Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2024, Communication Studies (Communication)

SIKAPOKOO, GRACE O., Ph.D., May 2024, Communication Studies Helping Black Breast Cancer Survivors Make Healthy Lifestyle Changes: How Family Communication Influences Progression Through the Stages of Change Director of Dissertation: Amy E. Chadwick In this dissertation, I set out to understand how family communication could influence and motivate behavior change for Black breast cancer survivors (BCSs) to improve their overall well-being and quality of life (QoL). Using the stages of change (SoC) model, the theory of planned behavior (TPB), and social support, I developed a model by integrating the SoC model with the TPB variables as a first layer on behavior change and take social support as a second layer to the model to hypothesize how family communication, through social support could help with the behavior change process for Black BCSs. To determine the role of family communication in behavior change, I conducted semi-structured interviews, which lasted between 45-75 minutes each on average. I interviewed 20 Black BCSs who had completed their breast cancer surgeries and treatment, had recovered, and were living in the United States. The interviews were conducted via video conferencing with automatically generated transcripts from Otter AI. The study found that family communication through social support can support Black BCSs to change their behaviors and improve their overall well-being and QoL. The study confirmed that family communication can positively influence TPB variables. As the variables change positively, they increase in behavioral intention alongside the progression of the stages of change, leading to the adoption of a new behavior. The study also found that social support received through family communication can help to progress people through the stages of change, to achieve behavior change. In addition, the study identified four domains for well-being that had had specific differences regarding the types of social support receive (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Amy Chadwick (Committee Chair); Angela Hosek (Committee Member); Lynn Harter (Committee Member); Anna Kerr (Committee Member) Subjects: Black Studies; Communication; Families and Family Life; Health

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1971, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1969, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2005, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1968, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1970, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1971, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1969, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

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

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects:

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1947, Curriculum and Teaching

Committee: Florence J. Williamson (Advisor) Subjects: Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Psychology

Across ten studies, the current work demonstrated that when people hold deeply entrenched attitudes, they become more open to change after reading two- versus one-sided counter-attitudinal messages. In Studies 1, 2, 3A/B, and 4, using moral basis as the indicator of attitude strength, there was an interactive effect between the extent of moral attitude basis and message sidedness using moralized social and political topics. More specifically, in Study 1, the interactive effect of moral basis and message sidedness only occurred with a counter-attitudinal communication, not a pro-attitudinal one. In Study 2, the extent of the author's appreciation for the recipient's point of view was both manipulated and measured to demonstrate that perceived appreciation was a mediator of the abovementioned interaction effect. In Studies 3A/B and 4, the generalizability of the interactive effect was explored by demonstrating that the interaction result would happen not just for a controversial issue with balanced opposing views but also for topics that have a majority opinion. Additionally, downstream consequences of openness to opposing views were explored including attitudes and behavioral intentions. Then in Studies 5, 6, 7A/B, and 8, the interaction result of interest was extended to other attitude strength indicators besides moral basis (e.g., certainty) and to other persuasion contexts (i.e., consumer behavior). These studies suggested that the results of the first set of studies could be broadly construed as evidence for a more general interactive effect between attitude strength and message sidedness on openness. Specifically, in Study 5, when using a non-moralized topic, non-moral attitude strength indicators showed greater predictive power than moral basis when producing the interactive effect with message sidedness. Lastly, in Studies 6, 7A/B, and 8, the effect was further extended using loyalty to a consumer brand as the indicator of attitude strength and one- versus tw (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Richard Petty (Advisor); Duane Wegener (Committee Member); Russell Fazio (Committee Member); John Casterline (Committee Member) Subjects: Marketing; Psychology

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2020, Sociology

This is a study that looks at the environmental attitudes of students at Wittenberg University. The study examines attitudes and behavior through the lens of the theorists Vaclav Havel and Karl Marx. Participants were asked to take a brief survey that accessed their carbon footprint, asked them what they knew about climate change and how environmentally friendly they thought they were. Then participants were asked if they would be interested in participating in an interview. The interviews asked a variety of questions ranging from personal opinion on climate change to participants' actual behavior and included an education piece on what Wittenberg does for the environment. Through interviews and surveys, this study's aim was to find commonalities and differences between participant responses and their reasoning behind their positions and behaviors. The study found that many participants felt that they needed to be able to buy more or different products in order to be more environmentally friendly. The study also found that participants were greatly influenced by professors or classes to be more ethical in environmental decisions.

Committee: Nona Moskowitz (Advisor); Sheryl Cunningham (Committee Member); Sarah Fortner (Committee Member) Subjects: Climate Change; Environmental Justice; Environmental Studies; Sociology; Sustainability

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2020, Mass Communication (Communication)

360-degree video and virtual reality news content is becoming more and more mainstream, yet research into its effects thus far have been limited, with early research focusing its attention on presence and empathy. This research expands our understanding of how 360VR news content affects cognition. Two experiments placing the user into a community-oriented news experience test memory performance, attention allocation, activation of spatial presence mechanisms, and the effects of sense of community on those mechanisms. Further, this study explores the persuasive power of politically-charged community news stories by incorporating attitude change measures. Findings of the first experiment indicate the presence of a visual focal point attracts attention to the story to the detriment of attention to the environment. Findings in the second experiment indicate both attitude change and attitude polarization occurred post-treatment. Sense of community was found to be a significant predictor of memory performance, activation of spatial presence, and others. According to the LC4MP, SOC is a motivating factor, and an increase in SOC may lead to greater memory performance, higher levels of perception of credibility, and an increase in the effectiveness of persuasive messages in moderates. Findings will inform both future research and professional practice.

Committee: Jatin Srivastava (Committee Chair); Hans Meyer (Committee Member); Eric Williams (Committee Member); Kim Rios (Committee Member) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Experimental Psychology; Experiments; Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Psychology

Although anecdotally it is quite common to perceive other people as biased, social psychologists have not included bias as a fundamental person perception. The current work conceptually clarifies what it means to perceive another as biased – that they have a skewed perception (Studies 1, 2a, and 2b). It also separates perceptions of bias from untrustworthiness (dishonesty). Further, it highlights that bias may have been overlooked because source vested interest can lead to perceptions of both bias and untrustworthiness (Study 3). Consistent with the notion that bias is skewed perception, several studies examine whether people can infer bias based on the sidedness of a message that a source provides (Studies 4-7). These effects seem to be relatively unique to bias, and depend on the nature of the topic at hand. Finally, I explore consequences of perceiving a source as biased. Source bias has independent negative influences on source credibility (Studies 8-10), suggesting that bias should be included among trustworthiness and expertise as a pillar of source credibility. This negative influence on credibility ultimately reduces the persuasive impact of biased sources (Studies 9a -10). In addition to having independent effects in the same direction as untrustworthiness, perceptions of bias can also have differing effects when the source switches positions (Studies 11-17). People tend to expect biased sources to be more consistent in their position taking than objective sources. However, they do not have this expectation for untrustworthy versus trustworthy sources. As such, people are more surprised when biased sources switch positions, and this can have a positive indirect effect on persuasion. The current studies highlight the importance of considering bias as an independent perception. Although my studies thus far have focused on the persuasion domain, the distinction between bias and untrustworthiness has important implications for other domains of psychology as (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Duane Wegener (Committee Chair); Kentaro Fujita (Committee Member); Richard Petty (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, Psychology

When crafting a persuasive message, what is the effect of the extremity of the message's position? Past work has demonstrated that, with greater extremity comes greater movement in recipients' positions. However, there is also evidence that the reverse can occur: Greater extremity can lead to greater counter-arguing and reduced persuasion. The elaboration likelihood model of persuasion provides a framework to understand the range of demonstrated and possible effects, postulating that any variable in a persuasion context can function in multiple ways: serving as central arguments to be scrutinized, peripheral cues of positivity or negativity when not carefully scrutinized, or determining the extent or direction of message-related processing. Whether position extremity can determine the amount of message-related processing has not been rigorously investigated. Across two sets of two studies each, we demonstrate that, indeed, the extremity of a message can determine the amount of message-related processing. Through this process, we demonstrate that, although an extreme position may not be accepted, it can create positive attitude change if supported by strong arguments, as it increases processing of the strong supporting reasons. If supported by weak, easy-to-counterargue arguments, however, an extreme position has a negative effect on persuasion. Finally, we demonstrate that this moderating effect of argument quality is weakened at absurdly extreme positions: As a message position becomes too extreme, it loses its attention-grabbing power, and message recipients begin paying less attention to the message.

Committee: Richard Petty PhD (Advisor); Duane Wegener PhD (Committee Member); Russell Fazio PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology; Social Psychology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1977, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Psychology

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

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1977, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Mass Communications

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

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Psychology

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

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Education