Master of Humanities, Tiffin University, 2010, Humanities

The use of technology drives the evolution of society and society drives the evolution of technology in a symbiotic system. Underlying fundamental motives, including expressing, confirming, and augmenting a sense of self, strikingly adapt to these rapid evolutionary changes in culture. Seemingly continuous communication between large masses of individuals has become of increasingly high importance, and the enormous amount of mobile social networking technology certainly keeps the plethora of communication fluid and dynamic. A closer look at the potential social and political power of flash mobs in today's fast paced technological society is warranted because the mob mentality component of flash mobs has the feasibility to become highly dangerous very quickly. This research will explore the idea of whether or not flash mobs have any true constructive or destructive social or political power, in particular in terms of altering the outcome of social and or political protest, or if a flash mob is merely an entertaining form of performance art. In either case, flash mobs have become a widespread sociological factor that seems to permeate every facet of society and therefore should perhaps be examined as an essential part of popular culture.

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2015, Antioch Santa Barbara: Clinical Psychology

This dissertation focused on capturing and describing the experience of sexuality for women between the ages of 65 and 75 as they live in American society. The main research question asks how these women gain awareness, perceive, and react to the stereotypes, assumptions, expectations, and negative images associated with their sexuality. The participants completed a questionnaire and a semi-structured interview with the principal researcher. Information was gathered about age, relationships, family history, employment, and sexuality. In the interview general and specific questions were asked relating to sexuality in order to answer the research questions. The data from these was analyzed to answer the research questions. The short term goal of this research was to gain understanding and inform the field of psychology and the public about the experience of the studied population. Another goal was to outline possible implications of the findings for clinical practice and future research. The data collected was able to answer questions related to how social influences played a role in the lives of older women. The electronic version of the dissertation is accessible at the Ohiolink ETD center http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd

Master of Social Work, The Ohio State University, 1966, Graduate School

Master of Social Work, The Ohio State University, 1966, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1966, Graduate School

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Psychology

Background: Approximately one-third of depression cases feature clinically elevated inflammation. The Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression outlines one pathway to inflammation-driven depressive symptoms. It posits that those who report more frequent social stress and who have heightened inflammatory responses to an acute laboratory social stressor will have the greatest depressive symptom increases over time. Aims: This series of studies tested the Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression, and whether this pathway is specific to social stress. It also investigated whether omega-3 supplementation impedes this etiological pathway, especially among those who are socially stressed. Methods: To test the Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression, 76 physically healthy adults and 79 breast cancer survivors completed a laboratory social stressor (a marital conflict or the Trier Social Stress Test, respectively), had their blood drawn to assess inflammatory responsivity, and reported their stress exposure at baseline and their depressive symptoms at baseline and follow-up (one month later or four and eight months later, respectively). To test omega-3's effect on inflammatory responses, 138 middle-aged, sedentary adults were randomized to 2.5 g/day of omega-3, 1.25 g/day of omega-3, or placebo for four months. Before and after supplementation, they completed the Trier Social Stress Test and repeatedly had their blood drawn to assess inflammatory responsivity. The final study features secondary analyses from the same randomized, controlled trial to examine whether omega-3 reduced self-reported depressive symptoms among those who reported more social stress. Results: In the first study, those who reported more frequent social stress, but not other types of stress, and had greater inflammatory responsivity at baseline had heightened depressive symptoms at follow-up. This effect was specific to social stress. In the second study, omega-3 iii supplemen (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 2024, Agricultural Communication, Education and Leadership

The COVID-19 pandemic thoroughly disrupted the U.S. food supply chain, ushered in a new set of social norms, and reoriented how individuals interacted with each other. A need to find how severely these phenomena changed during and since the pandemic continues to exist. Existing literature suggests significant shifts in social norms and social exchange occurred because of the pandemic. But a gap in research exists in understanding the nuances of these shifts and their continued alterations. This study sought to understand food purchasing behavior changes during the pandemic and how social exchange and adherence to pandemic-time social norms were valued. This study also created a comprehensive chart creating a timeline through the pandemic of how social exchange and social norms shifted through the pandemic. Through this study, an investigation of food purchasing trends and experiences from before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic was conducted. To examine social exchange and social norms, a non-experimental quantitative study was conducted using Social Exchange Theory and Social Norms as guides. A convenience sample of 419 primary U.S. household food purchasers was taken via online survey offered on Amazon's Mechanical Turk service. The results of this study indicate a significant relationship between time during the pandemic and adherence to social norms and willingness and desire of social exchange. Findings of this study suggest the pandemic caused temporary higher adherence to social norms and an eventual drop in social exchange. This study supported SN and SET through its findings of social norms adherence and social exchange changes in relation to social norms. Further research of the relationship between SET and SN during the pandemic and other crises should be conducted.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, Psychology

This dissertation investigates the neural representation of complex social information by employing multivariate methods such as functional connectivity classification analyses and intersubject representational similarity analyses (IS-RSA). The present research examines the functional network associated with social interactions as well as the association between neural similarity and individual differences in emotional reactivity and empathy. Study 1 utilizes multivariate pattern analyses (MVPA) to classify different categories of social interactions based on connectivity patterns between brain regions involved in social perception. Study 2 uses IS-RSA to investigate how individual differences in emotional reactivity modulates the neural representation of different social interactions. Study 3 explores how idiosyncrasies in behavioral measures of empathy are associated with neural synchrony during the observation of naturalistic social scenes depicting specific characters and various types of interactions. Study 1 demonstrates that contextual categorical information about social interactions is better classified by a network of regions rather than within a single region of interest. Studies 2 and 3 suggest that idiosyncrasies in trait-like attributes such as empathy or emotional reactivity reflects differences in neural representation of complex social information. This research contributes to our understanding of how social information is processed in the brain and sheds light on the impact of individual differences on social perception.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Political Science

Social influence shapes the political opinions people form and the norms they adopt. I show that three key types of social networks drive the type of social influence people face: fully-connected deliberative networks, social hierarchies based on status, and star networks that group up around a central opinion leader. In chapter one, I lay the foundation for thinking of public opinion as emerging from people's social structures. I then apply the theory to international norm adoption and show that the type of network an individual is placed in has a direct effect on the norms they adopt, over and above partisanship. In chapter two, I use a custom-made Twitter-like environment to show experimentally that hierarchies foster the adoption of partisan-leaning norms as members pursue status. Stars, in contrast, inoculate their members against false claims due to the reputations costs opinion leaders face in misleading their followers. In chapter three, I expand on these findings by priming subjects in a survey experiment with an image of their social structure, and show that placing a political independent in a social hierarchy at the individual-level makes them favor U.S. isolationism, international competition in domains such as trade, and overall unilateralism on the world stage. The conclusion of these two studies is clear: social hierarchies prime competitive political thinking, often leading to the adoption of norms based on false premises, and star networks help their followers sift through the noise and misinformation that prevails in online fully-connected networks. These findings highlight the importance of viewing norm adoption and opinion formation as a social endeavor that is deeply influenced by one's reference network. As online social networks continue to expand, identifying the types of networks that characterize these social environments becomes imperative for students of public opinion and international relations that seek to understand why some norms an (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2019, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Sociology and Criminology

Within identity theory, researchers distinguish between large, intermediate, and proximate social structures which have been shown to impact individuals' self-structures by shaping interactional probabilities. To date, scholars have paid the least attention to intermediate social structure despite its important role in facilitating and/or constraining individuals' abilities to reach the physical locations where they can regularly enact a given identity. In order to address this gap, this research seeks to examine how the physical layout of the social world impacts the identity process. Specifically, I examine how the effort required to traverse space to reach a given place is an element of intermediate social structure that shapes how regularly one comes into contact with identity related others at that place. Simultaneous, I will also examine the degree to which the place an individual lives in facilitates/constrains the likelihood of them coming into contact with identity related others through the presence of specific identity-interaction sites that serve as opportunities for expressing one's various identities. Using the religious identity as the identity of interest, I examine these relationships using survey data collected from approximately 1000 individuals in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana. The findings support the propositions that the easier it is to reach a place, the more frequently that place will be visited and thereby the greater the proportion of one's regular social contacts who share the religious identity. These findings also support the proposition that when there are more opportunities in the place the individual lives to enact a given identity due to a greater number of identity-interaction sites the individual is aware of, that individual will more frequently come into contact with identity related others. These findings represents a potential path forward for both expanding a structural symbolic interactionist understanding of how society shapes (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2019, Theatre and Film

In the years following the Great Recession (2007-2009), Detroit has seen an increase in financial investments of which have varied effects for residents across the city; so much so, that many Detroiters are claiming there are two Detroits: “Detroit” and “New Detroit.” “New Detroit” is an small area that has experienced a huge influx of residential and commercial investment. They feature new and/or remodeled housing and commercial services like grocery stores, coffee shops, and new restaurants. These areas are populated with mostly white residents. In “Detroit,” there is a large concentration of divested areas in the city. There is very little remodeled or new housing. There are little to no services like grocery stores or shopping areas. These areas are populated by an overwhelming majority of Black residents. It would appear on the surface that many Black Detroiters who reside in “Detroit” would feel outraged. Yet, in my findings, the Black Detroiters that I spoke with understood that in order to have any chance of basic necessities like safe neighborhoods and financial investment in local infrastructure and public schools, Detroit needs white people. They see more than anyone the complicated entanglements of Black Detroit performativity within racial social spaces that tie them to divested physical places in the city. The field of performance studies offers researchers a myriad of ways to elucidate how Black identity is co-constituted in racial social and physical spaces with varied effects on how Black Detroiters see themselves. In the field of human and social geography, and environmental psychology, the connection among place attachment and racial social spaces offer additional opportunities to see the symbolic and material ways that racism is embedded in the spatiality of social life. In this study, I found that racial social space as materiality can help researchers epistemologically understand how racism permeates and affects the ways in which Black D (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration

The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the influence of social-emotional competence (SEC) and various other student- and school-level variables on the academic achievement of kindergarteners. Data were collected on a nationally representative cohort of kindergarteners as part of the United States Department of Education's Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K: 2011) beginning in fall 2010 (n = 18,174). As part of the ECLS-K: 2011, students were assessed via a wide range of sources of information about the children's development, early learning, and school progress. The obtained data were analyzed via Hierarchical Linear Modeling to investigate the influence of student- and teacher-level factors on student achievement. The study found the following: 1) that there was a significant amount of variability in children's mathematics and reading achievement in spring of kindergarten that is explained by school-level variables, as opposed to student-level variables; 2) that children's membership in particular racial groups, gender categories, and socioeconomic statuses all resulted in significant within-school mathematics and reading achievement gaps in spring of kindergarten, controlling for various student background characteristics; 3) that various school-level variables significantly contributed to models predicting children's spring kindergarten mathematics and reading achievement; and 4) children's poverty interacted with their school membership to affect spring kindergarten mathematics and reading achievement.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2017, Psychology/Clinical

The present study explored the nature of social justice discussions on the social networking site Tumblr using publicly available data from Tumblr posts generated between March 16, 2016 and March 30, 2016. Posts were self-identified by users with at least one of five common hashtags related to social justice identified in a pilot study on Tumblr. These hashtags were #Black Lives Matter, #Feminism, #Racism, #Social Justice, and #SJW, an abbreviation for “social justice warrior” a phrase used to label individuals who engage in social justice discussions online. Findings indicated that posts about social justice are common on Tumblr with 15,160 public posts created by 8,794 users across the two weeks. However, not all posts reflect a positive attitude toward social justice with 8.6% of posts expressing disagreement or even hostility toward movements promoting equality. Data from the present study were compared to data collected in the pilot study to describe consistency and differences in results using the same methodology at two different time points for two different lengths of time. Implications of study findings for clinical and research purposes are discussed.

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2017, Psychology

Anthropomorphism, or perceiving non-human entities in human-like ways, is motivated by the need to socially connect. Although previous research has shown that engaging in anthropomorphism satiates belongingness needs, it has not addressed the possibility that particular types of anthropomorphizing may aid more than others. The current work presents three experiments that explored the effect of anthropomorphism type on recovery from social exclusion. Specifically, in a Pilot Study I tested the hypothesis that reading about an animal anthropomorphized with experiential capacities (versus agentic capacities) would more greatly facilitate recovery of basic needs and mood following exclusion. In Study 1, I attempted to replicate the Pilot Study findings using a more construct-valid operationalization of anthropomorphism. In Study 2, I examined the possibility that this effect would blunt a downstream behavioral consequence of exclusion, namely aggression. Overall the results provided mixed support for the hypotheses. In only one of three studies did I find evidence that experiential anthropomorphism facilitates greater recovery of basic needs following social exclusion. Implications of these findings for the literatures on both social exclusion and anthropomorphism are discussed.

Master of Arts, University of Toledo, 2017, Sociology

With colleges and universities functioning more as businesses, students have been conceptualized as consumers and customers of the “products” and services “sold” by higher education institutions. Anecdotally, a considerable amount of college students have consumer-orientations. This rise in student consumerism has not only transformed student ideologies regarding the purpose of higher education, but its negatively impacting student behavior and learning processes inside the classroom. However, empirical studies have yet to support the suggested prevalence of student consumerism. Additionally, no study has attempted to understand student consumerism at the social psychological level. Using an electronic survey administered to undergraduate students at a public university, this pilot study shows that student-consumer orientations are moderate at best, and many students do not agree with certain beliefs or behaviors that are attributed to consumer-orientations. At the social psychological level, multiple regression results indicated student consumer attitudes are significantly associated with social exchanges or activities involving academic costs. Furthermore, the results suggested that males find academic activities or exchanges more costly than females, and males also find putting off academic work for non-academic social exchanges or activities more rewarding than females. In using a social psychological perspective on student consumerism, this pilot study will contribute to future research that explores students educational decision-making processes.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1985, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1973, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1962, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1952, Graduate School