20 to 30 gestational weeks. The data were coded for emergent inductive themes revealing (a) despite obesity and excessive weight gain, pregnant women believed they were healthy (b) labor and delivery decisions are hindered by uncertainty (c) pregnant women are comfortable when communication is not related to obesity, (d) pregnant obese women share the consumption of similar carbohydrates, (e) public rejection or support is influenced by self-concepts, (f) pregnant obese women believe that providers and the public treat them differently, (g) obesity and excessive weight gain is expected during pregnancy, and (h) stress and life circumstances are related. These findings promote implications for positive social change through the awareness that some pregnant obese women do not believe that they are obese, unhealthy, or prone to disease, and they do not view their weight as a health issue. Although further research is needed, these findings may aid providers and clinicians regarding awareness of factors that might hinder weight loss and the overall health and well-being of obese pregnant women and their children.

acase@tulane.edu / In the nearly 30 years since the Convention on the Rights of Child (UN, 1989) first called for the inclusion of children in research, evidence has demonstrated the many benefits of engaging children as active participants in research. There exists a gap in qualitative research examining the psychological well-being of elementary-aged African American children. This study used child-friendly qualitative methodology to understand the psychological well-being of elementary-aged African American children living in New Orleans, Louisiana. The study explored children’s stressors, supports, and reactions to stressors and supports from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders: elementary-aged children, parents of elementary-aged children, and school teachers and administrators. The purpose of the study was to gain understanding of children’s unique perspectives and to inform culturally-appropriate school-based supports. To understand the unique and shared perspectives of the stakeholders regarding the constructs of children’s psychological well-being, the research used children’s ecomap drawings, focus group narratives, and interview data. Through the use of a deductive-inductive coding process, Support, Reaction to Support, Stressor, and Reaction to Stressor themes and codes were identified and defined. The findings revealed overlap and unique perceptions regarding children’s psychological well-being. Further findings, implications, future research directions, and limitations are discussed. / 1 / Emiliya Adelson